The iPhone will NOT be a closed platform if the Apple CEO has his way...

... and he always insists on having things done his way. In the recently concluded D5 "All Things Digital" conference, Steve Jobs confirmed in front of Walt Mossberg, of The Wall Street Journal, that efforts to allow third party applications onto the iPhone were underway at Apple and they want it to be done in a secure way. An excerpt:

Is the iPhone’s platform closed? And if it is, will it be open to developers in the future? Jobs says it’s a security issue, but Apple is working to find a way to allow developers to build applications for it. Jobs says he doesn’t want the iPhone to be “one of those phones that crashes a few times a day.” He adds: “We would like to solve this problem and if you could just be a little more patient with us, we’ll do it.”

In other words, "The iPhone is going to allow third party applications but I am deliberately being vague now so that we can announce this as a major new feature when we finally launch the phone." So all the doubting Thomases may find corner seats for yourselves now and watch with shame as the iPhone takes over the world.

(That was meant to be a joke but depending on your taste and sense of humour, you may or may not find it funny!) :lol:

Hmm, so Apple wants developers to make application & send them to Apple for some sort of digital signature for installing on iPhone. Obviously Apple won't do this sign for free, which means none of the iPhone applications will be free as in free beer.

Either Ad supported or paid. So much for Mobile IM Clinet like IM+ based on JAVA.

The other analogy of "Phones crash everyday due to applications" is pure bull. Ask any symbian or Windows Mobile user out there, yup phones do crash, but not like what Jobs is saying.

Just another way for job to say "Pay us money, if you want even simple features in you already super expensive iPhone".

I just wonder, out of the box iPhone despite of having a so called MacOS X base, doesn't even come with a chat client, while they have already teamed with Yahoo & Google for iPhone features, so how hard it is to incorporate some version of iChat in it with Yahoo Protocol or Google talk protocol support?

Also, this is 2007 & the time of 3G/2.5G & JAVA MIDP 2.0, is it really hard for them to incorporate JAVA support in iPhone which opnes up limitless possibilities.

gx_saurav said:
Hmm, so Apple wants developers to make application & send them to Apple for some sort of digital signature for installing on iPhone. Obviously Apple won't do this sign for free, which means none of the iPhone applications will be free as in free beer.

Either Ad supported or paid. So much for Mobile IM Clinet like IM+ based on JAVA.

The other analogy of "Phones crash everyday due to applications" is pure bull. Ask any symbian or Windows Mobile user out there, yup phones do crash, but not like what Jobs is saying.

Just another way for job to say "Pay us money, if you want even simple features in you already super expensive iPhone".

I am sure Jobs tells you whatever is going to happen with their products in advance. Do you have any link or firm logic to back this idiocy? How can you say that all third party applications for the iPhone will either be paid or riddled with advertisements? Apple is giving away YouTube support for free to existing Apple TV users. Show me another company that does that.

These are just lame excuses. Now that the primary point you had against the iPhone has mostly been torn apart by Jobs' statement, you obviously have to say something else to feed your ego.

gx_saurav said:
Also, this is 2007 & the time of 3G/2.5G & JAVA MIDP 2.0, is it really hard for them to incorporate JAVA support in iPhone which opnes up limitless possibilities.

My phone has support for JAVA and I have yet to see a single good JAVA application outside of Google's GMail application and Opera Mini. Both of these applications will have a lot better replacements on the iPhone. I don't even need JAVA after that.

And anyway, that the iPhone will not feature support for JAVA is just a completely baseless rumour that you (or someone else) pulled out of your (or their) you-know-what.