Last week, I wrote about the possibility of third-party Web browsers appearing on the iPhone when the AppStore launches next month. It seems that Apple beat me to it, including a few lines in their iPhone SDK agreement that may make this impossible, at least when it comes to plug-in support and rendering engines not based on Apple's own WebKit engine.

The SDK agreement reads as follows:

No interpreted code may be downloaded and used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple’s Published APIs and built-in interpreter(s) […] An Application may not itself install or launch other executable code by any means, including without limitation through the use of a plug-in architecture, calling other frameworks, other APIs or otherwise.

According to iPhone Atlas...

There exists considerable debate over what the aforementioned statement actually means, but one interpretation is that the agreement would not only prevent third-party applications’ usage plug-in implementations, but also disallow the use of HTML/JavaScript renderers that are not WebKit-based. That would make Firefox’s Gecko-based rendering engine a no-go.

If this is true, Apple is clearly attempting to limit the competition in more than just the browser arena. Further, this could be a problem for them down the road, should the Mozilla Foundation ask the United States Department of Justice, or the European Union, to take a look at the SDK agreement and weigh in on the matter.

While I understand Apple's desire (and their need) to limit the access that third-party applications have to the iPhone, and welcome a platform that is more stable than Windows Mobile for this very reason, I am naturally suspicious of any corporation's attempt to limit the products of its competition. Competing products are good for consumers, and for the tech industry in general, and corporations should expect nothing more than that their products will be chosen by consumes if those products are actually better. Competing products give the consumer more control over his or her own experience, and serve to push developers to create better products. If there is any doubt that this is true, one only needs to take a look at Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which, until version 7.0, had been all but forgotten by the company, left to stagnate while other browsers moved forward with new features and improvements. Microsoft's lock on the browser market was nearly absolute after pushing Netscape out, and the company paid little attention to the problems and limitations of its own product.

Apple needs to be open to other browsers being available for the iPhone and take it as a challenge to improve their own software. A little more democracy and a little less dictatorship will ensure that the iPhone is at the top of any smartphone list for a long time to come. Given that Google's Android OS is headed to market, Apple will not be alone as the only innovator in the smartphone space, and ensuring that their product is not limited by their own SDK agreement will be key.

If Apple limits the user to only one Web browser (its own) on its device, I think we can be fairly certain that a lawsuit will come from one of its competitors. Better to open the iPhone to third-party browsers now than spend time and money defending a position that may not survive the court room.