iPhone SDK: already seeded to developers?

We all know that the official iPhone SDK is coming sometime in February but if the latest rumors are to be believed, a handful of development partners might already have that kit in hand. According to Electronista, a select few developers have already received a rough version of the iPhone development tools. The SDK, as it stands, "somewhat resembles Google's OpenSocial in that it mediates between the programmer and the iPhone operating system." This seems to suggest that applications will be sandboxed to prevent the security of the OS from being compromised by an insecure application. "Although treated as a welcome development, the SDK will not be the same as writing a Mac OS X application and has its clear limits, people familiar with the matter say," according to Electronista. While details are sketchy, it would make sense for Apple to give a few developers a head start on iPhone development so that the final SDK can include a few examples of real applications (like the Google Android SDK does), so I wouldn't be surprised if this one turned out to be true.

For more on the SDK:
- see this Electronista article