Office Mobility Blog

What does this mean for DataViz?

iPhone users, potential users, and admirers will surely be happy to know that Apple took a big step toward creating a development community for the iPhone this week by announcing a Software Development Kit (SDK) for the iPhone. From the words of Mr. Jobs himself:

We are excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users. With our revolutionary multi-touch interface, powerful hardware and advanced software architecture, we believe we have created the best mobile platform ever for developers.

Apple’s original stance on application development for the iPhone came in the form of a suggestion: create web-based applications that can be accessed through the iPhone’s Safari web browser. This was disappointing news to developers of mobile applications who are used to having much more access. Palm, for example, has had a large developer community for years. One could certainly argue that the level of growth they achieved would not have been possible without third party software development.

In yesterday’s press release, Jobs said the SDK will not be available until February of 2008 because they want to open up the platform while keeping the device safe from viruses.

This is no easy task. …As our phones become more powerful, these malicious programs will become more dangerous. And since the iPhone is the most advanced phone ever, it will be a highly visible target. … We think a few months of patience now will be rewarded by many years of great third party applications running on safe and reliable iPhones.

So what does this mean for DataViz, you ask? Hard to say at this point (after all, the SDK was only announced yesterday and won’t be available for a few months), but imagine Exchange ActiveSync access to your email, editing Office files, and having all of your PINs and passwords encrypted and easily accessed on your new iPhone!

We’ve been getting more and more requests each day asking us - begging, in some cases - to bring our applications to the iPhone, specifically Documents To Go, RoadSync, and Passwords Plus. Thanks to this announcement, we’ll be able to give this serious consideration. You can bet we’ll have our hands on this SDK as soon as possible. I can’t guarantee anything, but please, if you are interested in having DataViz software on your iPhone, let us know!