Index of iPhone

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 announced today that more than 100,000 iPhone developers have downloaded the beta iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK) in the first four days since its launch on March 6.

According to Apple, “developer response continues to be phenomenal”. The company cites a variety of developers already working on new applications:

• “We’re excited that the iPhone expands the ways our customers can solve key financial tasks wherever they might be,” said Rick Jensen, senior vice president, Small Business Group at Intuit.
• “We can’t wait to show off great new versions of arcade classics like PAC-MAN and Galaga that use the revolutionary features of the iPhone and iPod touch,” said Scott Rubin, vice president, Sales and Marketing, Namco Networks.
• “Apple’s become an important mobile game platform with the iPhone SDK,” said Jason Kapalka, co-founder and Chief Creative Officer, PopCap. “The new SDK gives us the tools to innovate and reinvent games like Bejeweled, Zuma and Peggle.”
• “Six Apart pioneered the mobile blogging experience with an iPhone-optimized blog service,” said Chris Alden, CEO, Six Apart. “We’re taking it to the next level with our native iPhone application for TypePad that’s already in development.”

The free beta iPhone SDK an be downloaded at developer.apple.com/iphone/program. The iPhone Developer Program will initially be available in the US and will expand to other countries in the coming months.

iEmulator.com, a provider of emulation solutions, has announced iEmulator Touch,  a touch-enabled PC emulator environment for iPhone and iPod Touch users running firmware version 2.0.

“Imagine being able to run most popular PC software anywhere, with full Internet connectivity, without having to lug a notebook PC around,” said John Czlonka, General Manager of iEmulator.com. “It’s a fundamental shift in how people will use mobile devices, and makes thousands of new applications available for the platform.”

“Apple’s new iPhone and iPod Touch software development kit is allowing us to quickly port iEmulator to these innovative devices,” he went on to say. “It’s an amazing development and operating environment.”

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.

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.

iPhones are great for listening to music - you can rip and copy over your CDs, you can get music off of iTunes and you can subscribe to one of the many free music podcasts.

But iPhones aren’t just for listening to music. There’s a growing number of applications for jailbroken iPhones that let you create music.

Five Free iPhone Music Applications

MooCowMusic Drummer is a virtual drum pad for the iPhone:

Drummer can also be used with a custom sample set:

MooCowMusic’s Piano, formerly called iAno, can be used as a virtual piano or synth:

Abilene Christian University announced this week that they would outfit all incoming freshmen with their own iPod Touch or iPhone, to enable the students to receive homework alerts, answer in-class quizzes, and use about a dozen other web applications the university has developed for the devices.

ACU’s plans for have attracted the attention of executives at Apple and administrators at other universities. ACU Chief Information Officer Kevin Roberts returned to Abilene Monday from Apple headquarters, where he was asked to present the university’s “creative vision for converged media devices” to executives and to selected leaders from universities including Harvard, Yale, MIT, Duke, Stanford, Oxford, Princeton and UCLA.

The university’s overall plan for using mobile technology in education has been captured in a film called ‘Connected.

“We are not merely providing cutting-edge technology tools to our incoming students,” said Roberts. “We are also providing the web applications that ensure these tools will become critical to the students’ learning experience. Because 93 percent of ACU students bring their own computers with them to college, we are choosing to take them to the next level by providing converged mobile devices.”

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.

Apple today added new models of the iPhone and iPod touch which have double the memory.

The iPhone now comes in a new 16GB model for $499, joining the 8GB model for $399. iPod touch now comes in a 32GB model for $499, joining the 16GB model for $399 and the 8GB model for $299.

“For some users, there’s never enough memory,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide iPod and iPhone Product Marketing. “Now people can enjoy even more of their music, photos and videos on the most revolutionary mobile phone and best Wi-Fi mobile device in the world.”

All iPhone and iPod touch models include the software enhancements announced last month, including the ability to automatically find your location using the new Maps application; create Web Clips for your favorite websites; customize your home screen and watch movies from the new iTunes Movie Rentals.

Pricing & Availability

The new 16GB iPhone is available immediately for a suggested retail price of $499 (US) through the Apple Store, Apple’s retail stores and AT&T retail and online stores. The 32GB iPod touch is available worldwide immediately for a suggested retail price of $499 (US) through the Apple Store, Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers.

Sprint has announced that it will be cutting 4,000 jobs and closing 8 percent of its stores:

The company said it would cut 125 stores and eliminate more than 4,000 sales outlets within retailers.  Sprint expects the measures to trim labor costs by an annual rate of $700 million to $800 million by the end of 2008. It will record a first-quarter charge for severance costs.

Sprint has been losing ground to bigger rivals such as AT&T amid network and customer service problems that drove away high-value post-paid customers who pay monthly bills.

Sprint also reported net losses of 683,000 post-paid subscribers and 202,000 prepaid subscribers for the quarter. In total, Sprint’s subscriber base was 53.8 million at the end of 2007, including 40.8 million post-paid and 4.1 million prepaid customers.

When you read that Sprint lost nearly 700,000 subscribers to AT&T and other rivals in the last quarter, you have to wonder how much of this is a side effect of the iPhone introduction.

Go into any Apple store, and you’ll see a lot of people checking out and buying iPhones - people that a year ago might have been shopping at a Sprint store.

As buyers demand more capable multimedia phones, we’re going to see more audience for podcasts, video podcasts and other Internet media grow. We’re also going to see some painful disruption in the phone industry, though, as companies struggle to deliver cutting-edge devices and services that can compete with what Apple and AT&T offer.