Ever since Apple rolled out its iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK) last March, over 250,000 downloads have already been tallied to its name. This brought about a literal boom in the homebrew development scene for developers who want to make a name for themselves using the same Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and tools that Apple uses to create its native iPhone applications.

Even big time developers from AOL, Cisco, eBay, Electronic Arts, Epocrates, TypePad, Salesforce.com, and Sega have all released their own set of impressive native apps developed using the iPhone SDK. Some, if not all, of these new applications will be soon available on Apple's upcoming App Store.

Budding developers are still free to download the beta of the iPhone SDK at the Apple website and try their hand in developing their own iPhone applications. Developers are free to set the price of their apps using the SDK and retain up to 70 percent of all sales revenues, making it a rather lucrative business to invest on.

However, this doesn't mean Apple is ready to give the world up to third party developers. The Cupertino-based company recently revealed their own Internet service designed to push mail, contacts, calendar data in a "cloud" and synch them all back to your iPhone.

Entitled "MobileMe", the service is fully compatible with Mac's Mail.app, iCal, and Address Book, as well as PCs using Microsoft Outlook. Built around Ajax, the service maintains the same look and feel of all your desktop applications while providing extended accessibility from your favorite web browser.

Apple CEO Steve Job's referred to MobileMe as the "Exchange for the rest of us". The new service will be available this July 11 with a US$ 99 per year subscription (20GB of storage) for individuals. A US$ 149 Family Pack will also be available, which includes a 20GB master account and four Family Member accounts with 5GB of storage each. Any current .Mac members will be upgraded to the new MobileMe service.