Developers were sitting on pins and needles in the days leading up to Thursday’s iPhone Software Roadmap event. Rumors had it that Apple was going to exert strict control over what applications it would distribute through its iTunes Store, that application downloads would be via Macs and PCs instead of over the air, and that security controls would trump features.
The rumors turned out to be off base as Apple released the iPhone Software Development Kit. CEO Steve Jobs and his team wowed the press and developers with an aggressive plan to turn the iPhone — and iPod Touch — into a true computing platform. And on the enterprise side, Apple unveiled support for Microsoft Exchange, calendaring and contacts, plus support for virtual private networks and a remote wipe security feature.
With the dual SDK and enterprise announcements, “I believe we will see a rapid rise in the number of applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch platforms, which may solidify Apple’s position as the smartphone leader,” said Greg Sterling, principal analyst with Sterling Market Research. “It will put pressure on BlackBerry to ‘open up’ in the same way that Facebook’s platform put similar pressure on its competitors on the desktop.”
Speaking before the event, Sterling emphasized that in navigating between security and accessibility, Apple should steer “close to the edge” of openness. After the event, Sterling said, “They went pretty close.”
Observers had differing opinions on the enterprise announcements.
“The BlackBerry-killer Exchange features are remarkable,” said Damine Stolarz, a Mac and iPhone developer, in an e-mail. “This is part of the gradual iPhone-dominate-the-phone world strategy.” Apple’s inclusion of Bonjour, its zero-configuration networking solution, “is a good thing, but we have to see what it means,” Stolarz said.
Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Network Security, took a more dubious…