i think he's talking about the dev certificates. anybody can download the iphone sdk, but only a handful of people are getting the certs you need to install actual apps on actual iphones.
and even if you're accepted, it sounds pretty brutal. if you offer up your phone for having your own apps installed on it, it becomes more or less unusable for anything but development testing.
the early DOS days were indeed a gold rush. and no doubt, some people are going to get rich on early iphone apps. alas, i think that's about the end of the similarities. the pc platform was wide-open, but apple seems intent on maintaining tight-fisted control of the iphone space.
While, yes, I agree that Apple is keeping a bit of a stranglehold over the iPhone application market, that doesn't mean that there isn't a ton of opportunity for developers to succeed, provided they can color within the lines.
Now we just wait for the release of Pwnage 1.2 from the iPhone dev team (http://iphone-dev.org/). Hopefully this build is not as slow and buggy as the previous ones (I know it's beta).
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[ 5.9 ms ] story [ 26.5 ms ] threadand even if you're accepted, it sounds pretty brutal. if you offer up your phone for having your own apps installed on it, it becomes more or less unusable for anything but development testing.
http://www.tuaw.com/2008/04/23/apple-iphone-sdk-beta-4/