Apple iPhone announcement coming soon? Offline support for third-party web-apps?

Word on the street has it that Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) is going to drop another iPhone-bomb on us soon. Sources indicate that Apple will be giving the iPhone’s third-party development community a much needed boost in morale and accessibility.

We’re not sure if the announcement is going to be the rumored offline storage support for third-party web-apps or a full-fledged Apple-sanctioned iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK). Either would be good news for third-party apps on the iPhone, but a legit iPhone SDK would allow for more powerful software to be developed for the iPhone – no web-app programming limitations means more flexibility and power.

We recently found that Apple built a multi-page function into the SpringBoard homescreen application – which makes room for a host of new application icons, so it wouldn’t be a complete surprise if Apple decided to actually release an iPhone SDK. But, we all know how Steve Jobs likes to have complete control over the entire user experience, and a full iPhone SDK would allow developers to crank out iPhone applications faster than you can say “Hot damn!” – we’re not sure Stevie would be willing to let the development community run away with his precious iPhone. Still, Apple could give iPhone web-app developers the ability to create applications icons on the iPhone homescreen in addition to offline storage support – that would explain the extra room Apple made on the iPhone homescreen.

Either way, we can’t wait for Apple to drop the bomb on us. Hopefully sometime this week (as in the next couple days?). Stay tuned.

[Via: TidBITS]