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As they say, you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool programmers, ever. And saying that the iPhone is open to outside apps because developers can build web apps for the iPhone's Safari browser is just plain insulting to the intelligence.
It might work for mainstream pundits who seem to be eating up the "outside apps for iPhone" headlines, but to try and pass it off to a bunch of developers like those gathered for Apple's annual developer conference seems like PR suicide. Indeed, many Mac developers are less than thrilled with the announcements at the WWDC -- particularly the iPhone.
The iPhone announcement has raised the ire of many that would generally qualify as Mac "fanboys." John Gruber over at Daring Fireball [pulls no punches on the iPhone][3] "outside apps" announcement:
>If all you have to offer is a shit sandwich, just say it. Don't tell us how lucky we are and that it's going to taste delicious.
On the brighter side, at least there is a full-fledged version of Safari on the iPhone. But many other mobile devices already have access to Opera mini and other mobile-optimized browsers so the iPhone may have a long road ahead of it as it competes for market share.
The [press release for the iPhone announcement][1] seems to indicate that webapps optimized for the iPhone might have some additional functionality, but as Erica Sadun over at O'Reilly [puts][2] it, "if all that the iPhone provides is integration along the lines of a mailto: link, I can't see that as a major step forward."
And since neither Safari nor the iPhone itself seem to offer offline storage capabilities, web apps aren't going to particularly useful to the power users who ordinarily are Apple's core early adopters.
[1]: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/06/11iphone.html "iPhone to Support Third-Party Web 2.0 Applications"
[2]: http://www.oreillynet.com/mac/blog/2007/06/on_the_iphone_and_no_developme.html "On the iPhone and no Development"
[3]: http://daringfireball.net/2007/06/wwdc_2007_keynote "WWDC 2007 Keynote News"
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