3G is available in June?  I doubt the OLED part, but who cares?  I can’t wait to get rid of Sprint.

Apple announced that there will be an SDK for the iPhone for 3rd party developers starting in February, even though there are many 3rd party applications already developed.

Why this matters. Having been in the technology industry, I’ve seen many great products die (token ring, Micro Channel) and average products (Windows) prosper. It’s not magical to see that adoption of the product is a major reason. Even the biggest company can’t ram a product down consumers throats if they don’t want it or it doesn’t fit their needs.

Here is an example. The PS/2, based on the Micro-Channel Architecture was way ahead of it’s time with a new bus design that was better than the standard IBM compatible bus which morphed into PCI and on from there. IBM chose to keep it closed to third parties at the time, and the clones wars were in full speed mode with Compaq leading the way. I think we all know the history of who won and what design we now use. Who even uses the Micro-Channel?

I worked at a company who tried to make 3rd party add on’s to the PS/2 back then and we had to reverse engineer the architecture then build a product without a rulebook. Hard, but we did it and learned more about the product than all but a couple of IBM’rs. But it was so hard to build an buy 3rd party hardware and software that the industry did what human nature does, take the path of least resistance.

I hope to own an iPhone one day as everyone I’ve talked to loves it (for the most part with the biggest complaint being the lack of add on’s). I’ve watched the iBrick episode and saw doom for a good product. Why stifle creativeness on a good platform? Well, maybe Apple saw the same thing and just wanted more control over the 3rd party, imagine that from Steve Jobs.

Anyway, this will allow the device to grow into far more than Apple imagined. Harness the power of an industry and industrious capitalists and the future is unlimited.