Gee there's a lotta anger on this thread.
Told myself not to get involved, but i seem not to have paid any heed.
Right, you're all venting about an unsubstantiated rumour, as if it's fact. Before anyone welcomes me to Macrumors, i'm talking about the people here that are bad mouthing apple as if they'd come round their house handcuffed the iphone to the wall and told them off for installing software using an unfinished api installed via a hack.
You are not children, Apple is not treating you like children, stop acting like little brats because you don't have everything you want like right now. That's it stop stamping your little feet in frustration.
If you want to do some rumouring, do it in a methodically thought out fashion. like so.
When asked why there's no sdk for the iPhone, Jobs is quoted as saying, we'll do it when we have a way to do it safely. Everyone assumes that means web 2.0 which is Apples currently supported (note that word) development strategy. It's an assumption that this is the end of it.
Apple's UI guideline doc, reinforces this with "Currently only web based apps are supported" (Can't find the exact reference, but it's the general gist).
I would lay money on the line that a sdk is in development and will be released at or post Leopard Go-Live. The SDK was most likely the last thing on the priority list, as iPhone was slipping from its release, Mac OS developers were pulled off it along with Leopard.
We also know now that the OS X 1.0 release compared to 1.1.1 is an unfinished hack job, most likely to have gotten iPhone out the door on time.
1.1.1 is closer to what it should have been back in June.
What do we know about 1.1.1, well for one thing, the security bugs that allowed 3rd party apps are now gone, You can't mount the filesystem to make changes whereever you like and the baseband firmware has been FIXED! (Emphasis on Fixed as that's for AT&T's benefit, not anyone elses).
I'll posit that there'll be 4 classes of application on the iPhone.
1 Apple written
2 Certified 3rd Party
3 Uncertfied 3rd party
4 widgets.
We have 1 & 4 already, though i think 4 will get enhanced capabilities, ie offline caching and optional icon on the springboard.
2. Are apps apple have commissioned companies to write for them & other developers have submitted for approval. These are apps that use the full spectrum of API's available on the iPhone, ie. have all the capabilities of 1. This is the rumour du jour and were a lot of knickers are in a twist because we know apps that Apple approve and deliver via iTunes will fit their and AT&T's business mindset.
3. This is were it gets interesting. I believe this is were the comment by one of the guys' working on the jailbreak for 1.1.1, "Everything is signed" proves relevant. I believe category 3 app's ie. unsigned apps will not be able to access certain api's, ie. those that might give unlimited access to the baseband modem. I noticed a screenshot were some apps were in a lockdown directory and others were not. Why go to the bother of segmenting applications like that, if you're not going to offer the option.
VOIP and maybe IM will not be tolerated by AT&T and i'm sure an element of the agreement between them & Apple is to not encumber the voice revenue stream with skype or an equiv.
Basically, to bottom line it all, i don't think we've seen the full picture, so before y'all go a hating, just remember this rumour < 1/2 the facts.
M.