So, where to start? In my case, the first stop was [login to view URL] where I quickly zeroed in on a highly-rated book entitled Beginning iPhone Development. I couldn't wait for Amazon, so I braved the Christmas shopping crowds and found the book in stock at a local tech-bookstore. They only had two copies left and the proprietor said it was selling well, so maybe I wasn't the only one with this idea.
When I got home, I headed off to Apple's developer web site to sign up and download the development kit . If you want to use it yourself, you'll need a relatively recent X86-based Mac. The free kit includes a complete fully-functional iPhone simulator (Figure 1) where you can try your application out.