Just after posting an official statement from Jobs was posted.
Third Party Applications on the iPhoneLet 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.
Sorry but you already have. Look at the great installer.app applications released by “novice” 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.
Sounds like an excuse to take their time in releasing an SDK. When thinking about it, waiting to release an open SDK can only hurt them so these points could be extremely valid to them or they need the time to get other necessities ready, like the iTunes infrastructure.
Many of the hackers and developers looking at the underlying system of the iPhone stating that the 1.1.1 release was what Apple intended/should have released at launch, meaning they rushed the iPhone OS at launch with the plan to completely revamp/rewrite the system. This is similar to the AppleTV with it’s YouTube update. But wrap this into my point, they’re behind already with the proper OS for the phone which would ultimately postpone any intent for an iPhone SDK this year.
All specualtion since the WWDC in January is the perfect place to announce and release it. And I’m willing to bet Jobs didn’t hold this under his sleeve until then because the rumors were already getting out and there has been a lot of heat on the iPhone recently with the 1.1.1 release and the surge of new posts about the iPhone being closed.
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.
Quality supersedes.
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]
Great news for the holiday season coming.
What ever happened to their complete secrecy?
I'm a 
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The whole virus thing is a bogus point, just like the fear of overloading the cell data networks was in the first round.
The whole approved-application-only thing is deplorable, and they should be ashamed of it. This concept, using various names (such as TPM) has been around for a while now, and keeps resurfacing.
It is widely criticized by free software advocates, and probably by many Apple fanboys (since Microsoft was behind an implementation of it), but I'm sure they'll gladly take the exact same poor treatment from Steve, with smiles on their faces.
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And yes, if Apple makes developers make their applications live up to a standard, I'm all for it and I'll have a happy face. Only until they only permit certain publishers will it be "deplorable" but they're not doing that, they're just requiring signatures.
Personally I was tired of applications on the Pocket PC, Palm/Treo and Blackberry that weren't published with the basic standard of not crashing the device; if Nokia and the sidekick can't apple?
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The fact that they're filtering publishers at all is the problem. Have they stated the process and criteria by which your application can be "approved"?
If it's the case that *anyone* truly can get a signed application, then all their claims of an extra layer of protection are invalidated. If it's not, then that means they are exerting control over who can or can't put an app on the device. Seems pretty clear cut to me.
Re: Nokia and the sidekick - I think it's bad no matter who's doing it. Sure, they can, just like Apple can but I still don't like the idea.
The whole guarding against crashing thing is totally bogus too; here's why: if they wanted to support signed / certified apps for the sake of a more stable environment, they could do that by making the device only accept those types of apps by default, but also allowing the user to turn off that restriction if they wanted to. That would protect everyone they're worried about, and the users that turned it off would accept the risk of dealing with apps that might crash.
Since (as far as I know) they aren't doing it this way, I maintain my position on that particular issue. Let me know if they do end up making this a user configurable option, because then it would be a different story.
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anywho, i don't think that if anyone can get certified, then "all their claims of an extra layer of protection are invalidated." anyone can walk through a metal detector without it going off, but that doesn't mean that a metal detector doesn't give some layer of protection against certain kinds of threats.
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I don't see this statement saying they're going to restrict any apps but I do see it deterring malicious developers from even trying to release their code since it would be traced back to them.
TPM relies on key pairings generated by hardware signatures, so software can only be tied to a specific piece of hardware after activation or installation. The above statements talk about certificates, like SSL certificates or more similarly those certificates used in windows when installing "certified" drivers OR exactly like how Nokia and Blackberry have signatures for their applications.
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The relationship to TPM that I was referring to is that the end goal is to limit what software is able to be run on a particular piece of hardware. Of course, they may accomplish this goal in different ways, but it's the act of enforcing the restriction (in a manner that the user cannot override or bypass) that is the problem.
Like I said before, (and to address Nathan's point as well) if *anyone* can write an application and put it on phones (without review), then their claims of preventing things like viruses are invalidated, in my opinion.
My initial impression was that every app would have to be reviewed by Apple. If that's not the case, but rather that individual developers only have to be certified in order to publish, it's not quite as bad, but still bad in my opinion.
Will those individual developers be somehow liable for bad code that ends up getting distributed to phones and crashing them, etc.? If not, then (again) where is the protection? If so, then it will prohibit many individuals from writing applications in the first place, because they won't be able to afford the liability if something were to go wrong.
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