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Steve Jobs: Third-party apps coming to iPhone

Wednesday, May 30, 2007 · 9:18 pm · 16 Comments

Walt Mossberg’s interview with Steve Jobs at the D: All Things Digital has been covered in depth by Macworld’s Peter Cohen and Jason Snell.

One important tidbit deserves to be highlighted:

In the open Q&A portion, Jobs was “asked by an audience member about writing applications for the iPhone, Jobs said that Apple ultimately wants both the iPhone to be secure and open without compromising either attribute. The last thing Apple wants, he suggested, is an iPhone that can be easily hacked or that crashes as a result of installing third party software,” Cohen and Snell report.

“‘I think sometime later this year we will find a way to let third parties write apps and still preserve security. But until we can find that way, we can’t compromise the security of the phone. Nobody’s perfect, but we sure don’t want our phone to crash. We would like to solve this problem, if you could be just a little more patient with us, I think everyone can get what they want,’ he said,” Cohen and Snell report.

Full article – recommended – here.

The Steve Jobs interview is now available via the AllThingsD website: http://d5.allthingsd.com/

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "LinuxGuy and Mac Prodigal Son" and "gaufre" for the heads up.]

MacDailyNews Take: We assume that Apple will approach the iPhone third-party apps situation in much the same way as they do iPod games today: apps that are thoroughly tested and perhaps for sale via the iTunes Store.

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Comment Feed

16 Comments

Qka

Wednesday, May 30, 2007 - 9:33 pm · Reply

Something else to watch for at WWDC.
freakshow1

Wednesday, May 30, 2007 - 9:49 pm · Reply

iPod games are a joke. If the iPhone 3rd party apps are as weak featured as the games, god help them. Besides, it has taken years to get anything on the iPod. Take that long and iPhone will be just a toy.

MW Word: Added. As in get ‘em added ASAP.
dpv

Wednesday, May 30, 2007 - 9:56 pm · Reply

If I can’t write my own programs, it’s not OS X, and it’s not something I’ll need anytime soon. Forget 3rd party apps. I need 2nd party apps.
mike

Wednesday, May 30, 2007 - 9:58 pm · Reply

iPod games are a joke. If the iPhone 3rd party apps are as weak featured as the games, god help them.
–

Eh, first of all, the implementation in iTunes is what we’re talking about here, and it’s great.

Secondlly, the iPod is not a gaming device. What the hell did you expect?
Stop bitching that you can’t cook a steak with your fridge.
ApplePi

Wednesday, May 30, 2007 - 9:59 pm · Reply

Hey FreakShow1,

the games may be weak ummm cuz maybe it’s not a game machine? I’d rather have big Steve looking out for my security instead of having a few extra widgets to play with. Plus, don’t you think Apple would like the extra revenue of these 3rd party apps? Please, calm down the freaking thing hasn’t even come out yet!!!

Pi Has spoken
Just Because

Wednesday, May 30, 2007 - 10:06 pm · Reply

Over 95% of vunerabilties are in applications, leaving Windows, Linux and Mac OS X with just 5%

Should tell you a lot right there.

Third party developers just don’t care about security, it’s “get it out the door, we’ll fix it later” only to have them lie later and say “well it didn’t sell well, we don’t have the money to fix it”

Some third party developers use applications as a trojan horse for marketing and other purposes.

This is why now Apple checks your widgets twice a day against a database.

That’s also why you should NEVER install a app using your admin password unless you completely trust the source, and then even those people make huge mistakes.

Adobe, McAfee, and many others who have root installed code have had exploits that gave the hacker elevated access.

I hereby thank Google for keeping their Google Earth program the simple and secure drag and drop install method.

I hereby rebuke NeoOffice for demanding a admin password for a simple Office type program.
Wisher

Wednesday, May 30, 2007 - 10:59 pm · Reply

Maybe a little patience and sometime later this year mean June 11 when we will learn that all Leopard apps will run in their own sandboxes and no apps (even installers) ever get to be root. (Sorry Adobe you won’t be able to turn off my firewall just so you can install features I don’t use or want.)
tom

Wednesday, May 30, 2007 - 11:10 pm · Reply

I don’t mean to be the bearer of bad news, but…

iPod games crash quite often. LOST, Royal Solitaire — these in particular crash frequently on me. In fact, many of the games also frequently give me a message that they can’t be played at all, which is usually solved by just trying them again.

Not that I don’t (obviously) enjoy the games, since I still play them, but nobody’s done a great job of quality assurance on these.
The Other Steve

Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 1:35 am · Reply

tom,
Perhaps Apple learned their lesson with the iPod and don’t want the same thing to happen with the iPhone. The iPod doesn’t run on a version of OS X the way the iPhone does and doesn’t risk the security and stability reputation of OS X.

Having an iPhone crash or become infected would be a far more upsetting event for someone than having a simple iPod music player crash.

I agree with ApplePI,
I’d much rather have Apple/Steve looking out for my security on this device than just letting the flood gates open for anyone to do anything they want.

Security and stability is why we like Apple so much. (that ease-of-use and fun thing is just icing on the cake)
pocketRocket

Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 4:13 am · Reply

@The_Other_Steve

I would have settled for just ease-of-use as Microsoft have neither.
Sure Am Relieved

Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 8:06 am · Reply

Lack of second or third party app installation by the user is something that bothers me. Like, I bought the thing, why can’t I use it fully?

Can you imagine if I bought a car and couldn’t install stuff on it? Of course I would void the warranty if I do, in some cases, but I should be able to.

The 3rd party market for software is even richer as a % of the total than for cars (primarily because its easy for user install), so this is a very big deal.

OS X doesn’t run as root by default, and its connected to the REAL network, the internet, just fine, so what is the big deal about the cellular network on OS X iPhone edition?

Keep the applications isolated (already done; as others have said, requiring root access for install is BS except for Apple OS upgrades), offer application certification (without requiring source code, which to be fair means there could be back doors) but make it revokable. And don’t make it required – we need uncertified applications if we want them

This thing about crashing doesn’t make sense – OS X doesn’t crash on the Mac so why would it crash on the iPhone?

This entire issue doesn’t make sense – it sounds like a control game by Cingular/ATT, and possibly Apple to some degree. If you have an unlimited data plan, as appears will be standard with the iPhone, why does the user care?. Does Cingular have a fragile network?

I don’t get it and I don’t like it. But I will be patient for the rest of the year. And Apple almost always does the right thing, so I’m cautiously optimistic. I’m concerned about Cingular forcing this tho (but Apple is pretty good about resisting stupidity).
M.X.N.T.4.1

Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 9:34 am · Reply

I don’t understand people who somehow feel short changed by not being able to use third party apps and therefore not being able to use it fully. What does that mean? An electronic device does what it does. People don’t moan that you can’t install and write your own apps for games consoles or their dvd player menus, iPods are not crap because you can’t add stuff to them.

Having a so called closed system does have its advantages, the interface is far more seamless as everything is designed to work together – it’s an extension of the Mac model. It’s a fine line between quality and limitation but it certainly doesn’t lessen the iPhone automaticall
Sure Am Relieved

Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 11:13 am · Reply

M.X.N.T.4.1:

You make a good point. Is the iPhone following the iPod model or the Mac model?

I submit that it can be both – why restrict it, why make it less than it can be? If you want to leave it closed, install nothing, that’s fine. But if you don’t, you should have the option.

Remember that the iPhone is an internet communication device, portable browser – this is where the openness is so important, and where (if allowed) there will be a rich, vibrant, unpredictable 3rd party market, just like on the desktop.

My particular issue is with the fact that OS X is there, its reliable (doesn’t crash), secure (doesn’t get hacked), so why close it up? Why is this straw man being invented?

I smell carrier lockup, and I sure hope Apple fights this one. They’ve conceded more than I like by even accepting that security is more important on the phone than on the desktop and requires additional restrictions.

It may be slightly more important, and you won’t have an IS department to support you and carriers (like all vendors) don’t like “my phone stops working” support calls.

But, big deal – you may have to power cycle your phone. There is no need to go into psycho lockdown mode (fortunately Jobs seems to be trying to resist that). Apple could modify OS X to keep track of all changes and provide o/s level uninstall, but no application should crash the o/s (assuming they’re not modifying the o/s – required the admin password to install)….

Heck with Java on Cingular, you can’t even open a socket without getting your application signed digitally by Cingular (which requires your source code). And the root certificates on the phone are restricted to Cingular so you can’t work around this by going to Verisign etc. To be fair, applications on the phone are fairly new, but this is downright Stalinist. Hopefully they’re changing, but….

The best you can do is flash the o/s and/or hack it up to add some new certificates. This is where I gave up.

(in fairness, you can open an html connection, but the capability to restrict even that was added in midp2 (phone Java version 2.0). Most carriers aren’t using this, last I checked, for compatability presumably).

Heck, some of the carriers won’t even let you type in an url – you can only go to the urls that they allow (where, “conveniently”, there is all of this overpriced content) – the walled garden model. It seems the cellular phone companies are run by ex record company execs….
freakshow1

Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 3:44 pm · Reply

Deep Breath…

Of course the ipod is no game machine, but MDN is touting how “Apple will approach the iPhone third-party apps situation in much the same way as they do iPod games today: apps that are thoroughly tested and perhaps for sale via the iTunes Store.” which is fine and dandy. But the games have taken years to get here. If 3rd party apps take that long, the phone could have issues getting into certain markets. Its about the availability of software that people want. I want lots of choice for my palm or windows mobile. If I have to rely on a watered down version of iWork, why bother. If I have to use their mail program, why bother? i want the features and the choice to choose. Like i do in OSX.
neomonkey

Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 6:55 pm · Reply

This is why now Apple checks your widgets twice a day against a database.

Little Snitch used to alert me to this occasionally, not twice a day, but not any more. Looks like they’ve stopped.

I had to switch to Safari to post this, as the Magic Word” was blank in Camino. What’s up with this MDN?
His Shadow

Friday, June 1, 2007 - 5:09 pm · Reply

M.X.N.T.4.1

I don’t understand people who somehow feel short changed by not being able to use third party apps and therefore not being able to use it fully. What does that mean? An electronic device does what it does.

I don’t understand it either and here is the rub: most of the applications that smartphones and WinCE devices ship with are shit. Without 3rd party apps, you wouldn’t get a damn thing done. A Zire is a great daytimer, but to do anything cool you have no choice but to download third party apps.

Out of the gate, the iPhone is going to be disturbingly feature rich and have NO NEED for all these third party apps that supposedly make mobile devices so great, because the innate ability of the iPhone is going to point out what a joke the “third party” software market for PDA’s actually is…

what a joke the “third party” software market for PDA’s actually is…