Turns out that Business Week rumor was true. An iPhone SDK is coming. Today on Apple’s Hot New Page, Steve Jobs officially announced that the iPhone SDK will be available in Feb 08.
Here is the unedited text of the announcement:
Third Party Applications on the iPhone
Let me just say it: We want native third party applications on the iPhone, and we plan to have an SDK in developers’ hands in February. We are excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users. With our revolutionary multi-touch interface, powerful hardware and advanced software architecture, we believe we have created the best mobile platform ever for developers.
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.
Some companies are already taking action. 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,†we believe it is a step in the right direction. We are working on an advanced system which will offer developers broad access to natively program the iPhone’s amazing software platform while at the same time protecting users from malicious programs.
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
P.S.: The SDK will also allow developers to create applications for iPod touch. [Oct 17, 2007]
All I can say is THANK GOD! It’s about time!
Now, hopefully all this hackery will calm down, and we should start seeming some great iPhone applications later next year. I can’t wait.
6 thoughts on “HUGE NEWS: Jobs Confirms iPhone SDK for Feb. 08”
Old News, but we all new it was coming, Steve is our hero again!
I posted this 20 minutes after the initial announcement. It is not “Old News”.
This is indeed very welcome news… curious how the distribution will work. I have bad visions of it being all iTMS managed where you would buy 3rd party apps much the same way you buy TV shows or music or older ipod games from itunes. Nevertheless I am sure there will be “free” ways to bypass any closed distribution mechanism that may be set up. All in all though, an official SDK is very good news…. now if only the folks at slingmedia can get moving on a slingplayer client for the iphone 🙂
@Jeff
Those are exactly my fears as well. But we have to pay for games, music, movies and tv shows because they come from the entertainment companies (contracts and all that), so what I predict is that the distribution will be by iTMS but more like podcasts. Because if the developers want their program to be free for all, i doubt Apple would have any problems with that.
Hi there,
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Cheers,
Lily