14 DAY TRIAL // Apple is picky about its iPhone Developer Program, no doubt about it, but the Cupertino folks are trying to take as many developers aboard as possible. The iPhone SDK Beta 2 should stand as a piece of proof to that. The new release delivers an Interface Builder, but is available only to registered developers for now.
I can't believe you're asking why. Don't you think that after all the fuss with the iPhone Developer Program Apple is going to be sending more of its tools to the same crowd? Some of you may remember (rejected devs for sure) that Apple issued a couple of emails to applicants to its iPhone Developer Program ($99), notifying them that "at this time" they're not Apple material.
"Thank you for expressing interest in the iPhone Developer Program. We have received your enrollment request. At this time, the iPhone Developer Program is only available in the US and will expand to other countries during the beta period. We will contact you again regarding your enrollment status at the appropriate time. Thank you for applying," says the Apple email sent out to non-US applicants.
Then, Apple decided to choose softer words and keep hope going among the developer community. After all, they don't want everyone abandoning the platform and start hacking its Mac OS.
"We have received your enrollment request. At this time, the iPhone Developer Program is available to a limited number of developers and we plan to expand the program during the course of the beta period. We will contact you again regarding your enrollment status at the appropriate time," says the company's second rejection email.
Steve Jobs, head of Apple, described their initiative thoroughly and in a very open manner, not hiding any aspects that might later turn out to be in the disadvantage of developers worldwide, big and small. The CEO officially stated that the program would be available only to a "limited number of developers" in its early stages.
Apple has implied that as v2.0 iPhone software approaches, more developers will be taken aboard.
The new Interface Builder allows the integration of graphical components using drag-and-drop. From this point on, developers are just a step away from underlying Objective-C code created in Xcode.