Ok, I suppose I really have been txting2much. Any LOLspeak is ironic here, for such a grammar geek like me. I digress…

After much cry and hue from developers who wanted to create custom applications for the iPhone, Teh Steve has held a special iPhone SDK event for developers.

iPhone apps will be sold through the iTunes Store (ITMS). If you’re a developer, the deal sounds like a bargain: 30% of royalties go to Apple to cover distribution, transactions, hosting, and updates. Free apps cost nothing to host (though you must pay $99 to be a developer). That’s pretty cheap tickets for getting access to the hottest platform in the mobile market (plus iPod Touch as well). It will also mean multitouch games (with orientation sensors!) and ActiveSync Exchange support, which is pretty important for those CrackBerry refugees (and I, also, as we use Exchange for email here at the Palau Association).

If you care as much as I do about lickable software on mobile devices, you can watch the video stream here. Early accounts indicate some bandwidth issues; there’s probably 100,000+ developers mobbing it right now.

In other related news, Oklahoma Christian University is the latest school (following Abilene Christian U.) to offer free iPhones/iPod Touches to incoming students. OC is one-upping by also offering a MacBook. My wife and I met at Harding, which is a sista-school (these are all Church of Christ schools); what did we get when we walked under the arches? Maybe some Chick Tracts, I can’t recall.

I’ve heard some of the teaching staff’s grumbles already - ACU is cutting staff as it is (so I hear), and there’s no small bit of grumbling about how schools should spend their money. Perhaps they got a big tech grant.

Posted in Tools, Toys, and Geekery