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Earlier today AppleInsider posted photos of the banners hanging at San Francisco's Moscone Center in preparation for the Macworld Expo.

They feature a teasing phrase - "2008. There's something in the air."

Today Bob Cringely also posted an article on why Apple will buy Adobe.

There's something in the air.

Adobe AIR.

Will Apple announce an acquisition of Adobe? I don't know, but I'm betting that Steve Jobs will at a minimum announce the delivery of Adobe AIR support in not only the next iPhone firmware, but in the next Apple TV. I wrote about the argument for delivering Adobe AIR or an AIR-like platform on the iPhone back in October. It made sense then and it makes sense now.

Back to the potential acquisition - who doesn't love Cringely? He's always entertaining and thought provoking, but not right all that often (which is understandable because he dares to predict big and bold). But the idea of this acquisition makes a lot of sense on many levels.

Not to mention - can you imagine Steve Jobs' glee at sitting atop a triumvirate of Apple, Adobe, and Disney? That's a powerful combination.

The big takeaways from today's announcement of iPhone native SDK availability in February:

1. Partly this is a preemptive strike for the holiday season - remove a reason for some people not to buy, and take away the only real "down" side to the iPhone story in consumers minds post-launch. Instead turn it into another focus of desire for consumers - let the lust begin for the native apps just around the corner.

2. Give app developers the confidence to begin writing apps now on hacked iPhones, knowing that with a bit of tweaking they will be deployable on non-hacked devices when the SDK arrives.

3. Predictably, application signing will be part of the equation. Much depends on the signing model. The big questions - will compliance testing be required to get signed? what capabilities will be restricted?

4. The SDK release coincides roughly with the reported release date of the first GPS-enabled iPhones. Prediction: Apple is going to make 2008 the year location-based services go mainstream.

The actual announcement:

Third Party Applications on the iPhone

Let me just say it: We want native third party applications on the iPhone, and we plan to have an SDK in developers’ hands in February. We are excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users. With our revolutionary multi-touch interface, powerful hardware and advanced software architecture, we believe we have created the best mobile platform ever for developers.

It will take until February to release an SDK because we’re trying to do two diametrically opposed things at once—provide an advanced and open platform to developers while at the same time protect iPhone users from viruses, malware, privacy attacks, etc. This is no easy task. Some claim that viruses and malware are not a problem on mobile phones—this is simply not true. There have been serious viruses on other mobile phones already, including some that silently spread from phone to phone over the cell network. As our phones become more powerful, these malicious programs will become more dangerous. And since the iPhone is the most advanced phone ever, it will be a highly visible target.

Some companies are already taking action. Nokia, for example, is not allowing any applications to be loaded onto some of their newest phones unless they have a digital signature that can be traced back to a known developer. While this makes such a phone less than “totally open,” we believe it is a step in the right direction. We are working on an advanced system which will offer developers broad access to natively program the iPhone’s amazing software platform while at the same time protecting users from malicious programs.

We think a few months of patience now will be rewarded by many years of great third party applications running on safe and reliable iPhones.

Steve

P.S.: The SDK will also allow developers to create applications for iPod touch. [Oct 17, 2007]

Adobe's AIR platform has shown that the web development model is fundamentally capable of delivering applications every bit as rich as native platform apps. Hence the outcry over the idea of web applications as the primary development model for the iPhone is overblown. Yes, the current iPhone development environment sucks but it's important to keep in mind that we haven't seen the true power of this model.

So what will Apple do if they are serious about the web development platform?

First up, a JavaScript bridge into native device capabilities on the iPhone. Right now in terms of access to device functions via web technologies, the iPhone offers nothing beyond the microbrowsers on feature phones. Yes, the AJAX support enables a quantum leap in usability, but we need more.

Top of the list - "the basics"

• file access
• camera access
• location
• address book
• calendar

But beyond these now familiar mobile device capabilities, there is an opportunity for Apple to provide powerful APIs that would provide an unparalleled mobile development environment, web or otherwise:

• SQLite local store
• Access to iTunes account-based charging
• Event subscriptions with persistent ECMAScript object handlers
• timers
• calendar events
• location
• support for installable URI handlers

Key to app usability is that these capabilities should be provided through a user consent system which does not take away the user's choice to make use of device features with a given application, a la the restrictions in many J2ME runtimes:

On first load, present the list of "privacy affecting" services being requested by the application - and listen to what the user wants! Empower the user already - they bought the damn thing.

When can we expect such features? Who knows, but I would be very surprised if the first GPS-enabled iPhones, expected in Q1 2008, ship without at minimum a JavaScript bridge to location data following soon after.

Gut check: For anyone with development experience on J2ME, can you imagine going back to the underachiever that is the J2ME RMS storage API after being provided with a local SQL store?

The native app vs. web app argument is stale!

Jeff
Chief Software Architect, EQO

The mobile operators have made a huge mistake on the identity front. The one long-term point of value they have aside from being a bit pipe is the possession of validated identities tied to a mobile billing platform. But with their continuing efforts to maintain their walled gardens, they have passed on the opportunity to become the identity and billing providers of choice on the mobile.

Now there is another mobile player with this capability. Apple. Not only does the new iTunes wifi store not deliver music over the operator network, the billing is not enabled by the operator.

Oops.

An enlightened move by Apple would be to break the lock the operators have on billable mobile identities permanently wide open by giving every iTunes account an associated OpenID, and publishing an open payment API around OpenID identifiers. This would cause a few things to happen:

- a 100% uptake of OpenID within days by makers of iPhone apps
- a practical, simple billing mechanism for OpenID apps of all types
- overnight Apple could become the largest payment provider in the mobile space. Not just on the iPhone, but on any reasonably web capable phone owned by an iTunes user. Not just in the mobile space. Anyone with an iTunes account would be a payment-capable.

Will it happen?

Jeff
Chief Software Architect, EQO

As you may well know, the FCC is going to be auctioning off the 700MHz spectrum come January 2009. If you have not heard of this, you should really look into it seeing as it is one of the most important technology/communications issues of our era. Wired has a great FAQ on the subject.

This week, Business Week speculated that Apple is looking to get into the mix with other prospective bidders Google and AT&T. Why is this auction so significant? Ownership of the 700MHz spectrum would allow Google or Apple to have their own wireless network and compete directly with the incumbent carriers. This would blow the American wireless industry wide open and, I think, open the door for amazing innovation in the wireless space. I find it funny that Apple would be competing against their exclusive iPhone parter in AT&T, which really lends credibility to Jeff's theory that Apple bent AT&T right over.

Now when it comes to who I want to win the auction I was really pulling for Google to trump AT&T, but that was before I heard that Apple might also bid. Now I am torn between the two tech giants, how about you?

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

Jobs is known for being cheeky - but check this out, then imagine the cursing going on in the boardrooms of Apple's operator partners after today's launch of the iPod Touch:

• Jobs: “Wi-Fi, as you know, is not only faster than 2.5G, but it’s faster than any 3G network”.
• Song playing on the iPod Touch: "Cellphone's Dead - Beck"
• On the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store: "We're gonna do something else, too: we're gonna bring it to the iPhone"

What Apple has done is make the carrier networks look old and stale. They are saying, remember the iPhone? Of all the things you loved about it, none of them were enabled by your operator. Just the contract. Here's one without the contract.

And reading between the lines: Oh, but you want voice? Stay tuned.

Cellphone's dead indeed.

Blast from the recent past: "When asked about a give-and-take leading to the Apple-Cingular partnership, [Cingular CEO] Lurie said, "I'm not sure we gave anything." Later, he commented, "I think they bent a lot."

Jeff

From the Toronto Star via Engadget Mobile:

[RIM Co-CEO Balsillie] is also intensely critical of what appears to be an effort by Apple to wrest control of the customer experience in the consumer market. For example, the iPhone is being sold through Apple's own stores, instead of strictly through AT&T Inc., which signed an exclusive U.S. deal with the computer maker. The phone is free of AT&T's logo and software and is tied closely to Apple's iTunes music store, which is where subscribers will need to go to activate their phones and browse rate plans.

"It's a dangerous strategy," says Balsillie. "It's a tremendous amount of control. And the more control of the platform that goes out of the carrier, the more they shift into a commodity pipe."

This post could alternately be titled "Blackberry CEO Whispers Sweet Nothings in Operators Ears".

This is really about trying to drive a wedge between Apple and its current and potential mobile network partners. Of all the big mobile device manufacturers, RIM has the least to gain if the industry moves to a more open mobile market with weakened operators, and enjoys a very comfortable position in the current operator-dominated environment. Unlike most mobile device manufacturers, RIM derives a large chunk of their revenue from service subscriptions. They sell into the least price-sensitive segment of the mobile market - business and government users. They have gotten their current market position by providing internet services on networks with poor data capabilities.

But all of this is changing. RIM's centralized email relay infrastructure is becoming dated and their services like push email and calendaring are in danger of becoming commoditized by copycat devices and internet cloud services.

I love my Blackberry Pearl and it's a great device. But I expect I'll be even happier as an iPhone user when it arrives in Canada...

Jeff

Yesterday I wrote about my Nokia E61 and how much I like it. Well, Steve Jobs had to go and use my phone as a bad example (E62 actually, same phone w/out wifi and 3G) in his iPhone demo at Macworld 2007 this morning, check out the Engadget blog about it. Thanks Steve, now me and my E61 have a massive inferiority complex, rightly so mind you. I need an iPhone, it looks freaking cool. Cheers Apple, now to get EQO Mobile on one of those babies...