iPhoneDevCamp is a Huge Success!
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.
