Steve Jobs is finally ready for third parties to write on the Apple platform. After years of proprietary application development, we will begin to see the long tail of application requirements serviced on the Apple platform. The resulting spurt of experimentation on this platform should lead to more choice for the customers and stronger attraction to the Apple platform. To contrast this with MSFT, Apple used the initial period to develop the platform and the components for the platform to establish the Apple look. feel and experience. The challenge would be to continue this with the third party application developers. Based on the
press release, Apple will continue to exercise control over developers by having then leave a finger print/digital signature on their applications.