Is Jobs just like the wizard behind the curtain in Apple-Oz-land?

Monday, Steve Jobs took center stage, a place that he seems quite comfortable in, and gave a cheering crowd of 5,000 developers at the WWDC07 a not quite close-up look at the platform for developers who want to create applications for the iPhone.

Not a platform and far less than an SDK — Jobs pointedly remarked that an SDK is not required — the development environment will allow any third party to create Web 2.0 applications using current Internet standards.

As Jobs demonstrated it, a widget can access and incorporate the iPhone’s built-in services inside a widget, including such services as placing a call, sending an e-mail, or displaying a location in Google Maps.

But my question is, is this really magic, or is it more like the Wizard of Oz standing behind the curtain making it look like magic? Only in this case, it is a Web server behind the curtain.

What I mean is, from where does the application actually execute? If it is a Web 2.0 application, then it is built on the server and accessed by the iPhone, but it is not an application residing on the iPhone. So what’s the big deal?

For me, this makes it far less magical. It is a given that on a server using Internet standards, you can write anything you want. Then you can run it on a cell phone as long as you are cognizant of the small device’s limitations.

Sure, you can access the services of the iPhone if you know how to talk to the application processor, the DSP (digital signal processing) chip, and the Wi-Fi chip inside the phone. Please call Intel for those details.

Writing applications for a small device, such as a cellular phone, with built-in Wi-Fi is a bit of an art and takes a great deal of technique.

Despite the fact that Jobs made it sound all so simple, I kind of think it isn’t as easy as it looks, which developers who are not used to designing for small devices will quickly discover.

My advice: Don’t promise your IT manager anything before you figure it all out.