Hacker News Reader

I see no reason why you can't make that with the iPhone API right now (with 3GS hardware). It might be faster with a native OpenGL ES implementation too.

View on HN

That was just one of many, most of which simply can't be done as iPhone apps (and several of which already exist for Android).

But can you give me an example that actually can't official API wise? Google Sky Map can be implemented on the iPhone with official APIs. Other than apps that edit system settings (like Locale) what can't you really do?

Well, the very first thing that I wanted to implement was something like this:

http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/

1. Interpreter/VM with arbitrary code.

2. Open Source

Until recently, VOIP was banned, as well.

Aside from decent notifications and real background tasks (and the aforementioned Locale, which was also on the list), the biggest blockers are the App Store and its restrictive policies.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com