Sources familiar with the company's plans tell BusinessWeek.com that Apple will release a software-development kit for the iPhone in early 2008, enabling programmers to create games, business-productivity tools, and countless other applications for the device. [BusinessWeek]
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@hypnotik_jello: Slightly off-topic, but: I just read that Nokia will release a touchscreen version of S60 in 2008, which makes sense I guess since they've pretty much admitted that they're going to release some sort of iPhone competitor.
@hypnotik_jello: I don't understand why they can't do what SymbianOS does and offer the SDK to anyone and then use signed certificates
Because Apple does things Apple's way. A certificate infrastructure would use more of the iPhone's memory, could cause another layer of security headaches, and would let any old developer write CrapApp 3000, spoiling the whole look-and-feel of the phone.
Part of the value of the iPhone is the seamlessness of the thing; you don't notice the OS or the apps as separate; the whole thing just works. Having different priveledges for different apps is nice from an "everyone in the pool" standpoint, but while everyone might get a chance to swim, you're damned sure a few folks are gonna pee in the pool. Apple doesn't want pee in their pool.
As for the news of the SDK itself, anyone with half a brain saw this coming. The iPhone runs a limited-functionality version of Mac OS X; they had to get the phone out ahead of the SDK to beat the look-alike phones; I can assure you they've been hurredly working on the SDK for some time now.
Too bad the article says that Apple will most likely "hand pick" who it gives the SDK to (much like the iPod SDK for games).
I don't understand why they can't do what SymbianOS does and offer the SDK to anyone and then use signed certificates via a Code Signing Publisher ID to vet those software developers who want to access certain "trusted" features of the device. Symbian also allows any developer to apply for a self-signing certificate for development testing on their own handset.