Apple is opening its iPhone software to outside developers in an effort to make the hot devices even more popular and wrest market share from "smart phone" market king BlackBerry.
Apple executives unveiled an iPhone software development kit (SDK) created to let programmers craft programs for the touch-screen mobile devices combining telephone, video, music, and Internet connectivity.
Apple chief executive Steve Jobs said it wasn't unfettering iPhones completely and that software creations would be vetted before being made available exclusively at a newly launched online App Store.
PHOTO: EPA
"We think this is going to be a boon for developers," Jobs said during an invitation-only preview of the kit at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California. "Hopefully, people will think iPhones are even more valuable and buy more of them. This is not an open source project, it is a for-profit project."
Renowned Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, joined Jobs to announce that his company started an "iFund" to finance entrepreneurs developing programs for the iPhone platform.
"Today we are witnessing history; the launch of the SDK for iPhone," Doerr said. "New platforms are very rare but they can be transformational."
Doerr said the iFund would start with US$100 million for investments, saying Amazon was funded with only US$8 million and Google with US$24 million.
"That should be enough to start about a dozen Amazons or even four Googles," Doerr quipped. "If we start running out of money, we will look around for some more."
Applications crafted for iPhones will also work on iPod Touch models, which are basically iPhones without the telephone capabilities, Jobs said.
Apple will let developers set prices for their applications and give them 70 percent of sales, keeping the remainder to run the App Store.
Software for engineers to develop programs in a virtual iPhone model on Macintosh computers is available from Apple's Web site.
Programming wizards can work on actual iPhones by registering in a developers program at Apple for US$99. Registering in the program lets Apple keep track of who makes which programs, Jobs said.
"If they write a malicious application, we track them down and tell their parents," Jobs joked while explaining why developers have to register to make iPhone programs. "We will turn off the spigot and no one else will get it."
The iPhone developers kit has been given to thousands of programmers for beta testing, Jobs said.
"The iPhone was a game-changer," Gartner analyst Van Baker said after watching the demonstration. "This just adds a lot of momentum to it."
The software developers kit will be rolled out as part of the iPhone 2.0 softgrade upgrade.
The upgrade includes improvements aimed at winning over businesspeople.
IPhones have 21 percent of the US "smart phone" market, second only to the 41 percent market-share held by BlackBerry devices made by Canadian firm Research In Motion, Jobs said.
Apple said it worked with Microsoft to enable iPhones to receive e-mail, contact and calendar information "pushed" from business computer networks using the US software giant's popular Office Exchange programs.
Jobs pointed out that while e-mails routed to or from BlackBerry devices are channeled through interim servers in Canada, messages handled by iPhones are exchanged directly between iPhones and company servers.
"Somebody working at that [center] in Canada could be looking at your e-mail," Jobs said. "We think a direct connection is better."
The iPhone update will also provide secure wireless connections to business computing networks and allow owners to remotely "wipe" them clean, erasing all data from devices lost or stolen.
Jobs said that Apple has sold more than 4 million iPhones.
The free iPhone update will be available worldwide in June, one year after the devices debuted in the US market.
"This is the other shoe we were waiting for to fall since the consumer iPhone was introduced last year," telecom industry analyst Jeff Kagan said. "The business market is a huge opportunity for Apple."
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