In the world of mobile phone devices and smartphones, how to ensure that yours will be the market dominator and applications will only run on your phone if you allow it? You create the Apple iPhone.

 

Steve Jobs (News - Alert), Apple’s CEO, confirmed the existence of the “kill switch” capability after news of such a feature swarmed the industry. The Wall Street Journal reported Jobs’ admission at the bottom of a story about Apple’s (News - Alert) first month of sales at its App Store.

As Jonathan Skillings on CNet News so aptly described it, Apple iPhones do possess the ability to check for and even “defang” software that Apple designates as being unfit for the iPhone (News - Alert). While most applications would be those that are considered malicious to the iPhone and its users, such control allows Apple to designate any application unfit.

Jobs claimed that the intent of the capability is to ensure that a malicious program could not be inadvertently integrated into the platform and distributed to iPhones via the App Store. While this is a logical and credible reason, it is in the subsequent action taken that will demonstrate its actual purpose.

"Hopefully, we never have to pull that lever," Jobs said in the Wall Street Journal, "but we would be irresponsible not to have a lever like that to pull."

Skillings reported that an informed source at Apple spoke with John Gruber of Daring Fireball and confirmed the presence of a URL inside the iPhone’s Core Location API that downloads a blacklist of applications that Apple has determined to be malicious.

This URL had been discovered early last week by independent iPhone developer and author Jonathan Zdiarski. When he announced his discovery, the reaction was somewhat less than calm.

The problem with Jobs’ claim of the blacklist as being a security feature for the iPhone and the App Store is that such security is known throughout the industry to be weak. It is much more believable that this capability is in place so that Apple can control what goes on the iPhone and thus, what customers will be able to use.

 

For that matter, why shouldn’t Apple enjoy that kind of control? They make the arrangements with these providers to offer the apps on the iPhone – for a fee. If that fee isn’t paid or if the app is no longer compatible with more profitable applications, Apple should have the right to dictate what can and cannot be available on its own product. As consumers, we have the choice to either buy or not – it really is that simple.