Apple iPhone SDK

Apple launched iPhone SDK. The iPhone Developer Program provides a complete and integrated process for developing, debugging, and distributing your free, commercial, or in-house applications for iPhone and iPod touch. Complete with development resources, real-world testing on iPhone, and distribution on the App Store, you have everything you need to go from code to customer.

To access the SDK you need to register. There are 2 versions of SDK: a free one and a professional one.

Though Apple states that the iPhone software development kit requires an “Intel processor-based Mac running Mac OS X Leopard,” developers have found that — with a little leg-work — the SDK also runs on PowerPC-based Macs.

By default, the iPhone SDK package available free from Apple’s site will run on a PowerPC-based Mac but omit the iPhone SDK-related files, installing only Xcode 3.1 beta and a series of other files. This routine is easily circumvented via the shareware tool Pacifist, which can be used to force an installation of the entire SDK package on PowerPC-based Macs.

The iPhone SDK includes a new version of Dashcode (v. 2.0 Beta) that allows creation of Web apps for the iPhone. When you click run, these Web apps launch in the Aspen Simulator. The tool also has support for bundling home icon images into the deployed Web app.

Preset styles include the standard sliding-style “Browser” interface. Code snippets include gauges, indicators, forward and back buttons, form elements and more.