Cmw released an update to his WinPwn beta.
It’s now possible to upload firmware 2.0 with winpwn.
The official notes from the developer are:

This release is not disabled in anyway. I no longer use QEMU and You will see some new features and will notice that it takes < 60 seconds to build and IPSW (at least on my machine). I have had reports that it has issues with Ipod 2.0225C but other then that it should work perfectly. If you find a bug please email me ( cmw@toc2rta.com ). This was built as a Debug bin and no code obfuscation was used. I will release full sources after we finish more beta tests

I would also like to note that this release would not be possible without the work of Squpix and Planetbeing who have helped develop and test winpwn.
» WinPwn beta 2 released. updated to 99.2.19

Previously it was stated that the iPhone wouldn’t support tasks or apps running in the background, this was due to high battery and memory usage.
Some sources suspected that firmware build 5A258f does support apps running in the background.
However if we read the new SDK documentation well, this speculation gets rather quickly demolished.

When an application is inactive, it is executing but is not dispatching incoming events. This occurs when an overlay window pops up or when the device is locked.

Only one iPhone application can run at a time, and third-party applications never run in the background. This means that when users switch to another application, answer the phone, or check their email, the application they are using quits.

So far dreaming of a native chat or gps app

Apple released a 4th update to it’s iPhone SDK.
Some of the changes are:
-The Simulator now supports OPENGL ES, nice for all 3d rendering (games and such)
-New firmware version 5A258f (no news of new features yet)
-Code signing enforced. All developed apps require to be signed to be able to run on the iPhone.
» Beta Firmware 5A258f + 4th version of the SDK released