Shortly after the iPhone was announced questions rose by many about the ability to write 3rd party applications on the OS X platform similar to what is done for the Mac. In a couple of interviews Jobs let us know that OS for the iPhone would not be open to developers to the dismay of many.

Today at the WWDC 2007 Jobs released some information and demonstrations of Apple’s new Leopard OS along with news to developers about the iPhone. Opening up the platform while still maintaining a secure environment has been a challenge for Apple, but they made what Jobs described as a “sweet” compromise. They didn’t open up the OS, but will let developers build applications that run on the Safari web browser engine on the iPhone.

This will allow developers to build web application specifically to run on the Apple iPhone and are accessed through the Safari browser. The applications would be able to integrate “perfectly” with the iPhone services for things like making calls, checking email and looking up locations on Google Maps.

The true level of integration along with the look and feel of Safari-based web apps compared to native iPhone applications will remain to be seen, but Jobs did touch on a good point in that inherently the distribution of the web-based applications would be simpler compared to installing them on the handset.

Jobs also announced that the Safari web browser would now be available to install on Windows in a public beta version, boasting that the Safari browser is faster that both IE7 and Firefox. The Safari 3 beta is available for download now on the Apple website for Windows and Macs.

BTW, does the iPhone in this picture from Apple look smaller or is that hand bigger? Or is it me?

Source: Reuters