Irresistible

A rumor is circulating that Apple is close to opening its iPhone to third party developers, reports Mac Rumors.

What level of access developers would get is unknown, but any sort of access would be huge.

Apple presently lets people create Javal-driven web-based apps, but nothing that can actually be added to the iPhone proper.

It would also reverse the company's recent door-slam on the few unofficial applications that had been developed already. The recent firmware update for the iPhone locked out all such applications.

Facebook has enjoyed a number of eager copycats, including LinkedIn and Yahoo, after opening its back-end doors to developers and receiving wide success.