[sp332]

Look I'm not claiming Steve Jobs is exactly unbiased :) But the "real" reason given in that article can't be right: Apple's stance appears driven by their business need to protect the iPhone platform against the threat of a cross-platform competitor.

Remember the first iPhone didn't have an app store! It had a full(ish)-featured web browser that people were expected to write "apps" for. Apple continues to encourage developers to write web apps for the iPhone. They can hardly be threatened by a feature they actively promote and enable.

[novalis]

I see your point but when the text was produced, the app store was already going at full steam. The app store locks in the consumer when there isn't another clear path to that sort of content. The sort of content they pushed out of the plat by referencing the lack of capacity to use "touch"... give me a break, stuff like that was repeated ad infinitum. That and the other stuff on there doesn't qualify as "real" either, does it.

To the downvoter, you are a pitiful fanboy.