Apple opens iPhone up to third party apps

Not content with releasing a SIM unlocked version of the iPhone, Apple front man, Steve “Jesus” Jobs just keeps the miracles coming. Now he’s promising to let third party apps run natively on the device.

In a posting on the company site, Jobs spills the beans: “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.”

It doesn’t get plainer than that. In around four months, developers will be able to step beyond the world of widgets and create native applications for the iPhone, without having to indulge in any of that messy hacking business.

“We are excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users,” Jobs said. “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.”

Jobs reckons that mobile malware is a serious problem and “since the iPhone is the most advanced phone ever, it will be a highly visible target.”

The Apple CEO hinted that the company might follow a similar route to market leader Nokia, which does not allow any applications to be loaded 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,” he said.

This isn’t totally true though, Nokia S60 phones have an option to turn off the digital signature check so users can pretty much run any app they want.