Ever since Apple released the most recent iPhone software - which deletes all 3rd party apps on hacked iPhones - the blogosphere has been in an uproar. In fact, (here is a shameless corporate plug) according to our data, iPhone sentiment is currently down 30 percent compared to last week.

So, has Jobs finally blown it? Despite what some hackers may have you believe, it’s probably not that big of a deal, albeit still bad form on Apple’s part. I mean, keeping hackers from adding their own apps to the iPhone is akin to an Orangutan taking out a restraining order against Primate Legend Jane Goodall.

While the iPhone is attracting plenty of early adopters from Geek Nation, if this device is going to become truly successful it needs to attract the same mainstream crowd that has embraced the iPod. Really, when was the last time you heard a major outcry over not being able to load third-party software onto the iPod?

Still, Gizmodo is giving the iPhone the thumbs down because they think 3rd party apps are important:

the Navizon GPS app, a hack, was downloaded 80k times. That’s almost 10 percent of all iPhone users, who we know to have been using installer.app, likely the smartest of all iPhone users.

This is a good point, but it’s still, its just 10 percent of iPhone early adopters. As more conventional users buy iPhones, the number using third-party apps will surely decrease, and the lack of 3rd party apps will not deter them, which Gizmodo freely admits.

By the way, the most recent software update for the iPhone just got hacked. Looks like Steve Jobs was only able to set the hackers back a week and a half.

Tags: Analyzing Consumer Generated Media, Mass Media/Culture //