Linked List: August 11, 2008

Monday, 11 August 2008

Wall Street Journal Interview With Steve Jobs Regarding App Store ★

Nick Wingfield:

In the month since Apple opened an online software clearinghouse called the App Store, users have downloaded more than 60 million programs for the iPhone, Chief Executive Steve Jobs said in an interview at Apple’s headquarters. While most of those applications were free, Apple sold an average of $1 million a day in applications for a total of about $30 million in sales over the month, Mr. Jobs said.

Regarding the kill-switch feature for third-party apps:

Mr. Jobs confirmed such a capability exists, but argued that Apple needs it in case it inadvertently allows a malicious program — one that stole users’ personal data, for example — to be distributed to iPhones through the App Store. “Hopefully we never have to pull that lever, but we would be irresponsible not to have a lever like that to pull,” he says.

We still don’t know how that supposed kill-switch works, though. I’m pretty sure it is not related to the Core Location blacklist that was publicized last week.