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" To the surprise of absolutely nobody, Apple today unveiled a standard developer&amp;#039;s kit (SDK) that will allow third-party software engineers to create and distribute new iPhone applications. Although the SDK is available immediately, iPhone owners will have to wait for the June release of the iPhone&amp;#039;s 2.0 firmware update to enjoy its fruits. While Steve Jobs hasn&amp;#039;t had a free moment lately for a venting session on PM&amp;#039;s Tech Clinic couch, imagine for a second if the mobile gurus at Apple could bare their souls. Based on Jobs&amp;#039;s presentation today, we have some idea what they might tell us. And since this is a thought experiment, no doctor-patient confidentiality applies.  1. &amp;quot;We are going to do to the PSP and Nintendo DS what we did to Sony&amp;#039;s Walkman division.&amp;quot; What, did you think that accelerometer was included in the iPhone for spreadsheets? While the multitouch screen might allow game developers the unique opportunity to give players a keypad&amp;#039;s worth of simultaneous virtual buttons, there&amp;#039;s only so much pushing glass a seasoned gamer can handle. Thankfully, Apple made it clear today that the company has big plans for the accelerometer&amp;#039;s role in future games. One of the titles demonstrated at today&amp;#039;s presentation was Touch Fighter, which Apple claims was thrown together in just two weeks. In this Wing Commander-esque space shooter, you steer an on-screen spacecraft by physically turning the iPhone. Obviously, there&amp;#039;s no reason this couldn&amp;#039;t apply to any other type of game, with racing titles being the low-hanging fruit (the screen would act as its own steering wheel). Of course, Apple wasn&amp;#039;t the first company to translate hand movements into on-screen action\u2014this is a natural continuation of the runaway success of Nintendo&amp;#039;s Wii and DS. But no other phone has anything close to this built in. Meaning phone-based gaming is about to get a lot cooler than Bejeweled and Tetris.  2. &amp;quot;AT&amp;amp;amp;T should feel lucky to have us.&amp;quot; Soon, all iPhones will have one-push access to Apple&amp;#039;s new App Store\u2014the company&amp;#039;s officially-sanctioned clearinghouse for applications (as long as they aren&amp;#039;t pirated or porn.) What&amp;#039;s revolutionary here is the business model: 70 percent of a title&amp;#039;s cost goes to the developer, with the remaining 30 percent filling Apple&amp;#039;s coffers. That leaves absolutely nothing for AT&amp;amp;amp;T\u2014or any other carrier. For years, carriers have become increasingly reliant on the sale of games and application sales to bolster their revenue stream. Once again, Apple has proved itself especially adept at convincing carriers to give them sweetheart deals (they already receive a large cut of your iPhone&amp;#039;s monthly bill). The message: Apple believes carriers should feel privileged to be supporting the iPhone.  3. &amp;quot;Fine. You suits can have support\u2014as long as it doesn&amp;#039;t compromise anything else.&amp;quot; Apple is currently the No. 2 smartphone company in America, riding behind Research in Motion, which is best known for its BlackBerry devices. Most, if not all, of RiM&amp;#039;s lead comes from the magnet-like draw that businesspeople have developed toward its phones: Around the country, millions of IT-issued BlackBerrys fill beltclips. Apple clearly sees huge opportunities in what is, for them, a largely untapped market. That much was obvious in Jobs&amp;#039;s announcement today of the so-called Enterprise update, which will give iPhones corporate-friendly features such as touch email, increased security and VPN access. Will it be enough to take down King RiM? Not bloody likely\u2014at least until the iPhone gets some sort of physical keyboard. And if Apple&amp;#039;s design history is any indication, they&amp;#039;d rather settle for second place than include an unnecessary feature\u2014just for corporations, no less\u2014as aesthetically unpleasing as a series of plastic buttons.  4. &amp;quot;We never, ever have any plans of doing anything\u2014until the product is in your hands.&amp;quot; Steve Jobs is a master of revisionist history. Years ago, he predicted that nobody would ever want to watch video on a tiny media player, and boldly declared that he had absolutely no plans of putting such a feature on next-gen iPods. Within months, the first video iPods were available. Today, even the tiny iPod Nano can play everything from Feist to Lost. Likewise, it was only last year that Jobs showed off the iPhone&amp;#039;s ability to access Web-based applications such as Facebook through its Safari browser. He also said that, in the future, this would be the only way that third-party developers would be able to reach iPhone users. Of course, there&amp;#039;s a new SDK, and a new lesson with it: Take any attempts by Apple to downplay future options with a few large rocks of salt. Like a great politician, Steve Jobs knows that the less people can expect, the easier it is to deliver. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/a2683/4253512/>