Based on the latest stats from M:Metrics, the iPhone is delivering on its hype, radically changing what people are doing with the mobile Web.
Check out some of these figures:
The iPhone is already the most popular device for accessing news and information on the mobile Web, with 85 percent of iPhone users accessing news and information in the month of January.
30.9 percent of iPhone owners watched mobile TV or video, versus a 4.6 market average, and more than double the rate for all smartphone users.
30.4 percent of iPhone owners accessed YouTube, compared to 1 percent of all mobile phone users.
36 percent used Google Maps, compared to 2.6 percent of all mobile users.
Usage of social networking is also popular among iPhone users: 49.7 percent accessed a social networking site in January, nearly twelve times the market average.
Twenty percent of iPhone owners accessed Facebook, one of the first Web properties to customize its content for the iPhone, versus 1.5 percent of the total mobile market.
The iPhone offers a taste of the future; iPhone users are using the devices in all sorts of leading edge ways. It also shows how mobile users will use Internet media when they get capable devices and unlimited data plans.
“The iPhone has certainly delivered on its hype,” said Mark Donovan, senior analyst, M:Metrics. “Beyond a doubt, this device is compelling consumers to interact with the mobile Web, delivering off-the-charts usage from everything to text messaging to mobile video.”
“While the demographics of iPhone users are very similar to all smartphone owners, the iPhone is outpacing other smartphones in driving mobile content consumption by a significant margin,” said Donovan. “In addition to the attributes of the device itself, another important factor to consider is the fact that all iPhones on AT&T are attached to an unlimited data plan. Our data shows that once the fear of surprise data charges is eliminated, mobile content consumption increases dramatically, regardless of device.”
Apple Japan is researching the iPod nano for defects after one of the popular digital music players reportedly shot out sparks while recharging. A defect is suspected in the lithium-ion battery in the iPod Nano, model number MA099J/A.
The problem surfaced in January in Kanagawa Prefecture southwest of Tokyo, and Apple reported the problem to the ministry in March. Apple Japan did not contest the ministry statement but declined further comment. The ministry has asked Apple Japan to find out the cause of what it is categorizing as a fire and report back to the government.
Lithium-ion batteries have been blamed for a series of blazes in laptops recently that have resulted in massive global recalls.
According to reports, the Beatles will finally be coming to iTunes. Paul McCartney has reached a $400 million agreement with Apple for the distribution of the Beatles’ back catalog.
McCartney, Ringo Starr and the families of late Beatles stars George Harrison and John Lennon will share in the profits. Portions of the multimillion-dollar payout also will go to Michael Jackson, along with the EMI and Sony recording groups, who each own certain Beatles recording or publishing rights.
Apple today introduced the iPhone software development kit (SDK) at a special event held on its Cupertino campus. In doing so, it hit the ball out of the park, delivering the deep enterprise support that businesses want and delivering the whiz-bang sh** that everybody else wanted to see.
If that weren’t enough, Apple announced a $100 million iFund to kick-start the development of great mobile apps.
Plus Spore on the iPhone.
Delivering The Corporate Goods
The iPhone 2.0 beta release, which is immediately available, includes both the iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK) as well as enterprise features such as support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync to provide secure, over-the-air push email, contacts and calendars as well as remote wipe, and the addition of Cisco IPsec VPN for encrypted access to private corporate networks.
Apple has licensed Exchange ActiveSync from Microsoft and is building it right into the iPhone, so that iPhone will connect out-of-the-box to Microsoft Exchange Servers 2003 and 2007. Built-in Exchange ActiveSync support also enables security features such as remote wipe, password policies and auto-discovery.
The iPhone 2.0 software supports Cisco IPsec VPN to ensure the highest level of IP-based encryption available for transmission of sensitive corporate data, as well as the ability to authenticate using digital certificates or password-based, multi-factor authentication. The addition of WPA2 Enterprise with 802.1x authentication enables enterprise customers to deploy iPhone and iPod touch with the latest standards for protection of Wi-Fi networks.
The iPhone 2.0 software provides a configuration utility that allows IT administrators to manage multiple iPhones, including password policies, VPN setting, installing certificates, email server settings and more. Once the configuration is defined it can be easily and securely delivered via web link or email to the user. To install, all the user has to do is authenticate with a user ID or password, download the configuration and tap install. Once installed, the user will have access to all their corporate IT services.
But enterprise support is just the start of it. Apple also introduced the SDK, the App Store, a giant bag of money and some whiz-bang games.
There have been a lot of headlines over the last few days about iCrime - the idea that the popularity of iPods is leading to a surge in violent crime.
The source for these stories is actually a nearly six-month old paper (pdf) by the Urban Institute research group. The paper argues that the recent surge in violent crime defies easy explanation, and then goes on to propose that the rise in violent offending and the explosion in the sales of iPods and other portable media devices is more than coincidental.
In fact, they argue that “America may have experienced an iCrime wave.”
Here’s the meat of their case:
In the fall of 2004, a new generation of iPods was introduced and consumer demand exploded. By the end of 2005, more than 42.3 million units had been sold, and by the end of 2006, the total was almost 90 million.
In 2005, for the first time in 12 years, violent crime increased—a trend that continued in 2006. This followed a relatively long period of decline. From 1993 until 2004, the violent crime rate fell every year, for a total decline of 38 percent. At the same time that violent crime rates began to rise, America’s streets filled with millions of people visibly wearing, and being distracted by, expensive electronic gear. Thus, there was a marked increase in both the supply of potential victims and opportunities for would-be offenders.
Past crime waves are thought to have occurred in a similar way—triggered by the introduction of a new high-status and expensive product. For instance, in the 1980s and 1990s, the proliferation of such valuable products as expensive basketball shoes or North Face jackets may have led to new crimes. However, in past instances where the supply of crime creating products increased, the consumer population purchasing these goods—and the would-be offenders coveting those products—made up a relatively small part of the U.S. population. By contrast, iPods are everywhere, and, unlike a jacket or a sneaker, one size fits all.
Unfortunately, the Urban Institute’s paper doesn’t make a very strong case; it’s not clear if the popularity of iPods and the rise in crime is coincidence, correlation or causation. In fact, the paper doesn’t tackle the most obvious question: is some significant portion of the increase attributable to ipod-related crimes?
The Urban Institute has found an iMeme, but it makes more headlines than sense.
UK mobile developers Coolgorilla have launched the London Travel Guide, a free travel guide specifically designed for iPods, iPhones and mobile phones.
The London Travel Guide packs over 400 pages of info, along with interactive features, onto your portable media player. The guide is designed to be regularly updated, so you can have the most up to date information about each attraction, including entrance fees, phone numbers and websites.
iPhone and mobile users can simply click on the phone number of the attraction to call them up, or use the website link to go directly through to the attraction’s site to find more information.
Coolgorilla designed the iPod version to be downloaded as a podcast via iTunes and the iPhone and mobile versions have both been optimised so visitors can access the information over the handset’s web browser.
“A recent road trip through California got me thinking about how we could improve on the traditional, paperback travel guide” said Roy Forsdick, Managing Director of Coolgorilla. “By using the content rich features available on iPods and mobiles we can help travelers get the most out of their visit to London. Also, since software isn’t exposed to the same reproduction costs as hardcopy publications, we can distribute the guides for free!”
Coolgorilla is already working on similar travel guides for a number of other cities including Paris, Barcelona, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, due to be released later this year.
The company plans to make money from the travel guides through advertising deals.
Both Elisabeth (Podcasting News publisher) and I are Macheads and iPod freaks. We’re iPhone early adopters and have been advocating podcasting and new media platforms for music for years.
But, we’ve still got a vinyl music collection around, a couple of turntables and a little parallel universe of analog music that we still love.
So, country music artist Shelby Lynne’s essay on Vinyl vs iPod over at Huffington Post rings a chord:
I grew up listening to….vinyl. I have discovered that having a vinyl collection is so much cooler than having an iPod. Now, I have an iPod and I admit they are genius especially for travel and convenience. But they aren’t really any fun.
I don’t call up my friends and say “Hey why don’t y’all come over and bring your computers and let’s have a party”? Hell no! I say bring pot, wine and vinyl.
That’s sexy. It’s really a great excuse to get together and listen to music. Everybody takes a turn looking through the collection and it’s interesting to see what each person plays. The vinyl way is just me. I think if if we all listen to more music together, it really doesn’t matter how we do it.
Music will save us all just like it always has. We feed our souls with it. Vinyl just creates a little more discussion for us. You get to look at the covers, the liner notes, sometimes the lyrics are included. Plus you can roll a doobie on it. That’s hard on an iPod.
I’m not much of a country music fan, but you can’t argue with the fact that there’s a wonderful tactile sense to vinyl that hasn’t been duplicated in the world of digital music, and that hasn’t been replaced, either.
Gravitas is a unique video podcast that pairs original music compositions with computer graphic simulations of the universe in motion.
Here’s the podcast description:
GRAVITAS is a visual and musical celebration of the beauty in a dynamic universe driven by gravity. Animations from supercomputer simulations of forming galaxies, star clusters, galaxy clusters, and galaxy interactions are presented as moving portraits of cosmic evolution. Billions of years of complex gravitational choreography are presented in 9 animations - each one interpreted with an original musical composition inspired by the exquisite movements of gravity. The result is an emotive and spiritually uplifting synthesis of science and art.
Astrophysicist John Dubinski combines a knowledge of cosmology, galaxy dynamics and computer graphics to create breathtaking portraits of a universe in motion. Composer-pianist John Kameel Farah merges the soundworlds of renaissance and baroque counterpoint, free improvisation, Middle-Eastern music, minimalism, techno and electronica to create a musical feast that crosses time and dimension.
The podcast explores deep ideas, expressed entirely through visuals and musics.
You can subscribe to the podcast by adding this feed URL to your podcast client software:
There’s a fun post on the 10 Weirdest iPod Accessories over at PC Mag.
Our favorite is probably the Dreamgear i.sound Plasma, above. It’s a psychedelic plasma globe that has four integrated speakers, giving you a “custom-designed electro-magnetic lightshow dance to the beat of your music.”
Of course, if you really want to see weird iPod accessories, the definitive guide is probably still our Holiday Guide to iCrap.
TalkShoe has introduced an iPhone application that lets you participate or conduct community calls from your phone and even lets you use the service to create podcasts.
Features:
iPhone users can join live calls and view upcoming calls they may want to participate in.
The iPhone application provides a one click link to auto dial-in and participate in a call. Up to 250 people can join and talk all together at once.
Hosts can create public or unlisted community call episodes and manage them through their iPhone.
TalkShoe members can follow specific calls, which can then be viewed from their iPhone or be notified via email or SMS when they start.
The iPhone application makes it easy to record a podcast right from your phone.
Calls can be recorded for later listening or turned into a podcast.
In addition to participating through iPhone, anyone can also participate via phone, mobile phone, Skype, or VoIP via the talkshoe.com website.
Based on the latest stats from M:Metrics, the iPhone is delivering on its hype, radically changing what people are doing with the mobile Web.
There have been a lot of 
UK mobile developers 
