| By Jeremy Geelan |
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| October 23, 2007 04:00 AM EDT |
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33,536 |
While it won't be changing its policy forbidding users from unlocking the iPhone to use it with carriers other than AT&T, Apple has relented: in February it will make an iPhone SDK available. "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 Jobs wrote yesterday on the Apple website. 
Apple sold its one millionth iPhone in September. Visitors to www.apple.com/iphone/ will hopefully find further details of the SDK shortly.
Back in January, Jobs was dead against such a move, telling the New York Times:
“We define everything that is on the phone. You don’t want your phone to be like a PC. The last thing you want is to have loaded three apps on your phone and then you go to make a call and it doesn’t work anymore.”
Kevin Hoffman, editor-in-chief of SYS-CON Media's
iPhone Developer's Journal and one of the most popular iPhone bloggers on the Net, wrote as follows just recently: "I'm still holding out for a legitimate, legal SDK for the phone."
Hoffman's wish has been granted.
Jobs, whose statement yesterday appeared
here, explained the long delay before third-party developers' energy can be directed toward iPhone development:
"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."
Jobs went on to explain how some companies are already taking action, adding that "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,” Jobs said Apple believes it is "a step in the
right direction."
In a P.S. Jobs added: "The SDK will also allow developers to create applications for iPod touch."
Click here to read in full Kevin Hoffman's "Thoughts on iPhone Hacking."
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