What Will It Take?

Well the iPhone Dev Team is working overtime on jailbreaking the 1.1.1 update and I can’t help but wonder how Apple perceives these efforts.

Of course Apple holds all the cards with the iPhone’s app development, but this group of independent talent is essentially acting as the sole competition to Apple for its own product. If the team can open the phone up to third party apps, I suspect that Apple will have to work even harder to include more value-add applications and features to the phone to convince existing owners to willingly destroy/remove the add on items that make the iPhone even more customized to their specific liking.

Just imagine buying a car you’ve wanted for months then customizing it with accessories and parts but when you take it to the dealership for routine maintenance, they stripped the parts and gave your car back to you and said “hope you like it!” The same exact thing is happening here.

At some point in the near future, Apple will need to open up the iPhone to the core Mac OS developer community or else face the fact that the commonly held notion that Mac users love to quickly upgrade to the newest shiniest [blank] will seriously slow down. The one thing that would really put Apple in a huge bind is if there were a more visible brand and outlet for these apps.