Dear Steve... 'bout time!

Steve Jobs announces plans to open the iPhone (and the iPod touch) up to 3rd party developers, with a SDK scheduled for February release.

The delay is apparently due to security concerns... but despite those concerns, why didn't Apple release a simple statement months ago indicating that they planned to do this, but that it would take awhile? It would've been a wait, sure... but at least people would know that their intention wasn't to control all the apps available on the phone, in a kind of neoVerizon totalitarian manner.

(Note to all: I currently use Verizon. Their reception is quite good. Their policies and their locked-in phones suck. If the iPhone has a large selection of 3rd party software apps available to me, that could very well be the deciding factor for me switching, but it makes no sense to do so until next year. Hopefully, by then either the iPhone prices will drop further, or, more importantly, AT&T will cut the monthly service costs. $59.99 for a low-end service contract is too much, but maybe they have a family plan that works for the iPhone that I'm not aware of.) 

In any event, it will be interesting to see what independent developers can do with the iPhone. (Blogging client, anyone?!) 

If I were Apple, I would look look into the possibility of designing a Palm emulator, myself. I want a phone that dual boots! ;-)