Major Apple iPhone announcements

A brilliant business strategy was detailed by Apple today. (video)

The $100 million iFund initiative is clearly a huge and important move from Apple. Somewhere out there, a gleam in someone's eye, is a killer app for he iPhone. It may not seem as if the iPhone needs one right now, but the danger for Apple is that someone will build it - for someone else's cell phone platform - in the future.

Therefore, the strategy goes, while the platform is white-hot, throw out some seed money that would keep it that way. $100 million is truly a drop in the bucket for Apple. Is this a better use of Apple's enormous cash horde than a stock-buyback (which some idiot analysts were demanding)? You betcha.

The press release for this is the usual PR hype, except that in this instance, the hype is roughly equivalent to the magnitude of the news. Developers would have gone after the iPhone market anyway, but with venture capital unleashed to cover (some or all) development costs, developers will quickly begin falling all over themselves to be first out of the gate. In fact, they already are doing so - Apple's developer site has gone down under the strain. Daring Fireball's John Gruber is correct - THIS IS A GOLD RUSH, for what will likely become the largest software development platform on the planet.

That is to say - this will be bigger than the installed base of Windows computers. Due to its magnitude, it's difficult for many to believe this big picture, but believe it you must. (Buy Apple on dips if you can, and ride it into the sunset.)

Paired with this was the news of Apple's plans to run the online store selling & installing the apps. This will presumably be done right from the iPhone - shop for the app, buy the app, install the app, all with a few clicks.

What Apple is telling the developer community is this: We'll finance your development. We'll build a market for your product. We'll even sell distribute it. All you need do is go and build something.