This is great news. What I especially respected was the fact that Apple is taking the time to try their best to ensure a safe computing platform, vs just letting any yoho write an application for the iPhone, which the current “jailbreak” nonsense does.
Do you really want to download some random application and expose all of your contact information to the application developer, or to some virus? I doubt it.
Thus, I am hoping that Apple requires digital signatures. I think the way this would work is that a developer would file paperwork with Apple which would grant them a key. That key would go into XCode somewhere and sign the application.
This would at least have communication between developers and Apple. Whether it would be one key per developer, or one key per application, I do not know.
Apparently, Leopard has digitally signed applications from Apple already and developers can sign their own applications.
This is nice, because if an application is modified, the OS can at least warn you about it (although I have no idea if Leopard does yet).
I feel it is a great sign to see Apple taking security seriously and not resting on their laurels.