Open iPhones: Security threat?

["Richard M. Smith" <rms () computerbytesman com>]

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/01/att-welcomes-programmers-for-all-ph
ones-except-the-iphone/
 
October 1, 2007,  7:17 pm 

AT&T Welcomes Programmers for All Phones Except the iPhone


By Saul  <http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/author/shansell/> Hansell

Tags: Apple <http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/apple> , AT
<http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/at%26t> &T, iphone
<http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/iphone> , Palm
<http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/palm> 

I'm still trying to understand why Apple would go to such extremes to keep
people from writing programs that run on the iPhone. I've been writing
<http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/iphone/>  about Apple's software update
that seems to have deliberately disabled third-party applications that users
have installed. 

In particular, Apple's explanations don't make sense to me. This is what
Steve Jobs, Apple's chief executive, said to Newsweek
<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16566968/site/newsweek/page/0/>  in January: 

"You don't want your phone to be an open platform," meaning that anyone can
write applications for it and potentially gum up the provider's network,
says Jobs. "You need it to work when you need it to work. Cingular doesn't
want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed
up." 

That sounds reasonable until you realize that there are many millions of
phones that run operating systems from Palm, Microsoft and others for which
third-party applications are created all the time, and networks don't seem
to be crashing as a result. 

...

 

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