PRAISE BE TO JOBS
Well, a lot of recently wound-up Apple geeks and fans should breath easier today.
Apple is inching back from the Dark Side and opening up it's blessed iPhone AND iPod Touch to developers with an SDK in February.
Techmeme's front page runneth over with all the giddy celebration (image source).
And Apple announced this with a missive from Steve Jobs no less, on it's "Hot News" page.
Furthermore Steve, or should I say "Real Steve Jobs" (aka RSJ), almost seemed to be channeling Fake Steve Jobs (aka FSJ) in his quasi-blog entry:
"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."
Even his "blog entries" have an implicit "One more thing" in them:
"P.S.: The SDK will also allow developers to create applications for iPod touch. [Oct 17, 2007]"
Once a show man, always a show man.
Of course we still don't know if this is something Apple had been planning all along, or is it something in reaction to all the "closed iPhone" backlash from geeks and fans in recent weeks. It's kind of like the last-minute rebate to early iPhone buyers, following the backlash to the very quick price cuts the iPhone recently.
We'll have to wait for the answers to both questions in the fullness of time.
One has to admit that Apple's been pretty "generous" lately, what with them also announcing price cuts on their DRM-free tracks, along with an expansion of that part of it's inventory on iTunes yesterday.
Now my only major wish on the iPod/iPhone front is a hard-drive based iPod Touch and an iPhone by the end of the year, to go with all the other goodness.
RSJ, you listening? FSJ?
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