Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that his company is opening the iPhone to developers - in a manner of speaking. Developers will be able to create Web 2.0 applications that run in Safari, which for now is better than locking developers out completely. The news came out during Steve Jobs's keynote address at the World Wide Developers Conference on Monday.

Since the version of Safari that will be available on the iPhone when it ships on June 29 is the same as the one for Macs, that also means that the Web 2.0 apps developers concoct will also run on desktop machines. Apple also announced that the Safari Web browser will be available for Windows XP and Windows Vista, making it easier for cross-platform developers to test their iPhone applications.

"Developers and users alike are going to be very surprised and pleased at how great these applications look and work on iPhone," commented Mr. Jobs. "Our innovative approach, using Web 2.0-based standards, lets developers create amazing new applications while keeping the iPhone secure and reliable."

How well the iPhone's limited accessibility goes over with developers remains to be seen, but Apple did offer a compelling demonstration that showed an iPhone locating a contact in Address Book, looking up a related contact, and then performing a Google Maps search.

Developer accessibility and iPhone security seem to be at odds for now. Hopefully Apple has found an acceptable compromise that will work well for both sides.