Jobs praises Nokia's 3rd party app scheme, but he has it wrong
By Chris Ziegler 
posted Oct 17th 2007 3:03PM
posted Oct 17th 2007 3:03PM
In chatting up Apple's sudden change of direction today on the whole native iPhone SDK issue, Steve Jobs did a little name dropping by mentioning that he digs the way Nokia does things with S60's support for third party applications. It seems apparent from the get-go that Steve has every intention of offering apps through some sort of official, money-generating conduit -- iTunes, we'd wager -- and with that comes the promise of digital rights management, authenticity verification, and all those nasty little technologies that set the hacking community ablaze. To that end, Steve mentioned that he digs Nokia's approach of requiring that apps be digitally signed so they can be traced back to their developers, an effort to stem "viruses, malware, privacy attacks" that he thinks will flourish on a "highly visible target" like the iPhone. There's a problem, though: there's no telling when the last time is that Steve touched a phone not of his own creation, but we've used S60 devices pretty recently (like, today) and we have it on good authority that you can disable certificate verification for installed apps. Think iPhone users are going to have that option? Probably not. Apple's still visibly concerned about keeping the iPhone under its perceived draconian control (even though it's been busted wide open time and time again), and we've no doubt that trend will continue in full effect with the SDK. It's a huge, landmark upgrade from the web-based SDK developers have now, yes -- but we'd recommend Steve screw around with an N95 for a while before he heaps any more love on the way Nokia goes about its business.
I'll say it again -- the iPhone isn't a smartphone, it's the Sidekick Touch. I expect third-party apps to go through a rigorous certification process that includes UI adherence, and then it'll appear as part of a single, official catalog stowed somewhere in iTunes most likely.
"Change of direction" isn't accurate. Apple never had a position one way or the other regarding 3rd party native apps (Jobs's famous "cat and mouse" statement was made with reference to a question about 3rd party unlocking apps -- not all 3rd party apps). Apple never once came out and said that they did not want 3rd party native apps. Of course, they also never made a statement (until today) that they would support them, either.
Just because the 1.1.1 iPhone update broke hacked 3rd party native apps does not mean that Apple was hostile to the idea of 3rd party, native apps. I think they have just been waiting all along for Leopard to be released.
>>and we have it on good authority that you can disable certificate verification for installed apps
Go on, then, how? You'll make a hoard of Symbian OS developers very happy if it is possible. You can certainly switch off blocking of developer certificates on the device, but you can't switch off certificate checks completely... (There is a 'self signed' concept, but you are pretty restricted in the APIs you can use).
If you can demonstrate an application installed which uses manufacturer-granted capabilities (i.e. restricted APIs) without a developer certificate or signed by a manufacturer I will eat my hat. Twice.
Here we go again, with the Engadget Nokia-haters!