Think you are adding 2+2 and getting 4.5 here.

The issue is that iPhone is Cocoa/Objc for apps and Webkit for rendering pages. You can't put .net, Java or XUL on there. And to be honest I think thats fair. Why should Firefox get a pass that other developers don't? Its not a case of Apple saying Mozilla can't put their apps on there, but rather they have the same limitations as any other iPhone developer. Apple dont want non-native code, non-native widgets using non-native frameworks. Its as simple as that really. Something like Camino would easily be able to get onto the AppStore IMO

Is this really any great surprise? Apple have pulled a remarkable smoke & mirrors trick for years, convincing everyone they were the Robin Hood to MS's Sherriff of Nottingham, fighting oppression of the big bad corporation that wanted to control everything we do. Now Apple have finally come out into the light themselves (out of that closed little world they inhabited), we're seeing on a daily basis that they're control freaks to an extent that Balmer would actually blush.

Apple's business model is "you sacrifice choice for stuff that works flawlessly" - and it seems to have served them well up to now Only problem is, once you start embracing the internet as a whole (an area where Apple are utter novices by their own admission - see MobileMe), that model runs into trouble, because you have to face the reality that your artificial product protection barriers are exposed as such, especially when your own products are just inferior (see MM again) or when potentially better options come along (Firefox) yet you shut them out by those artificial means. You begin to look... churlish? Controlling? Self-interested? Afraid of competition?

Raises an interesting question though - With the admission of that the Kill Switch exists, with stories, not just of the infamous IAmRich, of applications being pulled overnight from the App Store with no explanations to developers or customers/users, and with instances like this (it's only the beginning... mark my words, Apple know they're out of their depth with web apps and are going to be throwing up even more barriers)... short of jailbreaks, who REALLY owns the phone, you or Steve?

Can you imagine if nokia said they had a kill switch for your phone... There would be uproar !!!??!, so why not when apple says it has this big brother facility?

What would happen if Microsoft tried to do that on PDA's or MS Smartphones, or dare I say it PC's?

It just wouldn't happen. It's just dawning on people that Apple own everything with the IPhone and they completely call the shots...

European Commission anyone..?

It's not a kill switch for the phone, but for the apps... so the 'apple approved' status can be withdrawn if it's discovered to be naughty after approval. Many digital certificate systems have revocation list systems.