Apple Opens iPhone to Application Developers

The more popular the phone, the more third-party developers clamor for access. Research In Motion, for example, has more than 550 developers in its BlackBerry developers network, up from 240 last year, according to the company. Nokia, the largest cell-phone maker, says it has about 400.

The lack of third-party applications hasn't yet held back iPhone sales. In early September, Apple said it had sold its 1 millionth iPhone. According to some analysts, the pace of sales accelerated after the price cut.

But judging by the rash of iPhone hacking programs that proliferated on the Internet, consumers clearly want to run additional applications on the iPhone. Many have grown accustomed to having an ever-increasing array of applications on their phones, such as games, currency conversion calculators and stock market updates.

"The cell-phone market is like the PC market in that software and applications drive sales, not hardware alone," says Jack Gold, a telecom market analyst with J. Gold Associates. "Apple cannot possibly build all the applications that people want. By opening up the iPhone, they're going to bring in a whole group of folks that will make this device more relevant to more people."

Apple's about-face suggests that Jobs and his team are getting the point.

"We are excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users," wrote Jobs in his Web site post.