Apple SDK to be unveiled next week

It falls just outside of the February promise but Apple has promised to unveil the Software Development Kit (SDK) for the iPhone next week.

Head honcho Steve Jobs is set to take the wraps off the much anticipated toolset at an event at the company’s Cupertino headquarters on Thursday, March 6.

The arrival of the SDK will allow third party developers to build native applications for the iconic device. At present, software developers are restricted to writing web-based applications, or widgets, which aren’t able to tap the same functionality as native installations.

Hackers have found ways of getting third party apps to run on the device before now, but the release of the official SDK opens up this opportunity to a wider community.

Jobs had promised to have the toolset in developers’ hands by end-February, but we’re sure he will be forgiven a six day slip. It is February after all.

It looks like Apple also has greater designs on the business market – the company is also planning to reveal “some exciting new enterprise features” next week.

Meanwhile, the company quietly released its latest firmware update for the iPhone this week, taking the device up to version 1.1.4. Jupiter Research analyst, Michael Gartenberg, said how impressed he was over how in control Apple seems to be with these updates. “It’s amazing that ATT is letting Apple push these out, seemingly at will. Hard to imagine another handset vendor pushing updates out like this without going through the trials and tribulations of network testing (that’s one reason we don’t see Windows Mobile updates hitting as fast as they should),” he said.