Outside developers get to tinker with iPhone software

Apple Inc. has opened its iPhone software to outside developers in a bid to make the gadget even more popular.

Apple previewed March 6 the iPhone 2.0 software, scheduled for release in June, and announced the immediate availability of a beta release to selected developers and enterprise customers. The iPhone 2.0 beta release includes both the iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK) as well as new enterprise features such as support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync to provide secure, over-the-air push email, contacts and calendars as well as remote wipe, and the addition of Cisco IPsec VPN for encrypted access to private corporate networks.

""We're excited about creating a vibrant third-party developer community with potentially thousands of native applications for iPhone and iPod Touch," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "iPhone's enterprise features combined with its revolutionary multitouch user interface and advanced software architecture provide the best user experience and the most advanced software platform ever for a mobile device."

iFund
Meanwhile, Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, joined Jobs to announce that his company started an "iFund" to finance entrepreneurs developing programs for the iPhone platform. Doerr is starting the iFund with $100 million for investments. "That should be enough to start about a dozen Amazons or even four Googles," the Agence France-Presse quoted Doerr saying.