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The launch of the 3G iPhone wasn't the only news Apple made today. It, among other things, announced when the highly-anticipated iPhone 2.0 firmware would be made available. You can expect Apple to distribute the major software update, which includes the iTunes App store, early in July, around the time the next-gen iPhone ships.

As expected, while the iPhone 2.0 software will be free to iPhone users, iPod touch users will have to shell out $9.95 for the update.

Steve Jobs and company introduced iPhone 2.0 at a special event March, when it also launched the iPhone software development kit (SDK) - downloaded over 250,000 since - to allow third parties to create 'official' software for the iPhone and iPod touch.

Apple will be the exclusive distributor of iPhone software, wirelessly (over Wi-Fi and 3G) through the iPhone App Store for applications under 10MB and iTunes for larger-sized programs.

The firmware update also adds support for Microsoft Exchange and the Cisco IPsec VPN, two factor authentication and enterprise-class Wi-Fi using WPA2/802.1x. Apple has licensed Exchange ActiveSync from Microsoft. This enables the iPhone to support push mob-e-mail, calendaring, and contacts, as well as global address lists and remote wipe in an enterprise environment.

In related news, Apple's posted the latest beta of the SDK, 7, on its site.

And, rumor has it, the NDA (non-disclosure agreement) for the SDK won't expire until Apple distributes the iPhone 2.0 firmware in July. So don't expect to hear of any developers openly talking about what's inside the SDK for at least another month