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It appears that with the launch of the 3G iPhone, the App Store, and the new firmware, the iPhone developer program has also “launched” officially as well.  Up until now it has been running in a kind of private beta where only 4,000 developers were accepted into the program.  Those developers have managed to creat 500+ applications already.  Remember, though, that at WWDC, Steve Jobs indicated that more than 25,000 applications were processed and that they had a hard time picking and choosing which developers to invite.

Now it seems that those restrictions have fallen and MacRumors is reporting that a number of previously waitlisted developers have been given access to the iPhone SDK and the larger developer program.  This is a big step because now the Apps aren’t on training wheels anymore.  I would expect that there are more developers beyond the 25,000 who already applied that want to join the program, but have been waiting until there was some chance they could get in.  Well that time has come!

It should also be noted that up until now, developers were on a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) about any thing they were working on.  It is reasonable to assume that not only are those NDAs gone, but new developers will be encouraged to discuss the exciting Apps they are working on.

The program still costs $99/year to join, but for any medium to large group, this isn’t prohibitive at all.  In fact the price still isn’t that bad for smaller guys who want to get in on the action.  As I understand it the SDK has most, if not all, of the tools you will need to develop a very good App.  Compare that to a legal copy of Photoshop or Adobe CS3.

[Via MacRumors]