• Wired, Tuesday, June 12, 2007 10:31 AM

Apple had two major announcements yesterday: Its Web browser Safari would soon be available for Windows, and Apple would be releasing a software development kit for the forthcoming iPhone. The latter was dubbed "a letdown to rival the final episode of "The Sopranos."

Part of the reason the iPhone announcement was so disappointing is the fact that it had so much potential to be cool. Alas, developers would only be able to write Web applications for the iPhone using the devices on the Safari browser. Apple is up to its old tricks. "We're a little disappointed," said Daniel Waylonis, a software engineer at Google. "It was not the announcement we were hoping for...it's a little disingenuous."

Why is this so bad? Web apps have been billed as the future of software, and Steve Jobs and co. want all out for the iPhone to be limited to its Web browser, which has a 5% market share. Free software advocates would argue that closed walls don't spur innovation. As Divergent Media's Mike Woodworth said: "It's not that I'm mad about it -- it was expected. It's just the way they went about it. It was so patronizing."

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