Apple Opens Up iPhone for Programmers

Jun 11, 08:03 PM

Current Headlines: By Troy Wolverton, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.

Jun. 11--SAN FRANCISCO -- In his keynote speech at the company's annual software developer conference here, Apple CEO Steve Jobs today announced a way for programmers to write applications for the company's new iPhone handset and said that the company is offering a version of its Safari Web browser for users of Microsoft Windows PCs.

The two announcements, which came at the end of Jobs' speech, were the highlights of a largely low-key presentation devoted to showing off features of the company's upcoming update to its Mac operating system. That update, dubbed Leopard, is due out in October.

The ability to write programs for the iPhone had been the subject of much speculation in recent weeks. When Jobs unveiled the handset in January at Apple's Macworld conference, the company said no programmers would not be able to write for it, even though the handset will run a full version of its OS X operating system.

However, at a conference last month, Jobs said the company would like to let developers write applications for it, but was concerned about addressing some security and stability concerns first.

The company's solution was to encourage programmers to write so-called Web 2.0 applications using the Ajax programming environment. iPhone users would be able to run those programs through the Safari browser built into the iPhone, company vice president Scott Forrestal noted.

Developers can write those programs immediately without even having the phone in hand and without some kind of special programming kit, he said.

It remains to be seen, however, whether that solution will satisfy developers or users. Potentially, it could limit the sophistication of the programs that outside developers could write for the phone. It also means that developers won't be able to simply port applications they've written for Mac computers over to the iPhone.

As for Safari, Jobs noted that the browser is now the third most popular in use today, behind Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Mozilla's Firefox. Apple would like to grow Safari's market share from its current 5 percent of the market, he said. In order to do that, the company will need to tap into the large base of Windows users.

Apple is offering a test versions of Safari for Windows XP and Windows Vista immediately, and plans to eventually ship copies to Windows users of its iTunes software, Jobs said.

In the Macworld conference a year ago, Jobs hinted at a number of hidden features in Leopard that the company was waiting to reveal. He touched on a few of those in his presentation, including a new desktop feature called "stacks" that allows users to organize files from folders or their desktops into a single icon in their taskbar.

Another feature he revealed was something called "Quick Look" that allows users to preview documents, photographs and videos from within a file folder, without having to launch the program they are associated with.

But much of Jobs' presentation covered features in Leopard that he discussed at last year's developers' conference, including a new backup system and a new animation system built into the operating system.

Contact Troy Wolverton at twolverton@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5021.

-----

To see more of the San Jose Mercury News, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.mercurynews.com.

Copyright (c) 2007, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

NASDAQ-NMS:MSFT,