iPhone will support 3rd party apps, eventually

During an interview at The Wall Street Journal's D Conference yesterday, Steve Jobs disclosed that although the iPhone will not support third party applications at its launch, the company is committed to making that possible by year-end. Jobs implied that his main concern over third party applications is security, but such issues should be ameliorated by 2008. If Jobs makes good on this promise, then one the biggest criticisms of the iPhone will be absolved. The lack of 3G support on the iPhone remains, however, and Jobs said over-the-air downloads on phones is nonsensical.

Here's a short blurb from GigaOM's partial transcript of the interview: The wireless industry is "spending a lot on 3G and people haven't voted with their pocket. I think the [mobile] Internet experience is bad. You get the baby Internet, mobile Internet, or something bizarre. We want to deliver the real Internet experience... [The] phone is not a great place to discover and browse large libraries. I think you have to sync it with your PC, anyway. Why not just buy [music] on a PC and sync it to your phone? People know how to buy music on computers."

For more on the iPhone's support for third party apps:
- read this article from CNET