Details From an Accepted iPhone Dev Program Member

Developer Ashutosh Chaturvedi is one of the few coders who has actually been accepted into Apple’s $99 iPhone Developer program. The program allows access to pre-release iPhone software (including the OS 2.0 beta); technical support; the ability to get code onto iPhones for testing; and distribution of applications via the new App Store.

Ashutosh posted a series of Apple documents, explaining the program, to his blog. Among the salient details:

iPhone OS 2.0 software has the ability to deactivate unregistered phones

Apple’s documentation states: “Once you install the pre-release iPhone OS on your device, such device may only be used for development and testing purposes until the final (GM) version of the iPhone OS is released. In addition, you will need to install new versions of the software from time to time throughout the beta period. Failure to install the most current version will, after a period of time, put your device in a deactivated state. Updating to the most current version will re-activate your device so that you may continue testing”

Apple also says that installing the pre-release software on unregistered iPhones will render the devices inoperable.

Application distribution is not available during the beta period There is no way to distribute applications for testing or other purposes during the developer program beta.

Teams If you are accepted into the program, you can invite colleagues to join your “team,” allowing these collegaues to create their own development certificates, access the beta software and run development routines.

No limit on provisioned devices Provisioning profiles are files that associates device IDs and development certificates, allowing the iPhone OS 2.0 beta and applications built with Xcode to be installed to devices. There is no limit to the number of provisioning profiles the Team Admin can create for the team, but each profile can only specify 1-5 device IDs.