Apple Slowly Ramping Up iPhone Developer Program

are they being selective? or have they just run out of enrollment space?

Apple is being selective. The initial press release always indicated that during the beta process, only "selected developers and enterprise customers" would be included. The email "rejections" clearly state that the program is only available to select developers, and will be expanded over time. Once June arrives, ALL developers and enterprise customers will be able to:

1. Purchase $99/year or $299/year individual or company/enterprise developer program memberships and certificates, including the right to submit applications to Apple for approval and/or deploy in-house/enterprise apps internally outside of the Apple vetting/approval process; and

2. Deploy iPhone OS 2.0.

Also, the articles going around saying Apple is "stalling for time", implying that everyone is getting "rejection" letters, are false. Select developers and enterprise customers are already included in these programs, and more will be added during the beta period.

When June arrives and iPhone OS 2.0 is final and the App Store is rolled out, everyone will be able to participate in all developer programs. There is still a lot of work that needs to be done to ensure this is a reliable program and process from end-to-end, and this beta phase will help in the rollout.

Also, to be clear, NO ONE has to wait to begin developing and testing their iPhone apps today. Anyone can download the iPhone SDK beta for free, and there is nothing stopping you from developing iPhone apps now. The only thing you can't do is deploy and test on an actual iPhone with the beta 2.0 firmware (and yes, there are a couple cases that require this). Developers and enterprise customers accepted into the early programs do have access to prerelease firmware.

Also, waiting two months to actually deploy to phones is absolutely inconsequential to anyone considering the iPhone development model. Apple has already laid out clear initial roadmap, plan, and structure of the program, and has provided a full SDK and handset simulator. Nearly any developer can begin developing their apps TODAY, and need not wait for anything. Sure, all kinds of arguments can be made about people not being sure an app will be "accepted", but anyone who is that concerned can simply wait until the App Store is up and running, or contact Apple through the developer channels — whether they are accepted or not — with their concerns.

In sum, when Apple announced its plans, it always said that "select" developers and enterprise customers would be included initially during the beta phase.

This makes sense at the beginning of the SDK rollout. After all, how many bug reports can they possibly check/address all at once? This is probably keeping the workload manageable during the most buggy phase of the SDK (lol, at least hopefully it's most buggy at the beginning).

I wonder if a disproportionate number of accepted developers were game developers, since they are the ones who need to be able to run on the device the most (openGL doesn't work in the simulator, nor can you really test accelerometer stuff).

I have no problem with them being selective. I would like to think that there is some number of small/unknown developers being allowed into the system to keep things "fair", but that is probably not all that important. I hope things open up more well before June since there are plenty of things that can not really be tested decided without using the hardware. Everything from screen layout (how big are those fingers again?), to gestures, to other things. Having an app ready at launch makes a huge difference. I am really most worried about any delays in Apple's blessing applications for the store. If only "select" developers get there apps into the store for several months that will make a big difference. Here is hoping our worries prove to be just nerves.

[url=http://www.macrumors.com]
It is believed that the iPhone Developer Program will be open to all comers after June when the program is out of beta. At that time the iPhone 2.0 firmware will be publicly available.

That's 'all comers' who come from the US. The $99 (and $299) programs are not yet available to rest of the world, and will be rolled out in coming months, which I'd expect to be quite possible beyond June.

man this sucks, I wanted to get approved...

this isn't very fair to the game developers out there.. the first ones out with the clone/sudoku casual apps are going to be making the money, *and* it's open to US developers only. i'm really hyped about making games for this device, but can develop/polish only about 40% of my gameplay, until June. great.

i think this is an instance where the jailbreak to 2.0 could be super useful, if only to be able to actually test and be competitive for actual app release.

That's 'all comers' who come from the US. The $99 (and $299) programs are not yet available to rest of the world, and will be rolled out in coming months, which I'd expect to be quite possible beyond June.

They say it will be expanded to other countries during the "beta period" which suggests before June. However, US only at present still sucks.

anyone else think june means mid-july?