Apple iPhone: Third party apps in February!
Apple has been a little coy of late on the subject of third party development but now appears to have U-turned in an effort to counter the negative press and user feedback. Recently Apple permitted web apps to be deployed on the device but that was all. But today Steve Jobs has announced the release of an SDK for iPhone … but you’re going to have to wait…
Since the launch of the iPhone and its sibling, the iPod Touch Apple has been fighting a war on many fronts with the numerous development firms who dared to provide a means (both hardware and software) to break the single carrier lock-in. It has also faced criticism of it’s no-third-party-apps policy which, it was felt by many, stymied the innovative development of many geo-social software packages that could turn the iPhone into a device as popular and desirable as the iPod.
Well this is that case no longer as Steve Jobs has announced the February release of an iPhone SDK. But why such a long wait? Steve answers:
“It will take until February to release an SDK because we’re trying to do two diametrically opposed things at once — provide an advanced and open platform to developers while at the same time protect iPhone users from viruses, malware, privacy attacks, etc.”
Locking the iPhone in a virtual straight-jacket was proving to be big mistake so it may be argued that all this was inevitable and if Apple hadn’t released a development kit somebody else would have!
October 18th, 2007 at 4:35 am
Those guys are kind of flip-floppers. Amazing how they always succeed in spit of themselves.
It is a good thing they are not in politics.
October 18th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Great informative blog!!!
JJ