“You don’t want your phone to be an open platform,” meaning that anyone can write applications for it and potentially gum up the provider's network, says Jobs. “You need it to work when you need it to work. Cingular doesn’t want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up.”

The iphone suddenly doesn't sound half as cool as people have been saying. Furthermore, if Cingular is relying on Apple's application protection to keep their West Coast network from going down they can kiss it goodbye. Computers do things they aren't supposed to. Often by accident. Sometimes on purpose. If your infrastructure can't handle that, it won't work.