I think the iPhone SDK is going to push me to finally learn Objective-C. I don’t know how much Apple’s perceived reluctance to fully open the development structure (certifying developers through a program, attempting to make the iTunes Store the only source of “legitimate” iPhone apps) is going to actually end up affecting the development community. After all, people have done damn well developing for the iPhone so far, even without an SDK. A book’s even coming out called iPhone Open Application Development, written by one of the main iPhone Dev Team hackers.

This thing is going to get bigger than Apple, and fast. But I can’t buy the idea that Apple doesn’t kind of want it that way. I think that the lessons of the old, closed-shop model of development that drove Apple nearly into the ground have been learned — popularity is good. Openness is good. People wanting desperately to program on/for your platform is good. OS X has become a nerd platform. Over the last few years, Apple computers have moved from being objects of developer derision to being objects of developer lust, and they’ve done that by embracing open standards, UNIX underpinnings, and all the other juicy tidbits that make developers swoon.

The chance to program for such a revolutionary platform as the iPhone is quite an enticement, and I’m betting that it’s probably going to end up minting quite a few new developers in the next months. I haven’t messed with anything related to C since college, and I never got very good at it, but the idea of making an iPhone app makes me want to bite the bullet and learn.