While making it easier to port iPhone developers isn't a bad idea, it's not a "checkmate" to the iPhone, since it would only capture X percent of those developers, and even if that X was magically 100%, I've never heard someone say, "I was going to get a Droid except they didn't have the shaken baby app."

You don't checkmate someone by mimicking them. You do it by being better: Better partnerships with low-cost carriers (T-Mobile) AND better coverage carriers (debatably Verizon), developing killer apps the iPhone can't have, and by finding and exploiting other partnerships or technology that Apple can't or won't make that have a unique selling proposition.