iPhoneDevCamp is a Huge Success!
by
on July 11, 2007,
It seems to me that iPhoneDevCamp was much more successful than I expected, especially for an event planned at the last minute. Nearly 400 developers, testers and iPhone owners showed up at the event that gathered at the San Francisco office of Adobe. Several photos were taken at the event and a keynote presentation was shown to the attendees. Several sponsors were also present at this event, where not all the programs were finished over the weekend, but several innovative creations turned up.
WebWare has compiled a list of ten of the most innovative and resourceful applications that were created at iPhoneDevCamp. My personal favorite is the Fluther iPhone app which makes use of the web 2.0 service of the same name. Basically, Fluther allows you to post questions and receive answers from other users. The iPhone version of this application was seamlessly integrated to work with Apple's phone and even works problem-free on the slower EDGE network provided for the iPhone by AT&T. It was built by taking out a lot of the javascript that the original site uses and by implementing iPhone-specific CSS code.
Two other applications that look interesting and useful from this event are AppMarks and Mojits, both of which are very similar to each other. iPhone users who set AppMarks as their Safari home page will see an interface that resembles that of the iPhone's OS, but each icon links to a Web app or HTML bookmark. Mojits looks and works the same way but has a different variety of widgets and links available.
There were games (Tilt, iBrick), an iTunes app, an Amazon.com app and even some developers trying to hack the iPhone to include GPS support (still under works), making iPhoneDevCamp a productive experience. Never in my wildest dreams would I have expected this many iPhone users to gather so quickly after the device's release and create so many different apps for those who were brave enough to spend a load of cash on a cell phone.
With just three weeks notice, the organizers of this event were able to pull together a great conference that should make Apple proud of its supporters and customers. Even the late release of Apple's official web development guide for the iPhone did not dampen the spirits of the adventurous developers. In fact, a new iPhone user group has already been assembled. The Stanford iPhone User Group, will begin meeting on the third Tuesday of every month at 8pm, starting July 17th, 2007.
If the only reason you were waiting to buy an iPhone was because of a lack of support and applications, it may already be time to go make that $500 purchase. I, for one, know that all this talk has got me itching to run into my local Apple store.
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Svetlana Gladkova
Vamsi Kishore
Peet McKimmie 
Irel Johnson
I subscribe to the profy.com RSS feed because the posts are well written, thoroughly researched, actually contain useful information that hasn’t been posted to 100 other websites, and (most importantly) tend to present an objective view of their subjects. That’s why it pains me so much to see that you’ve succumbed to the iPhone hysteria with this gushing review of iPhoneDevCamp.
I think it’s great that a community rallied to come together in celebration of a technology they love but it’s certainly not news that belongs in a blog dedicated to serving the population interested in Web 2.0 technologies and stories. This article is only important to the community of people who have realized they spent $500 to $600 on what is a very pretty and cool iPod but a very mediocre cell phone.
I would think the profy would be better served championing open source efforts like OpenMoko and Linux-based phones that would have true interoperability over proprietary solutions like the iPhone where Apple has locked us in to single cell provider, no 3G, a proprietary OS, and even a soldered-in battery.
Thank you for your input… I think the iPhone hysteria has gotten out of hand in a lot of places on the web too.
I just wanted to take the time out to write about the people who were involved the the “internet” aspect of the iPhone because it truly is amazing to me how quickly these people got this event together and made it successful.
Don’t worry about seeing too much iPhone news here from me, because the majority of it is not even web 2.0 or Profy related.
I appreciate the input.
HutchScout: Thank you very much for your kind words about Profy, I really appreciate them and such words really make me happy and proud of what we are doing here on Profy. I do hope that our participation in the iPhone hysteria will not make you reject Profy. Moreover, as our regular reader you may have noticed that we are actually running here a contest and give away 5 iPhones to our readers. That may seem too hysterical for you, I guess, but we here are trying the best of Web 2.0 to our readers and it somehow happened that many people genuinely interested in Web 2.0 are just starving to get this strange (for my taste) gadget. So we decided that we can give it to them as well and it won’t hurt. But if it does hurt you I hope you will keep in mind that we try to produce diverse articles here for every reader to be able to find something special here. I do hope you will understand our position and will continue enjoying Profy in the future.
As much as I loathe the iPhone hype, it would take a lot to get me to stop subscribing to the Profy feed and I didn’t mean for the comment to bite as hard as it apparently did. Again, I really enjoy your articles and find them a cut above the usual blog noise and Profy was a nice haven from the iPhone hype as it was going on. That’s why the comment was more of a gut “oh no, not you too!” reaction.
So it was with a pre-disposed critical eye that I viewed the “iPhoneDevCamp is a Huge Success!” (complete with exclamation point) article. To me, the whole event reinforced the idea that the iPhone today is a very pretty iPod, a mediocre cell phone, and a platform with lots of potential but little current value. Then when I saw the net result of the efforts of 400 developers I was underwhelmed. There was no app in the bunch that made me say, “Oh, there’s a reason to buy a $500 cell phone.”
However, Michael does bring up an excellent point that I overlooked. As much as I poo-poo’ed the results of the event, the fact that 400 people could be brought together so quickly is an excellent demonstration of the Web 2.0 culture and technology. I would much rather have read the story of how that was organized and what communication methods were used to relay information and quickly unite a disparate group of people to a common cause.
To me, Web 2.0 is all about breaking down barriers, building to open standards, and opening applications with APIs and web services to allow infinite collaboration and reuse. Apple and its iPhone are none of those things. Apple is all style over substance and makes money by creating a culture of cool. But true Web 2.0 proponents, like I know Profy is, are geeks and we know we’re not cool … but we’re smarter. And that’s why I’ll continue to read your articles long into the future.
But don’t try to be cool … just be smart.
Wow, that was one of the most appealing comments I’ve ever read
Thanks a lot!
I do understand that any hype can be really annoying, that’s why I’d rather not ask our authors to cover some new Google acquisition that is all over the blogosphere and instead focus on something that could actually be useful to our readers.
Funny thing about iPhone is that it seems to me that all the geeks are divided into 2 almost equal parts: those that absolutely adore it and those that absolutely hate th gadget. Honestly, I don’t even have any certain opinion since it takes trying the device out but here in Russia I can not even predict when I will be able to. Anyway I am not an really addicted gadget maniac, I try to buy electronics based on exactly the features I need, not on the hype and advertising they get.
But anyway I can definitely agree with you on the point that Web 2.0 enables marketing and PR people to do some incredible things, like gathering such a crowd almost instantly. The way information is shared nowadays is just amazing and the possibilities we now have definitely outweight the hype about this or that device or service PR people create.
And thank you for being such a loyal reader, we will try to be smart and not to pretend to be cool