IOS SDK
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iOS SDK 9.1 included in Xcode 7.1.1.
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| Original author(s) | Apple Inc. |
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| Developer(s) | Apple Inc. |
| Initial release | March 6, 2008 |
| Stable release | 10.2.1 (January 23, 2017) |
| Preview release | 10.2.1 Beta 2 (December 20, 2016) |
| Development status | Active |
| Operating system | macOS |
| Available in | English |
| Type | Software development kit |
| Website | Apple Developer |
The iOS SDK (Software Development Kit) (formerly iPhone SDK) is a software development kit developed by Apple Inc. and released in February 2008 to develop native applications for iOS.
On October 17, 2007, in an open letter posted to Apple's "Hot News" weblog, Steve Jobs announced that a software development kit (SDK) would be made available to third-party developers in February 2008. The SDK was released on March 6, 2008, and allows developers to make applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch, as well as test them in an "iPhone simulator". However, loading an application onto the devices is only possible after paying an iOS Developer Program fee, which is $99.00 USD per year. Since the release of Xcode 3.1, Xcode is the development environment for the iOS SDK. iPhone applications, like macOS applications, are written in Swift and Objective-C, with some elements of an application able to be written in C or C++.
Apple normally releases a new SDK concurrently with every major (iOS x.0 – e.g. iOS 6.0) and minor (iOS x.x, e.g. iOS 5.1) iOS update. Several beta SDKs are usually released to developers before the version is released publicly. The betas are intended to be used for testing for compatibility with existing applications and to add features that are newly available in that version of iOS.
This beta had two separate builds. The first on (5A292g) was an enterprise pre-release, while the second one (5A308) was the general developer release.
Developers are able to set any price above a set minimum for their applications to be distributed through the App Store, of which they will receive a 70% share. Alternately, they may opt to release the application for free and need not pay any costs to release or distribute the application except for the membership fee.
Since its release, there has been some controversy regarding the refund policy in the fine print of the Developer Agreement with Apple. According to the agreement that developers must agree to, if someone purchases an app from the app store, 30% of the price goes to Apple, and 70% to the developer. If a refund is granted to the customer (at Apple's discretion), the 30% is returned to the customer from Apple, and 70% from the developer; however, Apple can then take another 30% of the cost from the developer to make up for Apple's loss.
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