iPhone SDK

One of the readers of TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog) recently sent in what is believed to be the first set of screenshots of the new iPhone App Store. The App Store is an iPhone application showase/marketplace built into the new (currently development beta) iPhone firmware.

Users who previously tried to load the iPhone App Store on their iPhones were met with a "cannot connect" message. Sometime recently, this changed is allowing access to the App Store which now includes a few applications.

Below are a couple of the screenshots which were leaked. One of the screenshots shows a native Facebook application for the iPhone.

After denying countless developer applications for entrace into the iPhone Developers Program last week, Apple has begun accepting applications and allow developers to begin using iPhones to test software developed with the beta iPhone SDK. However, the good news isn't all good news. According to a new article on iPhoneAtlas, Apple has added what is, in short, a self-destruct mode to developer iPhones should a developer fail to comply with terms of the SDK.

As part of the agreement developers make when using an iPhone for development purposes, once a phone is used for iPhone development - it must always be used for iPhone development, at least until

Google Group Manager for Mobile Platforms, Rich Miner, jabbed at the Apple iPhone during promotion of Google's highly touted Linux-based Mobile OS, Android, at the Emerging Communications Conference in Silicon Valley this week. Despite the strong partnership between Apple and Google in the mobile arena, Miner evidently felt it necessary criticize the iPhone and the iPhone SDK in an attempt to highlight the strengths of the Android platform.

Miner offered up the following as an example of the inherent strength of the Android business model versus that of the iPhone, stating

A new video of an iPhone running iPhone firmware 2.0 has surfaced. Posted on Gizmodo earlier, the video shows an iPhone running a fully hacked iPhone firmware 2.0 (or 1.2, depending on who you're asking) and demonstrates many of the new features found in the updated firmware.

The 2.0 hack was completed by the iPhone Dev Team, and the hole that was found is described by the Dev Team to be considerably difficult for Apple to close. According to Gizmodo, the hole may be considered "impossible" to close.

The hacked 2.0 firmware allows any GSM carrier and the installation of any third party software. Watch the video below to see the 2.0 iPhone in action

After last week's announcement of the iPhone SDK, there have been a bevy of announcements and brainstorming sessions regarding what new applications will become available for the iPhone. One that many may not have counted on? Java. However, according to Sun Microsystem's vice president of Java marketing, Eric Klein, Sun is underway with efforts to bring a JVM (Java Virtual Machine) to the iPhone.

The JVM for the iPhone will be based on Java ME (micro edition) and will be distributed via the iPhone App Store for free to users who wish to add Java support to their iPhone.

As developers and other interested parties sift through the iPhone SDK, many new details are emerging. While most of these are positive, more recently some troublesome details have come to light. Several iPhoneFAQ readers have written in informing us of some strange limitations Apple is evidently placing on applications developed via the newly released SDK.

These limitations may place significant limitations on the types of software that can be developed for the iPhone using the SDK. These limitations include,

Bay Partners turned many a head in the financial and software development worlds when it drummed up $10 million dollars last year to fund application development for Facebook. On Friday, San Francisco venture capitalists Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers trumped that offer ten times over, by establishing a $100 million dollar fund to back software development for the Apple iPhone.

After being delayed beyond the "late February" release date Apple provided at Macworld 2008, the official iPhone SDK was released today at Apple's iPhone Software Roadmap event in Cupertino, CA. The event also included information on the release of new iPhone Firmware, version 2.0, coming in June.

The SDK is now available for download via Apple's website. iPhone applications developed with the SDK will be built in Xcode. Xcode is the same development environment under which standard OS X applications are developed. This makes earlier rumors that the iPhone SDK would be for Mac OS X users only

Though we're just a few hours away from the scheduled Apple software event in Cupertino, where the iPhone SDK release is expected to be announced, a few last minute rumors are making their way along the grapevine. The latest purported leak, from an anonymous source, suggests that the iPhone development environment may be restricted to those running Mac OS X.

Apple continued its 2008 tradition of Tuesday announcements this morning, but despite the hopes of many iPhone owners and developers out there, not with the release of the official iPhone SDK. Instead, Apple made a potentially bigger splash with the announcement of new models in their enviable Macbook and Macbook Pro notebook lines.

As we reported earlier this week, there was already a rumor floating around that suggested the iPhone SDK would be delayed, possibly until as late as the middle of March. With Apple already making an announcement this Tuesday morning, and February just about to close, the likelihood of that rumor being true is steadily