Where did you read that ?

The "certified by Apple" idea would be fine with me I guess, if there was a way to bypass it for the brave. Freeware developers won't pay that money, so it would limit the range of little apps you could expect to find.

I've been idly wondering about getting my company into Mac development, I think an iPhone app (I already have an idea) would be a good way to test the waters.

I very much doubt that will happen. I would expect that iPhone / iPod Touch applications will be in a very similar market to widgets. Some developers charge for them, but the vast majority are free or come bundled with other applications. Whilst there will be some applications that have commercial appeal (and will do well) I would expect a much larger volume of free or bonus applications.

That doesn't discount distributing them via iTunes at all, in fact that's probably the best way to do it. Probably more like podcasts, some paid, some free, but generally available via iTunes.

It's complete speculation. It just sounds like something today's Apple might do. Time will tell.

I think it sounds like something apple would never do.
I agree with devski that iTunes would be a good distribution method but i dont expect apple to take a cut on shareware apps

This is great news, I remember when the iPhone was released in January,

I said it has the potential to be a groundbreaking device, if they allow 3rd party apps on it

This device is going to turn into almost as big a success as the iPod

(Assuming they don't fuck it up by making developers go through a huge rigmarole to release apps)

What would be the difference between Apple distributing freeware mac widgets and distributing iPhone/Touch apps?

Surely if they're monitoring phone viruses in iphone apps, they're equally as cautious about widgets, yet they don't charge for them.

Having said that, I suppose the iPhone market is potentially a lot larger than the mac widget market.

I thought widgets were just Javascript and HTML, I didn't think they could do much?

I welcome the 3rd party apps, I'm sure that it will be relatively limited to try and stifle unlocking attempts and will slow down unlocking developments because jailbreaking will likely no longer be required.

It's interesting, the product still has plenty of work to be done on it and it shows that apple rushed it out - I can't wait for mms or bluetooth OBEX - everytime someone wants one of my ringtones i've gotta email it to them

My understanding is widgets have access to magic javascript methods that give access to extra networking and Mac-related features. The same was thought to be true for iPhone widgets.

Fanfuckingtastic!!!

Ohh okay,

I've always been curious about that, because some widgets access things you wouldn't expect JS to be able to do (like system stats and the remote desktop widget)

Hmm....

Widgets in OS X have a few special JS additions but they also have cocoa plugin support. iPhone web apps are just typical web pages more or less

is this apple confessing that its too hard to keep locking the phone down?

Sounds like it also they know the hackers know all its workings & if they keep pushing it would not take much to zap iPhone & destroy Apples safe virus free status.

In regards to apps running as root. A simple fix is to provide an iPhone/iPod Touch firmware release that move the apps from their current 'run as root' status to either running as restricted user or running in a sandbox. If the platform were to stay as-is there would be no reason to no release the SDK now.

This news to me just confirms that Apple (and/or Steve) have noticed the enthusiasm people have for running non-standard apps on multi touch devices and rather than go into lock-down, have embraced the idea and are modifying their platform to suit.

thumbs up.