The recently released applications for the iPod touch have given us a look at the way 3rd party iPhone applications will be delivered. The application download arrives with an .ipa extension, which in reality is a zipped archive of files which is Apples' common method of application storage for OSX.

Now it appears that the new iPod touch applications are not actually included in the downloaded file, they seem to be included in the 1.1.3 update itself and the download just includes codes to unlock them.

As expected everything is encrypted so as not to make things too easy for the pirates. Of course this doesn't answer all the questions we are itching to find out like...

Palm/OS benefited from a healthy freeware/open source application catalogue due to the fact that it was basically free to develop and distribute your own code, is this even going to be possible with the iTunes business model?

How much do they sell for and what percentage do Apple take?
If there is going to be a cap on application price and a high percentage skimmed off by apple then we are going to see lots of simple applications designed to do one thing, rather than something much more feature rich that would take a few months to develop.

Are there going to be different prices/applications for each region? An easy way to upset all your international users is to release things in the US that take months to filter through to other countries.

Will Apple ban some application types - Instant Messaging?
I keep harping on about this, but SMS really is a poor relation compared to a proper IM client. I'm sure it's the networks keeping this out, can we have this if we all promise to send a few SMS a month as well?

I'm sure the facility to use the iPhone as a modem when connected to a computer would also be high on most peoples list as well, will the networks allow this on the current unlimited data plans? Probably not.

Skype and other VoIP apps may not make an appearance for similar reasons.

Will My iPhone become unstable?
While we've seen the odd crash in Safari (resulting in a sudden return to the home screen) the iPhone is joyously stable compared to Windows Mobile phones we've used up until now. Will installing lots of new applications reduce the stability of our iPhones?

Speaking of Safari, any chance of some plugins?
Are we going to get Flash support from Apple or someone else?

How much access to the actual hardware will be allowed?
I know a lot of people are hoping for applications to be given a free reign to change standard iPhone functionality as they see fit, but maybe this isn't a necessity as long as a few API's are supplied to give access to certain phone events.

I think there is a lot of scope within the current webkit to allow for some pretty good applications, some sort of local storage along the lines of Google Gears would allow for decent functionality. I wonder if it is even possible for Apple to release a full objective C SDK considering that it was not that long ago that they had no plans for one at all. You never know though, they seem like a clever enough bunch

As always, Apple are playing their cards close to the chest, roll on February.

Head over to the unofficial apple weblog for more information on the iPod touch application download.