14 DAY TRIAL // Everyone knows that the iPhone SDK is still months away from being released, and the only people doing anything with it at the moment are the Apple employees that are working on it, right? It seems that might not be the case as Electronista reports that its sources have caught wind of Apple releasing early versions of the SDK to prominent developers.
Apple needs to balance out both security and a robust development platform, which will take a couple of months? we've all heard the company's official statements on the topic. But is it any surprise that Apple would start giving early version of the SDK out to major developers that it is on good terms with? Hardly.
While regular developers will have to wait until next year, a handful of big companies can already start using rough version of the tools in order to code more complex applications than the current web-only offerings.
Although the Electronista report does not give out specific details, it does mention that the SDK does indeed produce native applications, and that it also mediates between the programmer and the iPhone operating system, in a manner similar to Google's OpenSocial. Thus, writing applications for the iPhone will be quite different from writing applications for OS X, with very clear limitations, but still be a lot more flexible than the current approach to the problem.
Although both the companies that have received the SDK, as well as possible projects they might be working have not been disclosed, one thing is very clear. These big time developers will likely already have their applications ready for launch the second Apple is ready to release the SDK, well ahead of the normal developers all over the world. While undoubtedly this is a blow to the very people that have made the Mac platform what it is today with their plethora of applications, the move does make sense from a business point of view. Apple can cement their relationships with various other big companies through this early start, as well as have a bunch of applications ready on launch day to show the world what wonders can be accomplished with the new SDK. Hopefully, someone at Apple was smart enough to select one or two established, long-time Mac developers for the early SDK, as a gesture of good will.