iPhone SDK public beta 2

I got the updated SDK installed last night, and to be honest, while it’s obvious what’s new, it’s also pretty clear that the stuff isn’t really all that useful yet.  For example, although Interface Builder is included now, there aren’t any project templates for IB projects.  In addition, although the release notes say to “read the full release notes for instructions on how to create a project using Interface Builder,” those instructions are actually missing.

I played with IB to create an interface, and almost immediately ran into problems.  Although you can create tab bars and toolbars, once you drag items onto them, you can’t edit the items (at least, I was totally unable to select them once they were in place).

The updated Xcode that’s included now has support for hooking to your iPod touch or iPhone to run your builds (if you’ve got the paid membership in the iPhone developer program).  That’s good progress.

There’s apparently an update for the iPhone SDK documentation available (at least, the doc viewer window says there’s one), but trying to download it fails consistently with a “file is not on server” error.

I’m really excited to be able to develop software for iPhone, but the tools just aren’t ready for people that don’t have time to throw their lives into learning the quirks of a system that’s going to get better in time anyway.  Hopefully the next update to the SDK will get it to the point where I can start doing some code in earnest.  I’ve already got two or three projects in mind.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 28th, 2008 at 12:03 pm and is filed under Geekology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.