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Well, Apple just announced it. From their own new page today...

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.
 
This just in...

This just up on the Apple "start" page:

"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."
 
Ok.... WebKit is just an html/javascript rendering engine (the guts of Safari, basically).... That's all well and good, but RIA need other cool things like localized data storage, disconnected operation, etc. WebKit doesn't provide that.

Things like Adobe AIR and Google's Gears do. Perhaps apple will add something similar to WebKit? Sure... but they are going to have a hard time moving the Flash developer base over to something else.

If you port Adobe's flash, AIR is right behind at this point.

My guess is that if Apple IS going to add this type of thing to WebKit then that is exactly why Flash isn't on there... and if that's the case then Flash most likely never will be.

WebKit is more than HTML/JS. Much more.

Let's just say, it inherits from Foundation Kit.
 
WebKit is more than HTML/JS. Much more.

Let's just say, it inherits from Foundation Kit.

Uhhh, what? No it doesn't. WebKit is cross platform, currently running on Mac, Windows (with ported CoreFoundation and CoreGraphics), Qt, and GTK+. That said, HTML5 is pushing HTML+JS+CSS into being more suitable for webapps. I'm sure offline mode and local storage are in the works, for example.
 
By this logic, Apple should control 3rd party apps on OSX just in case someone releases a crap app.

Despite console games being a bit more controlled, there's still a lot of junk out there.... so controlling isn't always a good thing and doesn't mean automatic high quality.

No one is forcing people to install a crap app, or any apps at all. If people are that worried, they can only install iPhone apps that come from Apple. Its a really simple concept.

The logic is still there, it's just hidden behind another event.

That event is "Microsoft Office". Be honest and look back at history and ask yourself where OSX would have been if Apple had not made the deal to have Office on OSX?

When I look back and imagine what it would have been like without Office, all I see is a cesspool of shareware apps on a deadend system.
 
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