Less than a month after releasing an update that disabled all third party applications on the iPhone, Apple announced today that it will open up both the iPhone and the iPod Touch for outside software developers.

In a decision that marks a clear turnaround from Apple's previous desire to control the applications consumers have on their iPhones, [Apple chief executive Steve] Jobs said the company intends to release a software development kit in February that will let people outside the company to create iPhone and iPod touch applications.

"We are excited about creating a vibrant third-party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users," Jobs said in the posting.

Developers will no longer be restricted to creating web applications designed to run solely in Apple's Safari web browser. In addition, this clears the way for Firefox to offer a version of its upcoming mobile browser to compete with Safari on the iPhone.

[New York Times] Apple to Open iPhone to Developers

Firefox is currently developing a version of its open source web browser for mobile devices. There's no word yet regarding which platforms will be able to run the browser. As a Treo user, I'm personally hoping Palm will be in the mix. Blazer's limited functionality and slow performance has never cut it for me. I tried Opera Mini for awhile, but the installation was so unstable I eventually reverted back to Blazer. As a result, I hardly ever use my phone's web browsing features anymore. (It's been awhile since I tried Opera Mini, so perhaps it's time I tried out the latest version to see if works any better.)

The introduction of Mobile Firefox might be an important crossroad for the iPhone. Steve Jobs has kept Apple's phone locked down tight so far, to the point of using a service update to disable user's "unapproved" applications. If Firefox winds up having a richer feature set than the iPhone's version of Safari, the iPhone might not be able to maintain its bleeding edge reputation without allowing the folks at Mozilla offer a version of Firefox for the iPhone, too.

Firefox's mobile browser is expected to be released sometime next year.

[TechCrunch] Firefox coming to your phone

Speaking of art museums, the New York Times has a story today about museums that offer audio tours for guests via iPods and cellphones...

With more than 200 million cellphones in use on the planet, museum guide companies like Antenna Audio are creating new ways for museum visitors to access information at a point of interest. In a museum, cellphone content is generally accessed with a telephone number posted at a specific artwork. Visitors can access information about it by tapping in a code, like *278 (ART), on the keypad.

Then there is the iPod. Apple has sold 90 million iPod media players since their introduction in 2001, said Greg Joswiak, vice president for product marketing at iPod. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among others, offers a number of online “artcast” tours that iPod users can download before going to the museum. The museum also provides visitors with iPods preloaded with digital tours.

This idea was mentioned by Megan Fox of Simmons College last March at the 2006 Computers in Libraries conference. Shortly thereafter, one of UNLV's legal writing professors, Jean Whitney, created an MP3 audio tour of our library for her students about a year ago. The sight of students wandering our collection while wearing ear buds was very cool indeed.

[New York Times] IPods and Cellphones Join the Audio Tour