iPhone SDK comparison chart

So with hardware accelerated 3D graphics, an integrated database API, tightly integrated performance monitoring tools, and a highly specialized version of the Cocoa framework tweaked just for the iPhone and rechristened as Cocoa Touch, the iPhone's just-announced SDK sounds like a winner. But how does it compare to its well-entrenched competitors from Microsoft, Nokia, and the iPhone community itself? Let's have a look.

	Apple iPhone SDK	Toolchain	Windows Mobile	S60	Android
Cost	Free	Free	Free; could be more depending on tools used	Free; could be more depending on tools used	Free
Wide-scale app availability	June	Now	Now	Now	Depends on device availability
Native development	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Languages suppoted for native development	Objective-C	Objective-C	C++, C#, VB.NET	C++	Java
Digital certificates	Required for distribution	No	Available, required for some phones	Available, required for some phones	No
Retail support	Full; 30 percent Apple revenue share; free apps allowable	No	Limited	Limited	No, but Android Developer Challenge offers money and publicity
Platform maturity	Immature	Immature	Mature	Mature	Immature
First-party support	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Community support	Just getting started!	Excellent	Excellent	Excellent	Excellent
App installation method	Direct (App Store), iTunes	Installer.app, custom	Direct, ActiveSync	Direct, PC Suite	Unknown; installation on emulator is not reflective of production devices
Emulator available	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Remote debugging	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Target device variety	Poor	Poor	Excellent	Good	Poor (that will change, though)
Touchscreen support	Multi-touch	Multi-touch	Single touch	Umm... soon?	Single touch
App availability and variety	Poor (that will change, though)	Good	Excellent	Excellent	Poor (that will change, though)
Underlying architecture	Cocoa Touch / Mac OS X	Mac OS X	Windows	Symbian	Linux
Flash availability	No	No	Yes	Yes	No
Java availability	No	In development	Yes	Yes	Yes