Apple wowed the cell phone industry a year ago with the first version of the iPhone. And now its new software development kit and soon-to-be-launched application store featuring third-party applications could change the game yet again. (To get a closer look at the third-party software unveiled Monday, click here: "Video roundup: New apps coming to the iPhone.")
The big news Monday at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco was of course CEO Steve Jobs' announcement of a 3G version of the iPhone. But the company also made several software announcements that could set a new standard for getting new and innovative applications to market quickly.
There's no question that Apple's launch of the iPhone last year changed the handset market. The touchscreen device loaded with a full Web browser that allows people to shrink and enlarge Web pages set a new standard for what people can expect when surfing the Net on their phones.
But with the SDK and the soon-to-be-launched application store, Apple has shown the true power and vision of the iPhone, which goes well beyond simple Web browsing on the go. The company has created a powerful platform for developing new applications, plus a set of simple tools that can be used to quickly and easily bring new mobile applications to market. And it's created an App Store, linked with its popular iTunes music and video store, where these applications can be easily searched for and downloaded.
"A device is nothing without applications," said Ken Dulaney, an analyst with Gartner. "The one lesson you can take away from Microsoft is that once you attract the developers the rest is an easy coast downhill. And I'm incredibly impressed at the speed in which Apple's application development platform has matured."
For many application developers, creating applications for the mobile environment can be a time-consuming process. There are hundreds of different handset models with different processing capabilities and screen sizes. And there are dozens of operating systems. Mobile developers often find themselves developing various versions of their product so they can fit on a wide range of devices. As a result, it can take several months just to launch a single application.
Loopt in the loop
Apple has tried to alleviate this problem with a simple-to-use tool that allows developers to create applications by simply dragging and dropping icons, slashing the time for development into a matter of weeks. During the keynote Monday, Scott Forstall, senior vice president of iPhone software at Apple, took the audience through the actual developer experience, demonstrating how quickly and easily a complex service can be created.
Specifically he showed how he could merge contacts databases and location-aware services. He also showed how easily the completed application could be tested right on the Mac for bugs or to make different aesthetic choices, such as whether to put things in the toolbar or within the regular fields.
"The tool is amazing," said Sam Altman, CEO of Loopt, one of several companies that has used the iPhone SDK to develop an iPhone application. "In two months, we were able to make the best version of Loopt we've ever created. It's taken us nearly a year to create other versions of our software."
Loopt already has its application on phones that use the Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless networks. These service providers offer Loopt's friend-tracking application for a monthly fee. iPhone Loopt users will be able to get it for free.
But it's not just the ability to create applications more quickly and more easily that excites application developers; Apple has also created a rich environment in which to develop the applications. The APIs used in the SDK are the same ones Apple uses to develop applications internally. And there are many similarities between the iPhone's operating system and the Mac OS X, making it easier for Mac developers to create rich applications.
"The underlying software platform for the iPhone is much more powerful than any other mobile device we've seen," said Jeffrey Litvack, global product development director for the Associated Press. "It just makes it much easier for us to show off all our multimedia content, like videos and pictures. It's more challenging on other platforms."
Loopt's Altman agreed.
"The quality of mobile applications for the iPhone is just so much better," he said.
Apple invited several developers to show off their applications. In addition to the friend finder Loopt application, Sega demonstrated a new version of Super Monkey Ball. eBay showed off a new application for keeping track of auctions. And others such as Modality showed an application that gives medical students up-close views of human body parts to help them study anatomy. Major League Baseball demonstrated an application that gives near real-time updates on games. And the Associated Press showed off an application that sends out local news based on a user's location.
The distribution challenge
There are other problems that application developers face that Apple promises to help solve, namely distribution. In a traditional model, application developers can either distribute their applications independently or they can work directly with mobile operators.
Companies such as Handango have created application stores for devices like Research In Motion's BlackBerry that developers can use to distribute their applications. There are also stores for Windows Mobile devices and ones created for the Symbian operating system, which is used by Nokia. But consumers are often unfamiliar with these stores making it difficult for developers to count on a reliable distribution chain.
The other option for application developers is to work directly with mobile operators so that their applications are either embedded in specific handsets or can be found on the carrier's "deck."
Getting "on deck" or embedded in a specific phone is often a long, arduous process. And once an application has made it this far, it's no guarantee that it will be easily discovered by users. Embedded applications usually have an icon that may be prominently displayed. And applications in carrier decks can be buried beneath several layers of menu. Application developers are constantly fighting for a top spot in these menus.
"Discoverability is a challenge for all application developers," said Tom Frencel, president of Cabybara Games, a mobile games company. "Some of these menus are pretty deep and they're difficult to navigate. "
During his keynote Monday, Jobs officially announced the upcoming iPhone App Store, which was first talked about in March when he announced the release of the iPhone software development kit.
The App Store isn't yet available so it's difficult to say for sure how it will work, but it's likely that the interface will look very similar to the popular iTunes music and video store. iPhone users will be able to browse the store directly on their phones and download applications either over the cellular network or over a Wi-Fi connection. And for iPhone users who want to look for applications on their PC, they can use the PC-based iTunes to search, download, and purchase applications just like if they were looking for songs, videos, or podcasts.
"Millions of people are already using iTunes," Frencel added. "I think the PC is the most powerful interface to browse content anyway, so it makes sense to use it."
Today, Apple's iPhone makes up only a small percentage of the overall cell phone market. But it's quickly gaining ground on smartphone competitors such as Research In Motion, Nokia, and Palm. The basic design and functionality of the iPhone has set the bar for a phone of this class. And if Apple can broaden the device's appeal with thousands of cool third-party applications that are easy to find and just as easy to access, then it just might set the bar yet again in the mobile market.
What caveats will the new push-notification service come with?
(Credit: James Martin/CNET News.com)One of the finer points worth digging deeper into from Monday morning's Apple news out of the WWDC is the company's new workaround to notifications from third-party apps in the latest iPhone system software.
Traditionally, when an application is running on a mobile device it will alert the user in real time when there's been a change or something needs their attention. With Apple's SDK (past, present, and immediate future), developer-made apps cannot run in the background, and therefore cannot ping for data unless you're running them explicitly.
The solution Apple announced Monday is a bit of a compromise, ferrying notifications through Apple's servers instead of locally on the user's hardware. Any messages from developer apps get piped into user's phones in one of three different types of notifications--counters badges (for something like a new e-mail message), audio cues, and pop-up messages that look similar to text alerts.
For the better part of a year, users with jailbroken iPhones have been enjoying apps that run the traditional way (in the background), even when the device is in sleep mode. Jailbroken apps like Mobile Chat and Intelliborn's Intelliscreen (hands-on) run quietly, pulling in data every few minutes and popping up with a message the way Apple's own apps behave. The problem is that this model doesn't scale. When you've got dozens of apps pinging for data every few minutes your battery runs out of juice fast. Worse yet, it puts nearly all of the control to three other parties: the users, developers, and carriers.
While Apple's big sell Monday was "better battery life" (see picture above), my guess is that the company realized this would be a great time to get a handle on all the potentially great marketing data that leaves the second an app is downloaded from the new App Store.
Why not find out which apps are getting the most use and offering the developers special licensing deals? Better yet, why not sell that information to third parties like advertisers to help them work with highly used apps to sell ad units or sponsorships while getting an additional cut? This new tunnel for data is a veritable gold mine that's not just metrics--it's attached to user IDs and billing information too.
Apple must be anticipating that users will be adding in excess of 10 or more apps. In fact, I'm sure it's banking on users doing so if only to get the revenue stream flowing. The real question is whether or not that data will be used just to provide the advertised 300 hours of standby or to sell to third parties and vet new developer talent without doing all the legwork.
A newly negotiated deal with Apple could hurt exclusive U.S. iPhone carrier AT&T in the short term, but the cell phone carrier sees a big upside for the future.
Following the much-anticipated launch of the iPhone 3G at an Apple event in San Francisco on Monday, AT&T announced that it had struck a new deal with Apple. The new arrangement between AT&T and Apple is similar to other contracts AT&T has negotiated with other smartphone manufacturers such as Research In Motion and Samsung.
(Credit:
Apple)
Since the first iPhone was launched last summer, AT&T and Apple have shared ongoing revenue from iPhone users. But now AT&T will pay the upfront cost for the iPhone 3G and subsidize the total cost of the phone by making customers agree to a two-year service contract.
The arrangement will benefit consumers by allowing the new iPhone to be sold at a much lower price point. The 8GB version will cost only $199 and the 16GB version will sell for $299 with AT&T's subsidy. This puts the iPhone on par with other smartphones such as RIM's BlackBerry and Samsung's BlackJack.
But the new deal comes at a price. AT&T executives said on a conference call with analysts and investors on Monday that the arrangement will put pressure on the company's profit margins and dilute earnings for the next year and a half. That said, the company believes that the new price point and improved Web surfing experience of the iPhone on AT&T's 3G wireless network will drive sales of the iPhone and get more customers using its data services.
"Less than 20 percent of our customers have integrated devices," Ralph de la Vega, the head of AT&T's mobile business, said during the conference call. "And at the $199 price point we could have mass adoption and put the iPhone in the hands of people who have never surfed the Web on a phone."
What's more, AT&T sees iPhone users as highly valuable customers. Executives said that they are willing to make upfront sacrifices to get these customers on their network.
Specifically, iPhone users typically generate more revenue than basic AT&T cellular customers because they use more data services, de la Vega said. And with the new 3G capability and more applications coming to the phone, executives expect that to increase. iPhone users are also more willing to recommend the device to friends and family. And the churn or rate at which they drop the iPhone and the AT&T service is very low compared with customers using other devices.
"The 2G iPhone experience helped us understand what the customer characteristics are likely to be," Rick Lindner, CFO of AT&T, said during the conference call. "These are high value customers."
As a result of the new arrangement, iPhone users will subscribe to the same kind of voice data plans already offered to other AT&T smartphone customers. This means that as part of the two-year contract commitment, customers will be required to have at least a $39.99 voice plan. And they will choose from one of two data packages. Consumers will get the full smartphone data package for an additional $30 extra a month. Business users who want corporate e-mail can select a data plan for an additional $45 a month.
Update 3:59 p.m. PDT: The new AT&T iPhone 3G data pricing means that consumers will now pay $10 more a month for data service. The original iPhone data plan, launched a year ago, costs $20 a month. An iPhone 3G must be activated in either an AT&T or Apple store, and customers must agree to the two-year service contract with AT&T, de la Vega said.
In March, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced an upcoming system for downloading third-party applications for the iPhone. At the Worldwide Developers Conference on Tuesday, he brought a parade of developers onstage to show off exactly what those new apps can do.
The apps range from monkey slinging to medical imaging and should be available sometime in early July (along with the iPhone 2.0 software required to run it), according to Apple representatives. Follow the jump to check out demos of each of the applications announced during the keynote speech. We'll update this post with more video demos as they come.
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Next month, among the slew of third-party apps hitting the iPhone's App Store, blogging tool TypePad will be giving its users a new way to blog on the go. The native application was just announced at Apple's WWDC Monday morning, but I got a sneak peek at it last week. I think it's going to be a lifesaver for bloggers who want to monitor and administrate their blogs while away from a laptop or home PC.
The app will let you write and edit posts on your phone and save them for later, helping people avoid that potentially great write-up from getting lost because you're in a cellular dead spot or your browser crashes. Six Apart's Open Platforms Technical Lead David Recordon tells me the company is expecting users to treat it as more of a monitoring tool to keep an eye on comments, traffic, and posts from other contributing writers.
Video: TypePad app for iPhone
Last year, the company introduced two smaller-scale efforts that offered similar features--one for its hosted blogging solution Movable Type, and another for TypePad. Both ran in Safari, whereas the new app runs natively and gets access to Apple's new developer service that allows for application notifications that can be pushed over the air without wearing down the phone's battery with extra processes.
Similar apps for other blogging platforms including WordPress and Blogger should be expected in the coming weeks. I'm also expecting to see Six Apart add support for Movable Type later this year.
The iPhone's new MobileMe.
(Credit: James Martin/CNET News.com)
At the WWDC on Monday, Apple announced the next evolution of its .Mac service, MobileMe. A cloud storage solution that handles e-mail, calendar items, contacts, photos, and other documents, it will arguably compete with Microsoft's Live Mesh, as well as several other data synchronization start-ups like SugarSync (download).
MobileMe will replace Apple's consumer Web site service, .Mac, and adds to that service additional storage (.Mac's 10GB gos to MobileMe's 20GB), plus support for the new iPhone and for Windows PCs.
The big pitch for the new service is its synchronization capabilities. E-mail to your MobileMe account will be pushed to your phone. Photos you take on your phone can be automatically uploaded to your Web-based MobileMe account and shared with your friends.
The concept is that the iPhone becomes just one way to view your data and your community. If you're in front of a full-screen Web browser or sitting at your Mac or Windows desktop, you might prefer to use one of those larger interfaces instead, but with MobileMe, everything you do will be updated to your iPhone immediately.
The service is being pitched as "Exchange for the rest of us," referencing Microsoft's corporate e-mail solution that offers excellent shared calendar features and e-mail and contact sync across devices and the Web. These are features everyone deserves, and Microsoft has been late, to say the least, at offering this kind of service to consumers.
There's no indication that MobileMe will be open to developers, although we assume not. It was launched at Apple's developers' conference and if it were open we would have heard it there.
Apple's current .Mac accounts will upgraded to MobileMe automatically when the service becomes available in July. A 60-day free trial will be available. The service will cost $99 a year after that from Apple. It looks like you can sign up for .Mac on Amazon.com right now for $69, though, and get the auto-upgrade in a month. Might be worth a shot if you want to save $30.
Update: Apple has posted a Guided Tour of MobileMe.
MLB.tv on the iPhone
(Credit: James Martin/CNET News.com)Baseball fans rejoice. MLB.tv has just debuted a killer iPhone application at WWDC 2008. The application provides live scoreboards, with individual box scores and pitch-by-pitch updates, along with current and constantly updated video highlights, minutes after the play happens.
This application is great for checking in on your team while you're on the go. Instead of being frustrated by not being able to see what your team is up to, MLB.tv's solution puts the whole baseball experience, not just the scores, in your pocket.
This iPhone application looks like it's the best in its class, as far as sports applications go. MLB.tv has been leading the way in streaming sporting events over the Internet. They are continuing their tradition of quality products here.
The development of rich sports applications like this one is nothing but great news for sports fans as others are likely to follow suit. This application is sure to drive more subscribers to MLB.tv's service.
eBay application on iPhone
(Credit: James Martin/CNET News.com)On Monday, eBay announced and demonstrated its new Auctions app at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. Users can log in to their accounts to buy and sell items wherever they are. The app integrates with Webkit, allowing people to write out full descriptions just like they would in Safari, which has been formatted to match the finger-friendly screen. Users can also browse and sort through auction photos the same way they're used to doing with native albums.
While eBay has recently been taking steps to improve its Web 2.0 initiatives with social widgets and a really slick looking Adobe Air app, the company hadn't done much to optimize its site for Apple as many others have. There has a been a version of the site that's optimized for mobile phones since mid-2006, but it's not nearly as eye friendly as the new native app. Developer iRibbit produced its own iPhone optimized version of the site that was certified by eBay (see ZDNet coverage), but the native app has the potential to store more information while offline as well as take advantage of the iPhone's hardware like the built-in digital camera for taking pictures of items without using a separate device and photo-hosting service.
The app will be free with the launch of the App Store, available "early next month."
Update: To help with notifications--like if you get outbid, Apple is providing a centralized notification service. It lets developers push badges, alert sounds (which can be customized), and textual alerts that look like SMS messages. None of these is a background process that runs on your phone, which Apple says will keep battery drain at a minimum.
The location-based social network Loopt, just announced and demoed its native iPhone application onstage at WWDC. The application, which will be free at launch, helps you connect with and find friends around you. Using the location technology built in to the iPhone, Loopt will drop pins onto a map, showing where your friends are.
Loopt also contains other social-networking features, such as calling, texting, and sending invitations to meet up. The example used was seeing if any friends are in your area for lunch. Once you have located friends, you can send them an invitation for lunch, and if they agree, you will be one touch away from directions to their location. As Sam Altman from Loopt put it, "You will never have to eat alone, or at a bad restaurant again."
This is an exciting step in bringing location-based networking into the mainstream. With native third-party applications for the iPhone and the rumored GPS feature, expect to see many applications leveraging these same sorts of capabilities in the future.
Sad messages from Twitter.com.
Today is the day of Steve Jobs' Apple WWDC keynote. Very exciting! But it's a sad day for Twitter fans who are watching the service, already suffering from weeks of intermittent problems, collapse under the load of people who are tying to use it to talk about the Stevenote.
There are at least two initiatives for people, like me, who can't just walk away from our old friend: Summize and Twiddict.
Summize will tell you everything the Twittersphere is saying about Apple.
Summize is a Twitter search engine. It can read what's happening on Twitter and is a bit easier to deal with than the intermittent Twitter.com. Today, for the Stevenote, Twitter itself is publicizing a Summize feed that tracks Apple news (actually just the words WWDC, Apple, iPhone, and "Steve Jobs").
That doesn't help people who are having a hard time using Twitter to post to the service, or the API-based apps like Twhirl that are working worse than ever before. If you want to update Twitter during one of its outages, check out Twiddict, which will accept posts from you and queue them up until Twitter is working again. Clever, but it's clearly not a business. Furthermore, why bother updating Twitter when its recent and current outages are teaching its users--the people you're trying to reach when you post--to stay away from the site?
Twiddict lets you update Twitter even when it's down.
I've gotten some flack for my previous proposal that Twitter go offline until its scaling problems are fixed. But I stand by that idea: It's lunacy to keep a business open when you can't deliver on its brand promise. Especially, as in Twitter's case, if you're not making any money from it anyway.
Until Twitter is fixed, you can find me over on FriendFeed.
