(This was a good question asked of me at formspring.)

So far, I haven’t done anything for the iPhone, for three reasons.

First, I don’t own a cellphone, and I find it quite difficult to write an app that I won’t use myself. I do have an iPod Touch, and I carry it with me on trips, but it seems I use it strictly as an alarm clock and as a normal iPod – the only apps I have installed are PCalc Lite and the Flycast internet radio. I look at other apps now and then, without finding any that give me that “wow I need that” thrill. (For the record, I’ve also owned the first Newton, the first Palm Pilot, and the Sony Magic Cap – all with their development SDKs – and I couldn’t think of a single useful app for them either; I suppose it’s a mental deficiency.) Also, recall that where I live there’s very little public WiFi, and 3G charges are ruinous… any app I’d use would need to work offline 99% of the time, which narrows things down considerably.

Second, the current AppStore model is extremely different from what I’m comfortable with – ideally, I want to distribute and support it myself, and be able to post updates immediately, without waiting for approval from anybody else.

Third, my main interest is in writing utilities – applications that extend or change the way “the system” or other applications do things. There’s no space whatsoever for that on the iPhone, and it doesn’t look like there’ll be space for it on the iPad for now.

That said, I do plan to attend WWDC 2010 and it’s possible that until June I think of some mainstream application that I’d like use myself. The larger screen could make all the difference. Send in suggestions!