MacRumors.com

Electronista claims that Apple has already started seeding an early version of the iPhone SDK (software development kit) to a few select developers.

The kit is described as "rough versions" of the tools that allow developers to create native applications for the iPhone and iPod touch. Electronista is unable to provide many details on the development kit, but claims it "somewhat resembles Google's OpenSocial in that it mediates between the programmer and the iPhone operating system."

This presumably means that the native applications will be "sandboxed" in some way for security and stability concerns. Indeed, their sources claim that there are "clear limits" applied to applications but that even so, at least one major social networking site is interested in creating a native iPhone interface to their site.

Steve Jobs announced that an iPhone/iPod touch SDK would be released in February 2008.