Jobs on the iPhone being a closed system

Michael Gartenberg | January 12, 2007, 10:40 AM

Steven Levy points to his writeup on the iPhone and talks to Steve Jobs about the iPhone being a closed platform. According to Steven, Jobs said the following on the subject.

"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."

Really? What about other smartphones that run on Cingular's network (and that Cingular sells) like the Cingular 3125 or Blackjack, (Both are Windows Mobile phones) or the Treo 680 (based on Palm OS)? Those are all open platforms that anyone can develop applications for and any user can purchase and install those applications without any issues from the carrier.

Apparently Cingular isn't worried about any of those applications or platform bringing down their West Coast network.