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Is Safari a honeypot for the iPhone?

I love a good conspiracy theory as much as the next person. I came across the interesting notion that Apple chose to release the Safari for Windows beta to have the hacker community expose and document holes in the browser in advance of the iPhone release at the end of the month. Macenstein has a good theory on this. Sounds pretty plausible to me.
Written by Marc Orchant, Contributor

I love a good conspiracy theory as much as the next person. I came across the interesting notion that Apple chose to release the Safari for Windows beta to have the hacker community expose and document holes in the browser in advance of the iPhone release at the end of the month. Macenstein has a good theory on this. Sounds pretty plausible to me.

With the iPhone’s launch a mere 2 weeks away, this got me to thinking. The iPhone has a “full version” (minus Flash support, apparently) of Safari running on it. Apple has repeatedly said it does not want developers writing “real” apps for the iPhone due to security risks for cellular networks.

Is there a chance Apple is hoping that by releasing a beta of Safari for Windows, it can let the hacking community do its QC work for it?

Update: Oooh! Another conspiracy! At Hardware 2.0,  Adrian thinks Steve Jobs seeks to eliminate Firefox and be the "other white meat" in the browser wars. Far-fetched? Perhaps. But he makes a great case based on Jobs' recent WWDC keynote and is absolutely correct in his observation that nothing the Steve does is accidental or unintended.

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