iPhone 2.0 came out less than a year ago with the launch of a Software Developers Kit for building applications. Since that time, developers have created over 50,000 apps available in the App Store. With a user base of over 40,000,000 iPhone and iPod Touches the App market space is huge. 1 billion apps have been downloaded as of April 2009. You can thank the free applications for contributing to that statistic. During the Developer’s 2009 keynote Apple showed a short video featuring developers telling their story about developing for the iPhone as well as customers declaring their love for their application. It was a fascinating video to get developers thinking 1) I could be one of those developers selling millions of applications and 2) I would love to have people talking about how much they love my application. A little positive physiological warfare on the developer mindset.
The iPhone 3.0 feature list was somewhat rehashed from a few months ago, but with some new entries. Now you can rent and purchase movies from the iPhone. Audiobooks and TV shows available as well. Parental Controls were improved to include movies, TV shows and applications. Tethering is available for those vendors that support it. Still no reference to the availability of Flash. Auto fill now finally available to remember user names and passwords for web sites. A really cool Find My iPhone feature was announced. It’s a service available to MobileMe customers for a fee on a yearly basis. Using the service via MobileMe you can view the approximate location of your phone on a map. You can send it a message with a special audible alert regardless if it is in silent mode. What a great way to drive revenue!!! Details remain as to how long the alarm stays on. You can also send a remote wipe command to delete all data. In general with the 3.0 release there are lots of the minor features yet to be discovered. In an important confirmation from Apple we know that “free apps remain free”. Developers have to be careful about their pricing model out of the gate with Apple’s stance on this. Push notifications are finally ready to go with three types: text alerts, numerical badges for icon and custom alert sounds.
Lots of great benefits all around with the 3.0 release. Application developers will produce even more amazing applications with the 3.0 SDK. User satisfaction with the device will continue to sore. All that being said, there are many features you can find on a Blackberry but not on an iPhone.
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