This is exciting news! One less negative against SDL.

Can someone explain to me what the process is to get a native application on android or iphone, from my understanding you would need to compile an executable for each possible processor type that the platform runs on, hence the use of java on android. Is this the case or is there some nice voodoo going on? What are some common pitfalls to worry about if you wanted to write a native android or iphone application using SDL ?

Thanks

Can someone explain to me what the process is to get a native application on android or iphone, from my understanding you would need to compile an executable for each possible processor type that the platform runs on, hence the use of java on android.

This is the case, if you want it to be available to every single last Android device. However, 99% of Android devices are on ARM processors, so you should just need one.
SDL on Android interfaces with Android's Java APIs for basic functionality, so it's not completely separate.

What are some common pitfalls to worry about if you wanted to write a native android or iphone application using SDL ?[/quote]
It is very common for things that work just fine on the simulator (both Android and iOS simulators) to not work or to not work correctly on actual hardware. SDL is probably not regularly tested against actual hardware, but against the simulators. So there may be some bugs in SDL that aren't known yet; and also you yourself will need actual hardware to test on to make sure things actually work as expected (both internally to SDL and in your own code). The actual hardware isn't too cheap, but if you already have it then that's a win.
You also need a Mac to build native applications for iOS. These are generally more expensive than a normal PC.
There's also the fees associated with actually releasing an iOS game ($99/yr), and the 30% of sales you lose from selling a game through the AppStore and Android Market.


Also, fun fact, webOS should be shipping a port of SDL 1.3 with their PDK now. This means you can also port your SDL games to Palm devices.

Updated with news from today! If you're planning on making a game using SDL, please use SDL 1.3 rather than sticking to the outdated SDL 1.2 and help with "beta testing"!

I don't know why, but this release excites me a lot. Thanks for the news and info