The Facebook iPhone application was a one-man job. Joe Hewitt joined Facebook when the company he co-founded with Blake Ross, Parakey, was acquired last month. He quickly got to work on the company’s iPhone app, which was released just a month after he joined the company.
Hewitt has been one of the key figures in figuring out some of the hacks around iPhone applications - dealing with no keyboard, the flip screen, etc. He has been a major contributor to the iPhone discussion group at Google and released his own framework and sample code, called iUI, that dozens of other developers have integrated into their own apps.
Nik Cubrilovic and I spoke with Hewitt for 26 minutes late last week to get his thoughts on the challenges and opportunities around iPhone web application development. Hewitt also talks about some of the features he’s like to see to make the iPhone an even better user experience.
Download it at TalkCrunch or listen to it in the audio player below.
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Update: Robert Scoble has a good video interview with Hewitt as well.
Yet another reason why I need to pony up and reward myself with an iphone. I hear this facebook app for the iphone is very cool.
Pretty slick. I’m still giong to wait until the price drops, though.
Excellent Stuff.
I got the iphone, but can’t wait for the 2.0
@rob you can buy it refurbished and save yourself $100 from the original price. Or wait for the iPhone nano rumors to happen…
Joe Hewitt good one-man job
Iphone looks great and easier to handle your applications.
Just one more data point showing why most all good things in life are driven by a single person.
Down with committees and meetings. Who’s with me. WE’RE GOING STREAKING!!!!
honestly if TC doesnt stop the Crunchbase stuff. Im out.
Rb, your are retarded
I am not a fun of Facebook but go to it because a friend of mine urged me to do so … I think it kind of sucks … but the iPhone app is really sweet.
You should have also pointed out that Joe Hewitt is the creator of the amazing Firebug extension for Firefox, which is unmatched as a web development tool.
Not only that, but he spent months working on it full time and then gave it away for free.
Sorry … a FAN of Facebook
The Indian business media is strife with rumours of a Google phone being launched soon. Supposedly Google is in talks with Indian Mobile Carriers to distribute the **GPhone** and the carriers have spread the news.
Watch out Steve Jobs!
I love this app. I got a chance to talk with Joe Hewitt at the HP Garage on Sunday. Here’s a picture of him holding his iPhone: http://www.flickr.com/photos/s.....215753803/
You’re welcome to use it on TechCrunch (as is the case with all of my photos).
Oh, and I’ve started the ‘iCult.” Join by posting a photo of yourself with an iPhone. Here’s the first 50 members: http://www.flickr.com/photos/s.....ags/icult/
This app rocks. I love being able to pull up friends info and catching up on the Facebook feed. Now, if only they could embed social networking deep into the phone, you could do some really remarkable things.
Some interesting possibilities here:
http://blog.agrawals.org/2007/.....l-network/
These are the kind of software developers that help create multi billion dollar companies. Great job!
I too have a Facebook account. However, I think the maturity of LinkedIn has them currently beat, imo…. as far as the “professional” advantages.
I also think the iFamily app for Facebook is very cool.
can you please put a text version of the interview up?
Why is everybody coming out with an iPhone specific version of their site!? Haven’t they learned anything from WAP?
As The Geek mentioned Joe Hewitt creating Firebug. While he has undoubtedly made great strides toward improving programming on the Jesus Phone, this is trivial compared to one of the most significant web developments in the last several years.
All of your funky, Ajax’y, Web2.0y, sites would take three times as long to develop without Firebug.
Joe sounds like a great guy! Good interview.
Tried using iphone.facebook on my BB using Opera. It kinda works but has several bugs. I wish they would make it work for all mobile phones (with decent browsers). It is so much nicer and faster than the regular Facebook.
Here’s a short video of Joe Hewitt. Mike’s interview is better, but this one is in front of the HP Garage, birthplace of Silicon Valley: http://www.podtech.net/home/39.....phone-apps
Someone who can create Firebug and iUi is definitely not human.
^^ Machine, mostly, I suspect.
(In his spare time perhaps) he has also created firefox and Parakey. Definitely unfair to compare machines with the rest of us real humans.