iPhone Live: Major Software Upgrade; Opening Native API; Dev Business Model

By the iPhone's first anniversary in June, Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) will be releasing the second version of the iPhone software, and based on announcements the company made today, it will be a major upgrade, adding an application store widget to all phones for consumers and major enterprise functionality for business customers. Some highlights:

-- The business model: Developers will be able to sell their applications or give them away for free on the App store that will be embedded on to every iPhone starting in June. They'll get to name their price, and Apple will take 30 percent of the revenue. If the application is free, Apple takes nothing. To become part of the developer program, the developer has to pay $99. CEO Steve Jobs: "You are a developer, you just spent two weeks or longer on making your applications, and you wrote an amazing app, and it's your dream to get it in front of every iPhone user. ... That's not possible today. Most developers don't have those kinds of resources. Well, we are going to solve that problem for every developer, big to small."

-- Beta released: A beta was released today so developers can start testing out the SDK and companies can start testing out the phone's enterprise capabilities.

-- Enterprise: Apple is licensing Microsoft's (NSDQ: MSFT) ActiveSync so that email, calendars, contents can be pushed to the phone from the Microsoft Exchange Server. In addition, Apple will add security measures, including the ability to remote wipe the phone when it gets lost. Phil Schiller, Apple's SVP of worldwide product marketing, kept comparing the iPhone functionality to RIM's (NSDQ: RIMM) Blackberry, saying it will take a much more direct approach in syncing between the server and device. On RIM's choice to use additional servers and operating centers: "It's a complex scenario that takes money to support, and adds risk to liability as we've seen from time to time."

-- Enterprise killer: Schiller: "These are the features companies have asked for to make the iPhone a big hit. when we release all these features, they'll be blown away. It's a killer device already and now it's addressing the needs of the enterprise."

-- On the depth of the SDK: Scott Forstall, Apple's VP of iPhone software: "We are opening up the same native API and tools that we use internally to build all of our iPhone apps. Third-party developers can now build native apps using the same SDK we do."

-- API features: Developers will have access to the address book; a person's location using cell and Wi-Fi to triangulate; audio, video and animation; and the Accelerometer, which senses the phone's motion to go from portrait to landscape mode.

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