No iPhone 3rd party apps? No problem.

Okay, I’ll bite. You are no doubt already reading a dozen blog posts about Apple’s WWDC and the various iPhone introductions. One bomb that Jobs firmly dropped was that while there will be 3rd party applications on the Jesus phone, there will be no SDK. That means you won’t be able to write native 3rd party applications for the iPhone, just web-based applications that you will access over the air.

Almost every blog and article mentioning this poo-poos the decision and laments the ability to really exploit the iPhone’s hardware and underlying operating system. Take, for instance, this quote from a recent Gizmodo post:

So no SDK == no access to iPhone’s cool frameworks == no revolutionary apps, no real new concepts coming from third-parties, no eye-candy available for anyone but Apple and no possibility for some really crazy games that will fully exploit the graphic and multi-touch power of the iPhone.

No big deal, I say.

What everyone seems to be missing (as did I, in this post when the iPhone was first announced), is that there is no killer application for the iPhone. Repeat after me. It is a phone. Sure, it is a “smart” phone, but in the end, it is a phone.

I have used a lot of Microsoft-based and Palm-powered smartphones, and I can tell you that there really is no killer application for these mobile devices that isn’t part of the base operating system that you get with, say, Windows Mobile 5. The core applications that make these things useful are the phone, email, and some random web browsing (maybe not even that). Not pictures, not navigation, not instant messaging, not Pocket Office, nope. None of that stuff. I like to make calls and answer emails. Those two operations are the core of the “business user” need that has driven the Blackberry market like wildfire.

Apple will do with the iPhone what it has done with almost every other product in their lineup — take what others do and do it way, way, better. The iPhone has phone, email, some web browsing, and a bunch of other little widgety things that will probably get used 10% of the time. As long as the thing does phone and email better than any other smartphone, it just might do pretty well. And it seems like those two parts of the iPhone are pretty compelling. But let’s think about comparing this versus the other smartphones out there more in-depth.

Apple might have a hard time breaking in where the Windows Mobile and Blackberries dominate — the business user. The installed base of Exchange Server and Blackberry Enterprise Server, and the sheer head start those devices have might make it a hard sell. I don’t know how well the iPhone will integrate into an Active Directory-based contacts list and email system, nor do I have a clue how IT-friendly it is in terms of servicing and synchronizing. Without a lot of Mac penetration where Blackberries seem to be, it might be an uphill battle for those dollars. Of course, CEOs and the like that really want these things will get them, but maybe they get tired of the lack of keyboard and the clunky integration with all their other CEO buddies. Also, most of the CEO-types are old dudes who like keyboards, and the iPhone soft keyboard looks so terrible. But the iPhone is the latest must-have gadget and seems to be such a better phone, so maybe that’ll work out. Either way, tough market.

How about versus the Palm Treo base? I think the iPhone might do okay here. For a bunch of Treo users, Exchange/BES integration isn’t a big deal. Email and Phone and Web are. Check, check, check, for the iPhone. Couple that with no compelling Palm Treo product launches since, say, the 650 or 700, and you have a user base hungry to look swanky against the literally dozens of HTC Windows Mobile products that have come and gone. The Palm user is one that is ready to move on from a dying platform. They all took a look at the Foleo and the Gandalf and said, “yep, we’re going Jesus phone”. The only holdbacks will be some Palm diehards that have a back catalog of Palm applications dating from the late 1990s. Oh well. Maybe there will be a web version of that fancy RPN calculator? Yeah, I thought so.

Okay, that covers “business” users. How about them teenagers? Well, anyone that has a Mac or iPod is going to want the iPhone without a doubt. The heavy Sidekick users might resist because their device has an actual keyboard that works, and once they use a soft keyboard, they just might put down the iPhone in disgust. Plus, the Sidekick does that flippy thing and has D’Wade pimping it.

In the end, the market for the iPhone is going to be biggest, first, in the same areas the more expensive iPods are. 18-35 year old males with disposable incomes and a gadget fetish, and perhaps spoiled teenagers that need the latest and greatest (don’t underestimate the sheer number of them). These people have the disposable income for a new phone all the time, and might not mind having to shell out the big bucks for a data plan.

Most importantly, and getting back to the origins of this post, they will not require 3rd party applications that tap into the power of the iPhone hardware. They will, however, want to use cool Web 2.0 applications like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, craigslist, etc. — and those will work just dandy through Safari. Nothing to download and install. Nothing to possibly make the device unstable. Nothing to worry about in terms of versions and compatibility. Not the worst thing to not offer an SDK (yet). And remember, you aren’t really missing out on any killer apps.

Repeat after me. “It’s a phone.” I know, I know, “but it’s an Apple phone,” you say. As long as it is a good phone first and a good email client second, it’ll be all good. It’s all part of the normal Apple product rollout — do only what they think you need, and do it well. And then, make sure to hold back just enough (say, an SDK, or 3G data) so they can get you to upgrade to the next model in about 12-18 months. Now how they do that in conjunction with a 2-year wireless contract…