Mobile design, iPhone mobile design

The iPhone represents quite a different take on mobile design; not just for Apple, but for third parties as well. You can't deliver traditional applications to an iPhone, at least not at the moment. What you can do (or if you're grumbling about it, what you're allowed to do) is deliver "web apps"; applications that run in the browser.

Web applications are sort of like playing the guitar, at least for me. It's so easy to get started it almost makes you giddy with excitement. Just like you can learn two or three guitar chords in a few minutes, you can build a web application that at least opens with hardly any effort. After all, the old name for a "web application" is probably "web page with a script." In fact, if you build the processing for your web app on the server side, all you need is a web page with a form. Making the layout as pretty as the rest of the iPhone takes a bit more effort (especially those blasted round corners), but it turns out that Apple gives you everything you need for that.

My history with the guitar features short periods of learning followed by long plateaus during which I didn't learn anything and usually didn't feel either motivated or capable of learning more. A musician explained it to me once: "the guitar is the easiest instrument to get started with and one of the hardest to master." I think iPhone web applications may be like that too. Most of the titles available so far are games. If other iPhone would-be-developers are like me, doing some simple games is the best way to start getting used to the tools and environment while some distant part of your mind ponders what you might want to create for real. If you can produce an original game along the way, so much the better! My default choice on a new system or language or IDE is always tic-tac-toe, although Apple gives away the source for a simple Sudoku game, too.

As far as I've seen, nobody has yet mastered iPhone web application development to the extent that they've produced a truly useful or compelling piece of work. But just wait. (I still can't play guitar, either.)