It’s no secret I like my iPod Touch. And against the very strong urge to do so, I managed to refrain from jail-breaking to to enjoy 3rd party (other companies other then Apple) applications, such as games, IMing, and other applications. And today, this paid off as Apple announced their iPhone/iPod Touch SDK. (Say what!?)… Ok to backtrack. An SDK (or Software Developer Kit) is a program or set of programs for developer (the companies and people who make software) to make the software of a specific product. Computers have SDKs, video game consoles have SDKs, etc. So Apple announced today an SDK for the iPhone/iPod Touch. This means that games, IM programs, and all that other stuff can now be put on you iPod or iPhone without jail-braking it. Some things that Apple demonstrated the SDK cabable of making is high level 3D games like Spore or Super Monkey Ball. The applications can be downloaded from a new program for the iPhone/iPod Touch called the Application Store, which works pretty much the same as the iTunes WiFi music store: You can buy things directly on the device, and then sync it to your computer as a backup, or you can buy on iTunes and move it to the device.

Applications will be priced by whatever the developer wants (like computer software: some is free, some cost money) but can also be free. The 2 things I didn’t like of these announcements is that the SDK, while being available for developers to start making programs from today, the programs themselves won’t be available until the software update in June.The second thing is that while the update will be free for iPhone users, it will, like the January Application Package, cost an unannounced fee for iPod Touch users.