Jobs on iPhone: ISVs need not apply
This is the saddest thing I've seen in a while. It's as if Jobs is punishing ISVs for Apple not building an appropriately sandboxed phone operating system. The only way apps affect the ability to make a phone call is if the OS doesn't deal with the applications correctly. This is just control freak-itis and a ploy for fatter pockets.
Then again, Steve is known for saying one thing and doing another a few months later (who would want to watch video on an iPod anyway? :)
Moreover, Mr. Jobs also appears to be restricting the potential for third-party software developers to write applications for the new handset — from ringtones to word processors.
...
“We define everything that is on the phone,” he said. “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. These are more like iPods than they are like computers.”
The iPhone, he insisted, would not look like the rest of the wireless industry.
“These are devices that need to work, and you can’t do that if you load any software on them,” he said. “That doesn’t mean there’s not going to be software to buy that you can load on them coming from us. It doesn’t mean we have to write it all, but it means it has to be more of a controlled environment.”
Source: Phone Shows Apple’s Impact on Consumer Products - New York Times
Prediction: when the iPhone launches, so does the iTunes ringtones store. $.49/ea. And a software store a few months later where Apple blesses each and every application and takes a large cut of the purchase price like they do with iPod Games.
<sigh>
I don't want to live in a world where something like this succeeds. I don't care how pretty it is.