iPhone webapp mock up

My take is that behind the decision of not releasing an iPhone SDK also the carrier is to "blame".
Why?

Well. Let's look at the iPhone from a carrier's perspective. What are the revenue sources of the iPhone customers from a carrier perspective?
- phone calls
- EDGE traffic, only where Wi-Fi is not available (so for instance in cities, very little)
All the content (ringtones, music, background, etc) come directly from Apple (although maybe there's a revenue share program, at least for phone-specific content.

Now. If you release an SDK and allow people to write "resident" applications for the phone, what will inevitably happen?
- Skype for the iPhone. So basically free or cheap call wherever there's Wi-Fi
- Office applications (such as Pages, Word, Excel and similar) resident on the iPhone.
- Ringtones players, and plug-ins to allow any mp3 to be used as ring-tone

This, again from a carrier perspective, is the worst thing that can happen. Because customers will use free Wi-Fi spots for most of the tasks, reducing the already thin margin of the carriers on the iPhone (content does already NOT come from the carrier but from Apple (movies, songs, all the rest)

So.. How can Apple make the carrier happy? By releasing Web 2.0 application capabilites which imply that your phone has an internet connection for permorming anything more than just watching videos and listening to music...
In that way, Apple, in my opinion, tries to boost data traffic for iPhone users in order to calm the carrier and to make him feel more comfortable.

The business model of phones, except PDA phones, is based upon proprietary software and has given an wide margin for carriers to implement and sell their own content to customers. For Symbian or Windows powered PDA phones, applications are not a great deal since Microsoft (up to now) and Symbian never provided much "content" to be paid for. Music on Windows mobile devices has not been sold by Microsoft but rahter by others, including the carriers. (BTW this is also the reason, in my opinion, that the ZUNE ecosystem has "detached itself" from the WMA ecosystem, in order not to step on the carriers' feet.
Apple is, opposite to that, a very strong content provider and this might scare carriers which see no constant revenues (at the same high volumes as in Blackberries or Windows Mobile devices) and also no potential from revenue growth in terms of "customer spendings". Apple will take the greatest piece of the "content pie".

Conclusion:
Carrier said: "Dear Apple, try to keep the ecosystem of the iPhone as close as possible in order not to further reduce our revenue streams".

As soon as the exclusive carrier contract expires, or if the iPhone turns out to be a great success, then we will immedialy see an SDK release. At least that is my take...

What do you think? Am I completely wrong, or might there be something rational in what I wrote?
:-)

I'm pissed too. Not that the iPhone only allows standard web sites/applications. I'm pissed that Apple is making such a big deal out of it. Like Gruber said over at Daring Fireball "you can't bullshit developers". But they're trying to, and that's not Apple's style.

It would have been kinda cool if the iPhone allowed running those apps locally, like Google Gears - but this is ridicolous.
I hope Apple wakes up soon from this bad dream...

Err... That Digg site is awash with links to sites with Flash Video all over them. Not much good... oh, but of course everyone's going to covert to H.264, silly me.

can I get someone's opinion on the following?
If the iPhone will run AJAX apps, does this include Google docs&spreadsheets? If so, wouldn't this mean, that with a bit of help from Google (like in maps) they could easily add support for MS Office files on the iPhone?

Kai:

Profit... How can one have any with a product like this? That seems to be a key question. This idea of Web 2.0 applications acting as robust to a user as a regular application is one that will evolve. At the moment, you are probably right. With possibly expensive and unstable hosting for smaller companies web applications and the overlying idea at the moment that these apps will take on more widget functionality than anything else, the idea of making any money on the platform is unrealistic.

But I see bit by bit this idea growing. In a years time I wouldn't be surprised to see some real stand out apps becoming a regular site on iPhones. And just like with Widgets Apple is going to help. The idea of a "iPhone app" directory and even hosting from Apple itself is totally realistic. And as people begin to create and distribute there own iPhone Ajax Frameworks I can see the experience of web apps on the iPhone becoming in a sense it's own platform.

Whether AJAX and this whole Web 2.0 thing really do transform apps is still to be seen. But this is going to evolve into a big step for the increased production of web apps I think.

If iPhone runs a real OS X how is it different from Mac computers, in terms of ability to run third party apps?! Anybody pls. tell me that I am getting it wrong... Cause otherwise I can not trust what Jobs is saying, about "secret features", Leopard delay, iPhone OS and now about how cool the web-apps for iPhone are.
PS how can they be cool if 15% of the screen is taken by safari address line!!!!!!!!

Hey, whats the story with flash player support?

Yeah.. I see your point on the baby Internet thing; but if you think about it, it isn't the dumbbed down version of the internet.. whether its on your mac or your iPhone it'll look the same, unless they make two versions. Also Steve meant baby internet meaning a site (or I guess program in this case) that isn't giving its full potential to the iPhone.. but here it is giving everything thing that it offers (except Java).

Well no...you guys have to keep in mind that mobile browsers are *really* bad...outside of Nokia's new webkit-based one, they really, REALLY suck. Opera Mobile (NOT Mini!) is getting there...so in a sense, its correct to say that its not limiting you to the "baby" internet.

Its more like the "flash free" internet :)

Frank brings up a very good and kind of ironic point. It's supposed to be "just the Internet...on your phone". But it seems his Steveness really wants there to be the Internet and the iPhone-optimized Web. I'm not against it, but they seem to be giving mixed messages.