I am surprised and puzzled. For many reasons.

  1. "The iPhone Developer Program will initially be available to a limited number of developers in the U.S. and will expand to other countries in the coming months.". Ah. And I remain polite here...
  2. "Standard Program $99.The Standard Program is for developers who are creating free and commercial applications for iPhone and iPod touch." So even free software developers - the next teenager on the block for instance - will have to pay 99$ to distribute a piece of code ?!? WOW. That's certainly a VERY silly decision. When Apple announced the SDK and the public rumor gave a few hints about an App Store, I said "this could kill Installer". No way. Installer and friends are here to stay...
  3. access to the online documentation apparently requires this minimal 99$ subscription (299$ for the entreprise program)...
  4. Robert Sayre caught it well.. No system() calls, no XPI, no plugins. This is so ridiculous.
  5. Update: and VoIP software is explicitely banned from the AppStore...

Tsss, tsss...