Today I had a surgery on my leg at the same time as Steve Jobs announced Apple’s iPhone. I heard the news after I came back from the hospital…. then checking Apple’s stock (APPL) that has jumped over 8%.

After having lunch, I watched Steve’s keynote at MacWorld 2007 immediately. I always enjoy watching Steve’s speech. As you may know, Steve is one of the best presenters in the world.

Apple's iPhone What is my opinion about iPhone? Short answer, it is amazing…. Most of the technologies inside iPhone are actually already available on many smart phones today. We have full XHTML browser on latest S60 phones. In fact S60’s OSS browser and iPhone’s browser use the same engine, i.e. Safari. We have POP3 and IMAP4 suport on many Symbian OS phones. Most of us have been using Google Maps on smart phones supporting Java too.

So what is new about iPhone? As usual, just like any other Apple’s products, user interface. Apple has done a great job integrating those technologies seamlessly into a single product that is very easy to use. I don’t want to discuss Apple’s iPhone in more detail. There are a lot of reviews about iPhone on the Internet already…. :)

As a mobile developer, I am just thinking about one more platform to suppport. Currently, we have Symbian OS, Windows Mobile and Mobile Linux. Now… it comes iPhone with Mac OS X. I am not sure whether Apple will allow third party developers to develop applications for iPhone. If yes, then third-party developers have more works to support this new platform.

Developing an application that supports as many devices as possible is not an easy task. Every device has its own specification. One device is usually not compatible with another device. Furthermore, devices from the same platform, such as Symbian OS, are not always compatible each other.

Of course, we have Java, where we can develop an application once and run it everywhere. Unfortunately, this is still a dream. We have to tweak and test our applications each time a new device is coming out. We also have XHTML/Ajax, but the situation is not better either. Each platform has its own web browser.

Any thought?

Update (10-Jan-2007): I just read a blog from Jupiter, What’s Missing from the iPhone?, it looks like Apple will not open iPhone for third party developers.

Update (10-Jan-2007): There is a very interesting review about iPhone from Michael Mace, Impact of the Apple’s iPhone.