Oct

17

Open letter from Steve Jobs posted on Apple’s site under Hot News.

Let me just say it: We want native third party applications on the iPhone, and we plan to have an SDK in developers’ hands in February. We are excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users. With our revolutionary multi-touch interface, powerful hardware and advanced software architecture, we believe we have created the best mobile platform ever for developers.

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. This is no easy task. Some claim that viruses and malware are not a problem on mobile phones—this is simply not true. There have been serious viruses on other mobile phones already, including some that silently spread from phone to phone over the cell network. As our phones become more powerful, these malicious programs will become more dangerous. And since the iPhone is the most advanced phone ever, it will be a highly visible target.

Some companies are already taking action. Nokia, for example, is not allowing any applications to be loaded onto some of their newest phones unless they have a digital signature that can be traced back to a known developer. While this makes such a phone less than “totally open,” we believe it is a step in the right direction. We are working on an advanced system which will offer developers broad access to natively program the iPhone’s amazing software platform while at the same time protecting users from malicious programs.

We think a few months of patience now will be rewarded by many years of great third party applications running on safe and reliable iPhones.

Steve

P.S.: The SDK will also allow developers to create applications for iPod touch. [Oct 17, 2007]

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Oct

14

Google is putting the final touches on a mobile-phone project, but unlike Apple’s iPhone the so-called GPhone is all about software for mobile carriers and mobile advertisers.

Google’s goal is to extend its dominance in online advertising to the emerging mobile advertising market, which is small today but expected to grow dramatically in the years ahead, according to a news report in the International Herald Tribune.

The report says Google is expected to unveil details later this year, and handsets with the software could appear in 2008. But about 30 prototype phones are reported to be ‘in the wild’ as Network World Microsoft Subnet blogger Alex Lewis discovered firsthand last week.

Apple’s iPhone revolutionized user expectations about how mobile handsets should look, feel and behave. (You can find our extensive iPhone coverage by starting on our search page). The iPhone’s success has sent manufacturers scrambling to not merely match but surpass its features.

But Google’s GPhone is an open source phone operating system. There has been a growing interest and sophistication in Linux-based software and development tools for mobile devices.

The Herald Tribune article, citing both unnamed “industry source familiar with the project” and industry executives, outlines two possible directions for Google’s ambition. One is to develop and deploy a vastly cheaper alternative to Microsoft’s Windows Mobile operating system. The second is to loosen the grip that carriers have on the software, devices and services that can run on their closed cellular nets.

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Oct

12

iPhone_theme.jpgFor those of you who have the iPhone or iTouch we have added a new easy to navigate theme. Check it out.

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