iPhone SDK gives iTunes-rivals the cold shoulder

Back when Steve Jobs announced the iPhone SDK, he told excited developers that the only applications Apple wouldn’t be permitting through the AppStore were those illegal or pornographic. Now that some of the dust has settled – and those 100,000+ coders sitting down in front of the SDK! – questions are being asked about just how accurate that statement was. While it’s open-season for mobile entertainment software such as games, productive apps or messenger clients, developers behind services such as Rhapsody or Napster, who would rival Apple’s own iTunes store, are curious to know Steve Jobs stance on them creating programs for the iPhone.

“It’s an open question at this point how amenable Apple will be to offering products or applications that could conceivably interfere with its own iTunes revenue stream. The real interesting test case will be Amazon. Here’s a music vendor selling songs that are clearly compatible with the iPhone. Unlike with Rhapsody or Napster, there’s no DRM you need to make work” Ross Rubin, analyst, NPD Group