Coming in tandem with every new version of the iPhone operating system is a new version of the Software Development Kit, the iPhone SDK.
Now, new SDK versions predominantly mean a lot of improvements for developers. The iPhone SDK 3.0 introduced over a thousand new application programming interfaces (API), which means over a thousand new or enhanced possibilities for people who strive to create the next killer app.
There is, however, a downside: Breaking changes and important features that did not make it into the SDK.
Breaking changes are such modifications that render an existing application, which has been written with a previous version of an SDK, useless, or at least seriously limit its functionality. A good example is the added confirmation dialog when initiating calls programmatically, that Apple introduced with iPhone OS 3.0.
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Almost all speed dial, baby phone and third party contact managers are impacted and developers cannot do anything about it. Able Pear has a good write up about it.
Providing feedback to Apple has reportedly been pretty much a one-way street experience.
Developers have to use Apple’s bug reporter tool which is not exactly a good example for transparency and collaboration. As most bugs get reported by individuals and Apple does not provide any reasonable means to share, finding out whether others struggle with a specific issue, too, is pretty difficult.
Improving this situation is the mission of The Unofficial iPhone SDK Feedback Project.
Leveraging UserVoice‘s Customer Feedback 2.0 services, The Unofficial iPhone SDK Feedback Project allows anybody to submit ideas and have them voted up.
As the name implies, the initiative is in no way endorsed or officially supported by Apple. For a couple of weeks submitting your ideas to The Unofficial iPhone SDK Feedback Project might not give you an immediate return on invest from Apple.
But Apple is also known for eventually listening and reacting, so supporting the initiative can only do good for the iPhone developer community.
As a nice side effect the site gets you in touch with others who potentially struggle with the same stuff you do.
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