Would antivirus ruin the iPhone experience?

Antivirus software maker AVG has outlined plans to deliver malware protection for the iPhone by the end of 2010. Is it needed, and will it ruin the iPhone experience?

"I'd love to see it towards the end of next year," Smith said of an AVG product for iPhone OS. "Really, it's less about AV [and more to do with] protecting and stopping anything from getting on there, in real-time. [Malware creators] will use the Web to propagate on to these devices as much as they possibly can."

Hmmm, I'm not sure that anti-malware on the iPhone (or any cellphone for that matter) is a great idea. Overall I'm just not convinced that the protection/performance trade off is worth it. With closed products such as cellphone I think that vendor patching is a far better solution than having some scanner running continually.

Does anyone really feel they need malware protection on their cellphone?