All of the third party software titles will be downloaded through iTunes. All recipient iPhones of each software offering will be known. If there is an important patch posted to the App Store; the next time each of those iPhones logs in to iTunes for synching, they will be prompted to download the upgrade.

Apple has gotten updates to software right. Not only to they get it right the first time for the most part, but also any addditional functionality that Apple wants to build out in future upgrades are rolled out with automatic software updating technology. I’m quite confident that Apple will makes this technology available to all software that is sold through the AppStore.

Apple will likely limit or discourage buggy software, even in initial release versions. Since the number of hardware devices is limited, it ought not be difficult to debug the software and be confident that good functional software on 1 device ought to work well on the entire platform. But any developer who subsequently wants to offer a free update or even a paid add-on module ought to be able to target their particular installed base quite precisely through the AppStore.

The AppStore will be a revolution in how software will be distributed going forward. I can imagine that Apple will eventually bring some of the AppStore innovation back to the mac platform in time.

I think the real problem developers have is that they can’t issue a patch easily. This upsets the whole “throw a release out there and patch it if there’s a problem” paradigm we’ve been in these last 20 years.

The reason for business enterprises to support the iPhone is because their employees want to use, and will be using iPhones. After all, it is the people of a company that are productive, not the application/device.