Based on the latest announcement from Microsoft, the first thing that comes to mind is that perhaps Microsoft is more fond of the iPhone than of its own mobile platform. That’s because the company revealed at the end of last week its first iPhone app, available for free at the iTunes App Store.

Seadragon Mobile is an image browsing application that allows users to see “giga-pixel images” on their iPhone, the same experience that they usually get on their PCs.

The application allows users to browse an entire collection of photos from a single screen, and browse Deep Zoom Images that they can create from their own pictures or from their Photosynth collection, with just a few pinches or taps.

Well, regarding the Photosynth part, it may not work right now, as Microsoft admitted. The functionality broke right after they submitted the application to the App Store; however, the company said the problem will be fixed in a matter of days.

The application is quite good, but the question is: are Apple users willing to give up their old beliefs, and try a Microsoft product? For starters, it’s free, so I don’t see any reason why they shouldn’t try it, especially since the reviews are pretty good.

Does this app release mean a close up between Microsoft and Apple? That’s quite unimaginable, however, Alex Daley, group product manager for Microsoft Live Labs, was quoted by The Boy Genius Report as acknowledging the impact the iPhone has had on consumers.

The iPhone is the most widely distributed phone, he said, and its accelerated graphics feature has allowed Microsoft to do something that was previously impossible.