Eye on the iPhone
(Just as the door appeared to be opening up, it slammed shut again with the announcement from Apple that 3rd party applications for the iPhone will in fact be Web 2 apps accessed through Safari. That pretty much renders this post obsolete since frogans are browser independant, necessitating that the Frogans Player be installed on the device.)
In the New York Times today,
“When he introduced the phone in January, Mr. Jobs seemed unwilling to permit outside software development. He said that opening that door would tend to raise both security and stability issues that were unacceptable in the wireless handset market.
Last week, however, at the D: All Things Digital conference, he seemed to relent. He said Apple was looking for ways to make it possible for developers to create software for the iPhone.
A person briefed on Apple’s plans said that at its software developer conference this month, Apple intends to announce that it will make it possible for developers of small programs written for the Macintosh to easily convert them to run on the iPhone.”
The frogans would rock on the iPhone. It’s “wait and see” if the Mac version of the Frogans Player would pass the hypothetical iPhone stability litmus test, but for security I think we’re already there. Speculation is that third-party widget makers might get the right of entry, but as each widget is an application, each one would have to prove it’s invulnerability before being allowed the right of entry on to the iPhone.
With the Frogans Player on the iPhone it would be a single app, in this case a particularly secure one, opening up the iPhone to a potentially unlimited number of frogans with no supplementary security concerns. This would be a win-win situation for iPhone users, getting access to online content in a lightweight format, that is appropriate for a smaller display, and without the security headaches of so many other Internet software gadgetry.
In the meantime, the push at STG Interactive continues to be to get the Frogans Player up and running on desktops and laptops (Windows, Mac OSX, Linux). Eventually, the goal is to have a version of the Frogans Player for all Internet-supported devices that accept third-party applications by 2010.