iPhone Mashups

Just picked this up on the 37signals blog... the iPhone SDK is called Safari. Essentially, the strong rumors are that if you want to write an application for the iPhone, write it for Safari. Steve has been speaking about this for a bit, as he said he wanted a "safe environment for deployment of applications." Well, I suppose Safari would fit the bill for that.

However, it doesn't meet all the needs for communications mashups. For instance, it doesn't directly address how applications would work without a network signal. Also, how would you be able to find your location for GPS enabled services? Browser based systems are fine, but they aren't optimal for services that rely on local data or stuff you can't stick in a session. I'm in line to get my phone, but I'm skeptical about Apple's third party developer's strategy so far. We'll see.

The 37signals folks also picked this up from the Apple site, and as I am putting together my Ruby on Rails VoIP mashup for the Cluecon show, made me smile, too :

Mac OS X is now the ideal platform for all kinds of script-based development. Ruby 1.8.6 and Python 2.5 are both first-class languages for Mac development, thanks to Cocoa bridges, Xcode and Interface Builder support, DTrace monitoring, and Framework builds — plus AppleEvent bindings via the new Scripting Bridge. Leopard is also the premier platform for Ruby on Rails development, thanks to Rails, Mongrel, and Capistrano bundling.