Did Apple (or someone with the right connections) leak the iPhone application SDK key?

Well, according to those that know more about iPhone development than us, the code you see below is the official iPhone application SDK key.

The key was apparently going to be used to authenticate official third-party applications that were developed using the official iPhone SDK. But, now that the key has hit the ‘nets, we’re sure that Apple will be coming up with a new key when the SDK launches – which is to say, next month.

Still, the discovery of this key suggests that iPhone hackers are close to developing third-party applications that are recognized and installable through iTunes. If iPhone developers are able to home-in on a solution to load third-party applications onto the iPhone, via iTunes, firmware jailbreaks may become a thing of the past.

Let’s see what happens next month.

Here’s the iPhone application SDK key:

18 84 58 A6 D1 50 34 DF E3 86 F2 3B 61 D4 37 74

[Via: zibree]