The framework is expected to roll in the fall. As TechCrunch points out, Facebook's iPhone SDK indicates that mobile is a big part of their vision—so expect to see a lot more Facebook on your phone (and other gear) in the near future. Hope you're into oversharing! [TechCrunch]

"There is a huge shortage of iPhone developers. Good thing there are books and classes to get new ones up to speed. Oh right: FUCKING NDA." More seriously, he points out that the NDA, unless lifted, threatens dev conferences like iPhoneDevCamp 2, where they'd get together to obviously talk about programming. The apps are out there, it's silly they still can't they talk about creating them. [Fucking NDA via TUAW]

Developers can’t touch or enhance iTunes or iPod functionality in any way, shape or form—they can’t even access your music directory, meaning you better like the way the iPod button works just the way it is. Don't expect any apps to use your wonderfully curated music library either.
Casualties: Instinctiv Shuffle, a smart shuffle application that learns your skipping behavior to figure what you actually wanna hear next. Tap Tap Revolution became the watered-down Tap Tap Revenge.

No processes can run in the background—apps have to completely quit when exited, completely contained in their little sandbox.
Casualties: IM is a popular example, but Apple’s upcoming push notifications will probably make them a moot rallying point. It also means that third-party copy-and-paste solutions won’t work, since you can’t move the text to another application. Also impossible is a fantasy app of ours, TrippWire, that would record phone conversations (all legal considerations aside).

Devs can't integrate apps or functions into the OS. Third-party apps will always be second-class citizens, and can't significantly alter iPhone functions, including accessing the calendar or SMS messaging or adding any content to the otherwise useless lock screen that appears when you wake up the phone.
Casualites: Intelliborn’s Mario Ciabarra lamented to us that the SDK actually doesn’t give you all the same APIs and tools as Apple, and is missing a whole bunch of critical ones that’d let you add content to the lock screen, access calendar events or mail, or change the way the iPhone responds to events, meaning there’s no way for him to build his app Intelliscreen (above) using the SDK. Instinctiv CEO Justin Smithline also told us that you simply "can't create a well-integrated app," like Instinctiv Shuffle. This set of restrictions "flies in the face" of Apple's own philosophy of the creating beautiful software with the best possible user experience, says Smithline.

Pirated games, movies or whatever are a no-no in the App Store, obviously.
Casualties: NES.app, or any emulator, really, dooming us to bloated, over-priced renditions of Tetris by videogame mega-publishers. Also off limits, a dedicated video streaming app for something like the old Stage6 or QuickSilverScreen, which traffics in content that’s, um, not legally spotless, to say the least.

A bit different than the piracy concern, apps using copyrights, trademarks or intellectual property of a major company are sticky, and the App Store will steer clear of them if they're not developed by the company itself.
Casualties: Apps like TiVoRemote would have to be developed by TiVo or else they'd have dicey prospects, at best. Basically anything involving a company’s intellectual property or trademarks from anyone but the company themselves. An app that'll stream movies from your Netflix "Watch Instantly" account by anybody but Netflix would be another obvious foul.

Devs don't have deep access to the hardware. Jonathan Zdziarski, creator of NES.app and author of a few iPhone books, told us "much of the lower-level functionality has been hidden" in the SDK so "if your application is going to meet the necessarily political requirements, these more powerful features are off-limits."
Casualties: Stuff like Camera Pro, which gives you a ridiculous amount of control over the camera, would have a hard time complying with SDK rules. More than that, Zdziarski says, Apple has "privatized" the CoreSurface framework, which is "making it very difficult for developers to write their own movie players, 2D games, and similar kinds of renderings," especially with performance approaching passable.

Apple's app review process is a complete mystery to developers and takes forever, which can affect app quality and horribly delays app updates.
Casualties: Aurora Feint's developers revealed to us, "How the whole review process [for applications] goes is unknown to us," and that Apple doesn't even tell developers how many times their app is downloaded—they’ve gotta figure it out by the size of the check or have the app report back. NetNewsWire's Brent Simmons related the cloak-and-dagger headaches to Wired, telling them that developers are "not supposed to discuss actually programming on the iPhone with anybody—even though that would raise the quality of the apps." Between July 11 and July 17, Simmons pumped out five updates to its application and none of them had showed up by the 17th.

Apple limits app testing to five devices, so there is basically is no beta testing.
Casualties: Us. We’re the beta testers. Aurora Feint’s developers told us that for app testing, “Apple requires special signing to be done that binds each app to a specific device for debugging purposes,” and it’s limited to five, so they "definitely had some people camping out in our offices" to test. Twitterific creator Craig Hockenberry notes that the iPhone app's crash report come to a dev in a form barely more comprehensible than Swahili, on top of lacking info about what's going on in the phone outside their app. And then, if you do have a fix, there's no way to test it, other than to release it out into the wild through the App Store, "the developer equivalent of playing Russian roulette."

On the upside, Apple appears to be launching a beta testing program soon that'll let devs test apps on up to 100 devices, which jibes with what Tapulous CEO Bart Decrem alluded to in a conversation with us. Hopefully it does roll out in the next couple days, as expected. But even then, putting beta software on a device will require the iPhone or iPod serial number, and will still have to snagged through the App Store.

Apple's number one priority is Apple.
Casualties: Basically anything that threatens any of the iPhone’s core functions or key profit centers. Opera told us they aren't developing for the iPhone because the SDK doesn't allow apps "that interpret code, which is essentially what the browser does." Mozilla CEO John Lilly is more acidic in this month’s Wired saying, “Apple makes it too hard” but they’re using “a business argument masquerading as a technological” one. Any formats not supported by Apple essentially don’t exist. AT&T has implied to us that it’s Apple that’s not allowing laptop tethering, though there’s obviously network considerations for the carrier, so we're reasonably, but not totally, sure. The NY Times makes it clear that distributors of free music or video will have it tough too, so don’t expect a MyWaves or a Hulu app until the rules get clearer. Steve Jobs told the NYT that this does represent a competitive threat. "We will compete” with developers’ apps, he said blatantly.

As anyone running the 2.0 software knows, there are definite stability issues, lending a lot of credence to Apple's sandbox for applications—could you imagine it being more unstable? On the other hand, the massive anticipation for the Pwnage 2.0 tool, the vast universe of applications we’re missing out on—not just pirated goodies, but honest-to-God mission-critical wares—shows the SDK clearly doesn't provide everything we need it to. And it might never. But the black market app economy can and does fill the void. Apple might seek to shut it down, but the iPhone's two-class app economy may prove to be its greatest strength.

You're proud of the work you've put into your iPhone SDK application. Show us what you did. Email your entry to tips@gizmodo.com with the subject "iPhone SDK App Contest: Name of App" with the name of your app there. Each entry should include screenshots (as many as it takes to properly illustrate your program) as well as a 1 paragraph description telling us what it's all about. We'll showcase the best ones here for the world to gawk at.

We also know that there are tons of very cool applications such as Sling that might not even be approved by Apple as an official SDK app. That's why we're taking entrants for unofficial (jailbroken) apps as well. Send those in to tips@gizmodo.com with the subject "iPhone Unofficial App Contest: Name of App". Essentially, we'll be getting a weird kinda sorta head-to-head that pits bigger name companies/development teams against hackers.

He believes that Apple is only "trying to protect itself" (from litigation presumably) so the verbiage in the SDK would not be an obstacle. I'm no lawyer, but the clause in the SDK seems pretty air tight to me, so I would take what was said in this interview with a grain of salt. Still, you have to think that developing for the iPhone represents a golden opportunity—so if there is a way, I'm sure someone will find it. [Mac Generation - translated]

This fifth beta release of the iPhone SDK includes a complete set of tools, compilers, frameworks, and documentation for creating iPhone OS applications. These tools include the Xcode IDE, and the Instruments analysis tool, among many others. With this software you can develop applications that run on iPhone and iPod touch using the included iPhone Simulator.

[Apple]

On top of Office apps, TellMe, which Microsoft picked up last year, does voice recognition software, mostly for Windows Mobile, but their general manager said that they're "absolutely going to get a version out there as soon as we can, get TellMe out there on the iPhone." So yes, Microsoft plans to be all over your iPhone. [Fortune via AppleInsider]

[Editor's note: The iPhone SDK limits what applications can do, and doesn't provide with a plug-in architecture for Safari, which is an application that Apple wants to keep as lean and stable as possible. There are, however, many possibilities open that could make this happen.

First, perhaps the most unlikely, Apple could provide Adobe with the framework they need to do a Safari plug-in. Even while Apple doesn't want to develop or license Flash from Adobe, they could be happy to enable the possibility. It won't be the first time that Apple has given Adobe this kind of special treatment: in the past, the Cupertino company had provided with special code to accomodate the migration of Photoshop into Mac OS X, and one could argue that Flash on the Internet is as important as Photoshop on the Mac.

The other possibility—which could be closer to reality—is that Flash in the iPhone could be a stand-alone player, just like Quicktime is now: a player that could be launched when you click on Flash content in Safari. While it may not sound perfect, as some Flash content works alongside HTML, this will easily put the majority of Flash content in the hands of iPhone users. And instead of having to work within the limitations of Safari, the player will fully enjoy the possibilities of running stand-alone, with a dedicated interface, and full access to the the hardware, running at full screen.

This last option will not require any major changes on Apple's part. The acknowledgement of Flash and Shockwave content in pages will be enough, adding a play button over it to launch the player which will grab these resources, being video or fully interactive applications. —Jesús Díaz] [WSJ]

Whats new? Visible changes are:

• Exchange Support
• Appstore
• Parental Controls
• SDK Support
• Calculator is more advanced
• CISCO VPN support
• Mail mass deletion

Features not included:

• There is no spotlight icon

[Gizmodo's iPhone Hacking Coverage and Hacint0sh]

iPhone SDK Downloads Top 100,000

CUPERTINO, California—March 12, 2008—Apple® today announced that more than 100,000 iPhone™ developers have downloaded the beta iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK) in the first four days since its launch on March 6. The iPhone SDK provides developers with the same rich set of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and tools that Apple uses to create its native applications for iPhone and iPod® touch.

"Developer reaction to the iPhone SDK has been incredible with more than 100,000 downloads in the first four days," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "Also, over one million people have watched the launch video on Apple.com, further demonstrating the incredible interest developers have in creating applications for the iPhone."

Apple also previewed the new App Store, a breakthrough way for developers to wirelessly deliver their applications to every iPhone and iPod touch user. Developers set the price for their applications—including free—and retain 70 percent of all sales revenues.

Leading developers such as AOL, Electronic Arts, Epocrates, salesforce.com and Sega have already demonstrated amazing applications using the SDK, and developer response continues to be phenomenal with more developers embracing the platform.

"The iPhone SDK gives us the tools we need to create powerful iPhone applications and is an important part of our overall mobile strategy," said Rick Jensen, senior vice president, Small Business Group at Intuit. "We're excited that the iPhone expands the ways our customers can solve key financial tasks wherever they might be."

"We're very excited about Apple's new SDK and reaching every iPhone user through the new App Store," said Scott Rubin, vice president, Sales and Marketing, Namco Networks. "We can't wait to show off great new versions of arcade classics like PAC-MAN and Galaga that use the revolutionary features of the iPhone and iPod touch."

"Apple's tools have provided our development team the flexibility to make the SuitePhone application richer and deeper," said Luke Braud, vice president, Software Development, NetSuite. "NetSuite is excited at the opportunity to give every iPhone customer access to their critical business data anytime, anywhere."

"Apple's become an important mobile game platform with the iPhone SDK," said Jason Kapalka, co-founder and Chief Creative Officer, PopCap. "The new SDK gives us the tools to innovate and reinvent games like Bejeweled, Zuma and Peggle. With the new App Store we can reach every iPhone and iPod touch user on the planet."

"Seventy percent of the retail price is hands-down the best deal out there in mobile. It's simple and motivating for developers," said Wayne B. Yurtin, president and CEO, Rocket Mobile, Inc. "We can't wait to get our first iPhone applications on the revolutionary App Store."

"Six Apart pioneered the mobile blogging experience with an iPhone-optimized blog service," said Chris Alden, CEO, Six Apart. "We're taking it to the next level with our native iPhone application for TypePad that's already in development."

"The iPhone is the mobile platform game developers have been dreaming of," said Scott Zerby, vice president, THQ Wireless. "We're looking at how we can use the iPhone's innovative user interface to create new game experiences for our big brand entertainment partners that consumers love."

Pricing & Availability
The free beta iPhone SDK is available immediately worldwide and can be downloaded at developer.apple.com/iphone/program. The iPhone Developer Program will initially be available in the US and will expand to other countries in the coming months. A QuickTime® video of the iPhone roadmap event is available to view at www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/iphoneroadmap.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

pwned firmware means it's custom [firmware], you can have it install anything you would ever want :-) Pwned works with some magic, it will be hard to close but nothing is impossible (from Apple) with a mindtwist. But first, we will enjoy :)

They told us that this is all part of their previous Pwnage project, which instead of trying to hack into the iPhone, directly patches the firmware itself to both unlock it, so you can use the iPhone with any carrier you want, and allow you to install any applications you want. You can see how it works here:

According to the Dev Team, the custom 2.0 firmware (technically, 1.2.0,) is now up and running without problems in many of their iPhones, running unsigned applications without a single problem. However, current Installer.app applications need to be changed: "they changed lots of the API, a lot. We will see how much has to be changed to the Toolchain [the previous development tool for iPhone independent developers] to still work after 2.0."

The best news, however, is this: "the hacked 1.2 firmware works with anything. AT&T and others, it's pwned. And Apple will not really be able to patch it this time... somehow :-)"

I'm flabbergasted. As Han Solo would say, "that's one in a million, kid!" Once again.

The cool thing here is that Dev Team told us that this is 1) a true unlock and 2) Apple will have a very difficult time closing this hole. That's the news, not just jailbreak—in fact, it's not even jailbreak in the classic sense. It's built-in the hacked firmware, which allows for installation of any application, unsigned or "Apple Approved"

In other words, true carrier and applications independence. And for a long time.

Note: as you can see, the Dev Team is still working hard in making the iPhone a completely open, carrier-independent platform. If you want to help them, please send a Paypal donation to iphone.devteam@gmail.com or join them at hackint0sh.org.

• Apple Reveals iPhone SDK
• iPhone Getting Multitouch Games Including Spore and Super Monkey Ball
• AIM Client for iPhone, At Long Last
• Apple to Allow VoIP Over WiFi
• Push E-mail and Calendars, Activesync and Exchange Support Coming to iPhone
• iPhone SDK Available Today for Free, $99 to Publish Your App

First, we already know that apps running in the background as a process is possible on the iPhone. The iPod app, SMS app, and various other apps all run in the background now and continue running no matter where you go in the phone. Also, user-made Installer.app apps like Apollo (an IM client) already run in the background just fine. So why did Apple make this limitation that all apps have to quit whenever the user switches out? Memory management. From Apple's Human Interface Guidelines for the iPhone:

Apple has no idea what combination of applications you could possibly install on your phone, and they can't control it. If you were to install two apps that took up loads of the iPhone's memory (we're talking RAM), and they both ran in the background, it would slow down the phone's other, more important tasks such as calling or iPodding. If this were the case, Apple would be blamed for making a slow or non-responsive phone even when it's not actually Apple's fault. This is exactly the thing that goes on in Windows Mobile devices. It's fine when you're just running normal, natively-installed apps, but when you get to multi-tasking with your own installed programs, the phone becomes sluggish and everyone curses Microsoft. Apple wants none of this.

So the implication to you, the end-user, is that you can't have apps running in the background, constantly checking the internet. This means no RSS reader that's always up-to-date and no IM apps that always sit in the background, listening for messages. If you're wondering Exchange's push email and calendars are going to work in this scheme, it'll be integrated into Apple's first-party Mail system, which can be allowed to run in the background.

But in the end, it's only a small portion of apps that are really affected by this rule. Games or utilities can save their app status to disk often so that you can resume where you left off when you start it back up. But until the iPhone allows SDK-applications to run in the background, you're probably better off using a web-based chat application in Safari (which already has permission to). [Tech Crunch]

• They like the idea of being in the iPhone with Silverlight instead of Flash: "Silverlight for the iPhone is of course interesting," he said. "I can't say there's been extensive discussion with Guy's old boss [Steve Jobs]."

• Far from being non-profit, he accused Apple to take a too-large slice off the developer: "grabbing 30 percent of every bit of revenue, it's a good business if you can make it."

• This model may limit the royalty free distribution of Silverlight: He failed to notice that 30% of zero dollars is zero dollars.

• The Exchange connection was not a surprise for Microsoft: "We've licensed ActiveSync for a while. That's been an option that's been available to Apple. It was certainly an option we knew Apple might take advantage of."

• The scream reprisal is not a joke, as this video shows.

On his defense, someone asked him to do it. Actually, forget about the defense. No wonder Bill is divorcing him. [Georg Holzer via ISS via Cnet]

• Beta only with final coming at WWDC?
True - Today's SDK announcement was beta, and though it's available today to anyone who wants to try it out. They can even run the iPhone Simulator on their Mac. The iPhone 2.0 software isn't going to be out until June at all, unless you happen to be a "selected developer or enterprise customer."

• Free through Apple Developer Connection?
Not exactly - It's a free beta for anyone, but Apple launched the iPhone Developer Program which will charge developers $99 per year for the right to publicly release iPhone apps, and distribute them via the new App Store.

• Mac OS only (because of XCode)?
Yes... and no - The SDK runs mainly on the iPhone itself, with a very cool new Cocoa Touch multi-touch interface. There's a debugger and an iPhone simulator that run only on the Mac, but theoretically you can develop without either Mac or PC. (OK, that sounds like a dodge: No, nothing Jobs mentioned today works with Windows.)

• Camera access?
Yes - During the SDK briefing, they said "Image picker will allow you to grab images from the camera/iphone library."

• EDGE and Wi-Fi for data?
Yes - Among the Core Services are Net Services and Networking options, as well as something called "Core Location," which will let developers create "location-aware" apps.

• Bluetooth 2.0 open?
No - Sorry we don't have more of a backstory there.

• Flash support?
No - Jobs' preemptive trash-talk stuck.

• Dock connector for accessories blocked?
No That is to say, "Yes, it is blocked" - We're being told that dev for docks is not available at this time. Fingers crossed for the future!

• iTunes as application hub/Apple as app picker?
Yes, sorta - There's an iTunesy App Store which can be used both over-the-air on the iPhone (or iPod touch) itself, or sideloaded via a Mac or presumably a PC, via iTunes.

• Unfettered freeware?
No - Here's one for the smashing block: Free software will be available, but only through the App Store, where programs will be edited for content.

[Apple iPhone SDK Launch on Giz]

Apple Announces iPhone 2.0 Software Beta Includes SDK & Built-in Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync

CUPERTINO, Calif., March 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple(R) today previewed its iPhone(TM) 2.0 software, scheduled for release this June, and announced the immediate availability of a beta release of the software to selected developers and enterprise customers. The iPhone 2.0 beta release includes both the iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK) as well as new enterprise features such as support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync to provide secure, over-the-air push email, contacts and calendars as well as remote wipe, and the addition of Cisco IPsec VPN for encrypted access to private corporate networks.

"We're excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community with potentially thousands of native applications for iPhone and iPod touch," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "iPhone's enterprise features combined with its revolutionary Multi-Touch user interface and advanced software architecture provide the best user experience and the most advanced software platform ever for a mobile device."

The iPhone SDK provides developers with a rich set of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and tools to create innovative applications for iPhone and iPod(R) touch. Starting today, anyone can download the beta iPhone SDK for free and run the iPhone Simulator on their Mac(R). Apple today also introduced its new iPhone Developer Program, giving developers everything they need to create native applications, and the new App Store, a breakthrough way for developers to wirelessly deliver their applications to iPhone and iPod touch users.

With the iPhone SDK, third party developers will be able to build native applications for the iPhone with a rich set of APIs, including programming interfaces for Core OS, Core Services, Media and Cocoa Touch technologies. The iPhone SDK will allow developers to create amazing applications that leverage the iPhone's groundbreaking Multi-Touch(TM) user interface, animation technology, large storage, built-in three-axis accelerometer and geographical location technology to deliver truly innovative mobile applications.

Apple has licensed Exchange ActiveSync from Microsoft and is building it right into the iPhone, so that iPhone will connect out-of-the-box to Microsoft Exchange Servers 2003 and 2007 for secure over-the-air push email, contacts, calendars and global address lists. Built-in Exchange ActiveSync support also enables security features such as remote wipe, password policies and auto-discovery. The iPhone 2.0 software supports Cisco IPsec VPN to ensure the highest level of IP-based encryption available for transmission of sensitive corporate data, as well as the ability to authenticate using digital certificates or password-based, multi-factor authentication. The addition of WPA2 Enterprise with 802.1x authentication enables enterprise customers to deploy iPhone and iPod touch with the latest standards for protection of Wi-Fi networks.

The iPhone 2.0 software provides a configuration utility that allows IT administrators to easily and quickly set up many iPhones, including password policies, VPN setting, installing certificates, email server settings and more. Once the configuration is defined it can be easily and securely delivered via web link or email to the user. To install, all the user has to do is authenticate with a user ID or password, download the configuration and tap install. Once installed, the user will have access to all their corporate IT services.

The iPhone 2.0 software release will contain the App Store, a new application that lets users browse, search, purchase and wirelessly download third party applications directly onto their iPhone or iPod touch. The App Store enables developers to reach every iPhone and iPod touch user. Developers set the price for their applications — including free — and retain 70 percent of all sales revenues. Users can download free applications at no charge to either the user or developer, or purchase priced applications with just one click. Enterprise customers will be able to create a secure, private page on the App Store accessible only by their employees. Apple will cover all credit card, web hosting, infrastructure and DRM costs associated with offering applications on the App Store. Third party iPhone and iPod touch applications must be approved by Apple and will be available exclusively through the App Store.

The iPhone SDK provides a reliable, fast and secure way to create innovative applications for the iPhone and iPod touch. In addition to the rich set of iPhone OS APIs, the iPhone SDK also provides advanced tools for creating native iPhone and iPod touch applications including: Xcode(R) for source code editing, project management and graphical debugging; Interface Builder with drag and drop interface creation and live preview; Instruments to monitor and optimize iPhone application performance in real time; and the iPhone Simulator to run and debug applications.

During the beta iPhone SDK program, a limited number of developers will be accepted into Apple's new iPhone Developer Program and offered the ability to get code onto iPhones for testing. The Standard Program costs $99 (US) per year and gives members an iPhone SDK and development tools; access to pre-release iPhone software; technical support; the ability to get code onto iPhones for testing; and distribution of applications via the new App Store. The Enterprise Program costs $299 (US) per year.

In addition to these new iPhone network and security features, the beta iPhone 2.0 software provides several new Mail features such as the ability to view PowerPoint attachments, in addition to Word and Excel, as well as the ability to mass delete and move email messages.

Pricing & Availability

Apple plans to release the final iPhone 2.0 software, including the iPhone SDK and new enterprise features, as a free software update for all iPhone customers by the end of June. Third party applications created for the iPhone will also run on the iPod touch, and iPod touch users will be required to purchase a software update to run these applications. The free beta iPhone SDK is available immediately worldwide and can be downloaded at developer.apple.com/iphone/program. The iPhone Developer Program will initially be available in the US and will expand to other countries in the coming months. Apple is accepting applications beginning today from enterprise customers who would like to join the private iPhone Enterprise Beta Program (http://www.apple.com/iphone/enterprise).

In addition to sweet enterprise support including push e-mail and even sweeter new games (SPORE!!), Jobs revealed the innards of the dev kit.

• Apple combined mouse and keyboard Cocoa with our multitouch knowledge to build Cocoa touch for the iPhone SDK.

• Core OS has the OS X Kernel, Lib System, BSD TCP/IP, Sockets, Security, Power Mgmt, Keychain, Certificates, File System, Bonjour

• Took everything we knew about creating stuff with Cocoa and everything about a touch API for iPhone to build Cocoa Touch

• Cocoa is great, but based on mouse & keyboard input

• Used all of the above (except Cocoa) for iPhone OS

• Cocoa, Media, Core Services, CoreOS

• Has all audio/video capabilities: Core Audio, OpenAL, Audio Mixing, Audio Recording, Video Playback, JPG/PNG/TIFF, PDF, Quartz (2D) Core Animation, OpenGL ES

• "The Media layer is everything you'd expect from Apple"

• Also include SQLite, Core Location

• Cocoa Touch: Multi-Touch events/controls, Accelerometer, View Hierarchy, Localization, Alerts, Web View, People Picker, Image Picker, Camera

• Everything is hardware accelerated for performance and long battery life

• OpenGL ES is the embedded version of OpenGL, "absolute screamer" on the iPhone

• Started there and enhanced it to work with the iPhone

• Xcode is our dev environment and what we use to build everything for Mac OS X

• "This is the architecture of the iPhone OS. It is the most advanced platform out there for mobile devices. We are YEARS ahead of any other platform for mobile devices."

• Integrated documentation, "Shipping a lot of great documentation with the SDK, and you can access it within the software"

• Project management, integrated source control

• Xcode will now code complete for the APIs in the SDK

• Can connect to iPhone like the remote debugger and see live performance of your app on your Mac from the iPhone

• Instruments: "Comprehensive suite of performance analysis tools"

• Do code connections within Interface Builder, connect it right to the code

• All the controls from Cocoa Touch are built right into Interface Builder

• Interface Builder: "Makes building your user interface as simple as drag-and-drop"

• Remote debugger—plug in your iPhone, run it on the iPhone live, but debug from the Mac

• Run your iPhone app in the simulator on your Mac, works great side-by-side with Xcode

• Introducing brand new iPhone dev tool: iPhone Simulator

• See peaks and valleys, realtime data, timeline view, multiple data tracks

[Giz Apple Liveblog]

Official Press Release:

Apple Announces iPhone 2.0 Software Beta

Includes SDK & Built-in Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync

CUPERTINO, Calif., March 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple(R) today previewed its iPhone(TM) 2.0 software, scheduled for release this June, and announced the immediate availability of a beta release of the software to selected developers and enterprise customers. The iPhone 2.0 beta release includes both the iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK) as well as new enterprise features such as support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync to provide secure, over-the-air push email, contacts and calendars as well as remote wipe, and the addition of Cisco IPsec VPN for encrypted access to private corporate networks.

"We're excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community with potentially thousands of native applications for iPhone and iPod touch," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "iPhone's enterprise features combined with its revolutionary Multi-Touch user interface and advanced software architecture provide the best user experience and the most advanced software platform ever for a mobile device."

The iPhone SDK provides developers with a rich set of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and tools to create innovative applications for iPhone and iPod(R) touch. Starting today, anyone can download the beta iPhone SDK for free and run the iPhone Simulator on their Mac(R). Apple today also introduced its new iPhone Developer Program, giving developers everything they need to create native applications, and the new App Store, a breakthrough way for developers to wirelessly deliver their applications to iPhone and iPod touch users.

With the iPhone SDK, third party developers will be able to build native applications for the iPhone with a rich set of APIs, including programming interfaces for Core OS, Core Services, Media and Cocoa Touch technologies. The iPhone SDK will allow developers to create amazing applications that leverage the iPhone's groundbreaking Multi-Touch(TM) user interface, animation technology, large storage, built-in three-axis accelerometer and geographical location technology to deliver truly innovative mobile applications.

Apple has licensed Exchange ActiveSync from Microsoft and is building it right into the iPhone, so that iPhone will connect out-of-the-box to Microsoft Exchange Servers 2003 and 2007 for secure over-the-air push email, contacts, calendars and global address lists. Built-in Exchange ActiveSync support also enables security features such as remote wipe, password policies and auto-discovery. The iPhone 2.0 software supports Cisco IPsec VPN to ensure the highest level of IP-based encryption available for transmission of sensitive corporate data, as well as the ability to authenticate using digital certificates or password-based, multi-factor authentication. The addition of WPA2 Enterprise with 802.1x authentication enables enterprise customers to deploy iPhone and iPod touch with the latest standards for protection of Wi-Fi networks.

The iPhone 2.0 software provides a configuration utility that allows IT administrators to easily and quickly set up many iPhones, including password policies, VPN setting, installing certificates, email server settings and more. Once the configuration is defined it can be easily and securely delivered via web link or email to the user. To install, all the user has to do is authenticate with a user ID or password, download the configuration and tap install. Once installed, the user will have access to all their corporate IT services.

The iPhone 2.0 software release will contain the App Store, a new application that lets users browse, search, purchase and wirelessly download third party applications directly onto their iPhone or iPod touch. The App Store enables developers to reach every iPhone and iPod touch user. Developers set the price for their applications — including free — and retain

70 percent of all sales revenues. Users can download free applications at no charge to either the user or developer, or purchase priced applications with just one click. Enterprise customers will be able to create a secure, private page on the App Store accessible only by their employees. Apple will cover all credit card, web hosting, infrastructure and DRM costs associated with offering applications on the App Store. Third party iPhone and iPod touch applications must be approved by Apple and will be available exclusively through the App Store.

The iPhone SDK provides a reliable, fast and secure way to create innovative applications for the iPhone and iPod touch. In addition to the rich set of iPhone OS APIs, the iPhone SDK also provides advanced tools for creating native iPhone and iPod touch applications including: Xcode(R) for source code editing, project management and graphical debugging; Interface Builder with drag and drop interface creation and live preview; Instruments to monitor and optimize iPhone application performance in real time; and the iPhone Simulator to run and debug applications.

During the beta iPhone SDK program, a limited number of developers will be accepted into Apple's new iPhone Developer Program and offered the ability to get code onto iPhones for testing. The Standard Program costs $99 (US) per year and gives members an iPhone SDK and development tools; access to

pre-release iPhone software; technical support; the ability to get code onto iPhones for testing; and distribution of applications via the new App Store. The Enterprise Program costs $299 (US) per year.

In addition to these new iPhone network and security features, the beta iPhone 2.0 software provides several new Mail features such as the ability to view PowerPoint attachments, in addition to Word and Excel, as well as the ability to mass delete and move email messages.

Pricing & Availability

Apple plans to release the final iPhone 2.0 software, including the iPhone SDK and new enterprise features, as a free software update for all iPhone customers by the end of June. Third party applications created for the iPhone will also run on the iPod touch, and iPod touch users will be required to purchase a software update to run these applications. The free beta iPhone SDK is available immediately worldwide and can be downloaded at developer.apple.com/iphone/program. The iPhone Developer Program will initially be available in the US and will expand to other countries in the coming months. Apple is accepting applications beginning today from enterprise customers who would like to join the private iPhone Enterprise Beta Program (http://www.apple.com/iphone/enterprise).

Essentially, Jobs said yesterday that Mobile Flash is too wussy for the iPhone and regular Flash is too beefy. He wants Adobe to make a Goldilocks-esque middle version that'd be juuuuust right for the iPhone. Funny, Mobile Flash seems to work OK on all of the other phones that it's installed on. I'm sure we could make do with it on the precious iPhone.

It's pretty disappointing, especially with the SDK news due to drop tomorrow that many assumed would bring Flash support along with it. There's certainly still a chance that we'll be surprised and will receive it, but it looks like Jobs would rather make us wait by throwing his weight around and forcing Adobe to develop a whole new version of Flash just for his oh-so-special phone. Thanks for thinking of the consumers, Steve! You're so great! [CNN via Boy Genius Report]

As for iTunes, it seems like the iTunes Store is going to be a "hub" for application downloads. If you're a developer and want to charge for your app, you've got a method to do that through the store. This, assuming that Apple has approved your app, because they're going to "act as a gatekeeper for all applications," meaning that if you're making something a little risque or hack-ish, you run the risk of being turned down. [iLounge]

Apparently the date was finalized after Apple pulled out of the National Association of Broadcasters show, which means they might save the Final Cut Pro server announcement (if there is one) for the Feb 26 event as well. Remember, no one can confirm what Apple's announcing until they announce it, but this is what we know so far. [9to5Mac]

• Google Maps Faux GPS has problems working unless you install Navizon.

• Cannot change EDGE Settings. Jesus's EDGE is now nonfunctional because he can't enter in the custom settings for his provider. This is not a big deal for people actually on AT&T or one of the three official providers in Europe, but for people who've SIM unlocked and are wandering about on other networks, it's a huge deal.

• The jailbreak may break official third party apps from the SDK? We don't know if this will be the case, but iPhone Atlas claims that the method Nate used to jailbreak disables "Nikita," which is a component in the iPhone that installs signed software. Signed software, in the iPhone's case, would be official third party apps that are signed by Apple to make sure they don't corrupt or kill your device. If this is broken and unfixable, then jailbreakers may be unable to get in on the SDK action in February.

The official iPhone Dev Team jailbreak was released yesterday, but we haven't had any experience with this yet.

What have you heard? Drop a note in the comments detailing the problems you've had with the jailbreak or just 1.1.3 in general.