Apple: "we plan to have an iPhone SDK in developers' hands in February"
That's right folks. You read it correctly. Cats & dogs are living together, and in other news Steve Jobs has, via Apple's 'Hot News' page, announced that Apple will, FINALLY, support third-party development of native applications for the iPhone.
Context & Ripple Effects
The announcement answers a question that has hung over the iPhone since launch. In June, Scripting News laid out the case in Why no iPhone SDK? — developers like William Hurley were being told to build web apps and wait — and yesterday Business Week asked whether Apple would open the iPhone at all. Today Steve Jobs answered on Apple's Hot News page: an SDK in developers' hands by February.
The reversal landed widely on day one — Techdirt framed it as letting developers into the walled garden, while Bits noted the catch that programmers are welcome only next year, and FactoryCity asked whether the web had failed the iPhone. The timing also sits inside a busy Apple news cycle: Leopard's release, DRM-free iTunes Plus expansion, and the unlocked-iPhone accommodation in France.
First-order effects
- Developers who spent the summer building browser-based workarounds get a sanctioned path to native iPhone applications, ending the web-apps-only regime Jobs had defended since June.
- Apple keeps the schedule deliberately loose — February, not a date — leaving developers unable to plan launches until Apple details the SDK's terms.
Second-order effects
- Rival smartphone platforms that already court third-party native developers lose their clearest differentiator against the iPhone; the contest shifts from whether Apple allows apps to how much control Apple retains over which apps ship.
- Enterprise buyers, whose resistance to a phone without installable business software was a standing objection, gain a reason to revisit iPhone deployments once February arrives.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the phone becomes a platform business where the hardware maker — not the carrier or the open web — acts as gatekeeper for third-party software distribution, a structure Techdirt's 'walled garden' framing anticipated.
- A rumored link between the SDK wait and Leopard's ship date suggests Apple's mobile roadmap is now coupled to its desktop OS cycle, tightening integration across the product line.
The trend: Smartphones are crossing from closed appliances into vendor-controlled software platforms, with Apple's February SDK marking the moment the iPhone joins that race on Apple's own gating terms.