100 000 downloads for the iPhone SDK despite restrictions

Apple's iPhone Software Develoment Kit (SDK) announced late last week appears to be a huge success for developers, as it has reached more than 100 000 downloads during the first four days of availability. However, a lot of unsatisfied developers decided to act against this SDK's restrictions.

Record traffic for Apple Developer Connection (ADC)

Regardless of the first day's Apple servers downtime, the iPhone SDK had enough curious developers to generate record breaking traffic on the ADC web site.

The 2GB archive contains an extended version of XCode which allows to write programs for the company's very popular iPhone as well as the iPod touch.

Though the version 2.0 of the iPhone software, supporting third-party applications officially is coming only in June along with the AppStore - which will care of the distribution of these applications - developers can already start working so as to have their applications ready for the launch. The development kit includes a simulator application which lets them test there applications on a virtual iPhone.

Too many restrictions?

Meanwhile, there are some developers who aren't so happy with Apple' limitations on the development guidelines and also on the fact that Apple's AppStore will be the exclusive distributor, retaining a 30% stake on each application officially made available for the iPhone and the iPod touch.

Rumours of an already jailbroken iPhone 2.0 software are already circulating on the Internet, while a petition, asking Apple to remove most of the SDK's limitation, including the AppStore exlusivity has started yesterday.