Macworld 2008: Paddy Tan on BAK2u anti-theft for iPhone

Published on 1/18/2008 in Apple, Business, Singapore and Videos. View Comments Tags: Apple.

I caught up with BAK2u CEO Paddy Tan at Macworld this morning.

He shared with me on the surprising number of attendees who came to his anti-theft software booth after losing their iPhones at the expo, either due to negligence or theft right on the show floor. Speaking of which, there are so many iPhone users in one place that calls, SMSes and EDGE Internet connectivity was brought to a crawl.

As the only Singaporean business in an international exhibition, I asked how his software has been received at the show and I learned more about his plans to get BAK2u on the iPhone. It’s all about the SDK… Apple wants control, thus developer support in the iPhone front has been less than forthcoming. Hopefully it’ll all change in February.

Bob

Hey, it's July, the SDK has been released, along with the iPhone 3G with GPS technology... Is this app coming anytime soon?
Kevin

Shady: Yup, it's quietly happening. Developers are using jailbroken iPhones to develop on so by the time the SDK gets released, they get a headstart. Funny thing is Apple knows all this, but turns a blind eye about it instead of helping out before their Feb release. Like Sony, it's a quality control issue.
shady

Would it at least be possible to get a prototype version using one of the toolchains floating around out there? Obviously there would be legal issues to releasing such a product for commercial use, but more then a few freeware games have been released using these toolkits.

At the very least it would be easy to see which parts of the application will need the most/least modification to work correctly.
Paddy Tan

Hey thanks for dropping by the booth! Yah, everyone is waiting for the SDK :)