iPhone gets 3rd party apps, Apple TV gets YouTube

While the biggest story out of D5 is certainly the Jobs/Gates meetup, there was no shortage of hot news tidbits on the Apple front. The biggest story is that after months of complaining from fans, Steve Jobs has all but confirmed that the iPhone will be open to third-party applications developers...eventually. "This is a very important trade-off between security and openness. We want both," Jobs told the Wall Street Journal's Mossberg on stage. "We've got good ideas, and sometime later this year, we can open it up to third-party apps..."

Meanwhile, on the Apple TV front, it looks like Apple's little set-top box is ready to grow up. The company has announced a new "build-to-order" option for the Apple TV, which will allow streaming video junkies to custom-build an Apple TV with up to 160GB of internal storage. This is a wise move indeed, as plenty of folks are already performing the upgrade surgery at home themselves.

Even better, the Apple TV is about to see a new feature: streaming YouTube videos. I've always maintained that devices like the Apple TV will have to do more than just stream iTunes content to your living room in order to get people to plunk down $300. "This is the first time users can easily browse, find and watch YouTube videos right from their living room couch, and it's really, really fun," said Steve Jobs in a press release. "YouTube is a worldwide sensation, and Apple TV is bringing it directly from the Internet onto the widescreen TV in your living room." This is exactly the sort of thing that the device needs and an encouraging step in the right direction. YouTube on Apple TV goes live in June and the entire catalog of YouTube videos will be available on the device by fall. My only question: how are you going to search through all of those videos without a keyboard?

For more on the iPhone announcement:
- check out this Engadget post
- and this wish list of third-party iPhone apps from Gizmodo

For more on the Apple TV announcement:
- see this press release