Apple Opening iPhone to Third Party Application Developers

At the May 30 D: All Things Digital conference near San Diego, Steve Jobs took the stage and informed attendees that Apple (AAPL) was in the process of making the Apple iPhone open to outside developers, according to MacWorld. The announcment cleared the air after months of speculation surrounding reports that the iPhone would be a completely closed platform.

In fact, the announcement is a complete reversal from Jobs' initial comments on the matter which indicated Apple would fully control development on the iPhone in order to provide a more stable operating environment for users. Though Apple has now decided to open the doors to outsiders, it remains clear that Apple intends to control third party involvement in order to not degrade the reliability of the iPhone. Details are still forthcoming.

The announcement is a welcome one to developers, prospective iPhone owners, and investors. An open iPhone platform means increased revenue for outside developers and Apple, and increased software options for owners.

For more details on the announcement, read the MacWorld article here.


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Comments

I may be the only person on earth that really wants Apple to control this. If they're going to open up they better keep a tight reign on things.

We all saw what 3rd party developers can do to a device (Treo).

Well, your concerns are valid but:

A) The treo didn't run apps in protected memory spaces. Ergo, one rogue program could run amok. OSX (and OSX Mobile) doesn't work that way.

B) How is it Apple's fault if the user decides to load a bunch of half-baked-ware onto their device? Apple doesn't do this for the iPod, nor the Mac, so why should anyone think that the iPhone would be any different? --Granted people have a different expectation with phones than they do with other electronic "gadgetry" but still, this should be a non-issue. As long as the user is informed that "bugware program: 3d-checkers" is the one that keeps crashing; the user can make the informed decision to remove it from the phone.

GM won't prevent someone from riveting a snowplow blade "wing" on the back of a 10 year old cavalier with support brackets that look like they came out of an erector-set, so why should Apple worry that poorly executed 3rd party application may disrupt the product. That's the user's fault.

videb0x's concerns are clearly valid as they are the same concerns Apple/Jobs themselves had.

According to Steve the iPhone is three things...the best phone, the best iPod and real internet. These are all great functions and I can see many people happy with just those.

For those, like me, that want to have one computer for everything, I look forward to great software from third party developers, just as we now get for our desktop machines.

I fully expect the same for the iPhone.

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