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Episode #2 of the weekly iPhone shows. ———- Links: Baby Translating iPhone App www.wired.com App store hits 100000 apps! www.brighthand.com Six iPhone Catastrophies… www.pcworld.com AT&T looking to sell 8GB iPhone 3GS. www.tuaw.com ———– Check out the website at www.benwmsonline.com and follow on Twitter @BenWmsOnline

Is the iPhone Boom a Business Boon?

We all know how the iPhone frenzy has grabbed popular imagination since it was first announced in Jan 2007. With its cool feature set, slick appearance, powerful computing capabilities, beautiful display and intuitive touch navigation, this poster boy of the mobile generation has captured the imagination of gizmo freaks and tech phobics alike. To get some measure of iPhone’s success, one only needs refer to Tim Cook’s (Apple’s COO) recent statement at a conference – he said that the company had “really good confidence” the company would hit 10 million iPhones sold by the end of 2008.

According to a research from IDC, 70 percent of those polled who own, or plan to purchase an iPhone in the next year, consider it to be for both personal and business use.

Considering the vast proliferation of iPhones in such a short span, it is natural that all those who own a iPhone would want to extend its use to business as well. And it is no joy carrying around a Blackberry and iPhone in either pocket. All that does is to exert extra downward pressure on the belt. It is no wonder then, that iPhone’s usability in a business context is a raging debate nowadays. That is still a secondary question, because the fact remains that present and future end users of iPhone see is as something they want to use for business.

The Bad News

Unfortunately for corporates, iPhone was created mainly for the meatier consumer market, and never really meant to be a business tool.

What Obstructs “iPhone for Business”

-   It’s mainly a PIM

-   Third party applications not supported

-   Lack of Exchange Support

Mainly a PIM – iPhone mainly has PIM(personal information manager) capabilities (email, contacts, calendars, calendars, notes) and not meant to be used for team collaboration, which requires the ability to share and work togather on information.

Sorry Third Party Developers – iPhone runs on a custom built operating system called the “iPhone OS”, and at this point does not allow third party applications to be built & installed on this native OS. Users are restricted to applications prebuilt into the system (mail, sms,  calendar, photos, etc). This meant no special business centric applications could be created to make use of iPhone’s computing & display capabilities and internet-ability.  

No Exchange Support – The gravest ommision was a lack of support for MS Exchange, which meant that users could not view even the most most elementary business information – business mail, contacts, tasks, and calendars, on their iPhones, what to speak of advanced collaboration. The only way to achieve this was complicated and unreliable workarounds.

The Good News

iPhone’s Business Friendly Features

-   Rich Safari Browser

-   Web 2.0 Applications Allowed

-   Internet Friendly

-   Recent Apple Announcements

Hurray for Web 2.0 – The good news is that they allowed a small window, through which an elephant could be pushed. Soon after its launch, Apple announced that it would allow third party web applications supporting web 2.0 standards, to run on iPhone though its rich Safari browser. This effectively meant that iPhone could be part of the web 2.0 revolution, and access all the rich applications therein.

The Safari Browser – iPhones web browser Safari, is a full web browser with the works. It is light years ahead of the custom made web browsers of traditional corporate handhelds like Palm’s Blazer browser, Blackberry browser, etc. It is not just comparable to a desktop browser, but is a desktop browser. This allows iPhone to ride high on the current web 2.0 wave, rather than just being a bystander.

According to AT&T and Google, iPhone generated 50 times more search requests than any other mobile handset.

Internet-ability- iPhone allows internet access through wi-fi or wide area EDGE networks. One important prerequisite for a mobile to be an effective remote collaboration tool is the willingness and comfort level of users to use the device for web access. With no little thanks to the large display & the safari browser, the iPhone has been a huge success as a device for web access. The iPhone increased the average wireless data usage as much as 30 times higher than on other phones.

Apple finally Awakens from its Slumber – Only lately has Apple has woken up to the previously ignored aspect of business usage. This was largely caused by the hue and cry raised by the media and users over its frustrating lack of business friendlyness. Even as I write, there is news of iPhone finally offering Exchange support, and an iPhone SDK (software development kit) which will allow programmers to develop applications specifically to be installed on the iPhone.

But these new developments are not just in their infancy, but even foetal stage. It will be some time before these new applications find their feet, an truly provide trouble free functionality to businesses.

Exchange support at this time is issue riddled and works only for companies that support Exchange 2007 or Direct Push on Exchange 2003. Moreover, this and the launch of installed applications for iPhone wont take place until a firmware update slated for June 2008.

Webapps to the Rescue : HyperOffice as a case in study

Amongst the first companies to regonise the oppurtunity presented by iPhone for rich business applications was HyperOffice. Already well experienced in the web based business collaboration domain, they developed HyperOffice for iPhone, an iPhone specific version of their flagship product, HyperOffice.

This allowed business users to use almost the entire feature set HyperOffice right from their iPhones. Rather than an isolated personal information manager, HyperOffice allowed iPhone to be used as a dynamic collaboration tool through which users could access the company intranet, share contacts and calendars, plan projects, share and edit documents, schedule meetings, & many other things.

They also realised early on that a major pain point for users looking to use iPhone for business was a lack of Exchange support. HyperOffice allows users to get past this hurdle easily by acting as a bridge between Exchange and iPhone. It allows users to receive information directly from Exchange, or access Outlook information (mail, contacts, calendars, tasks) right on iPhone, with or without Exchange. No matter where users access mail and other information – Outlook, iPhone’s email client or on any other web device, information is automatically synched. Users always get updated information.

www.iphonedownloadblog.com News roundup for the day.

The $99 Acer netbook has arrived in RadioShack, we tell you THE CATCH. Also, TV battles with iTunes over movies and our movies may go “bye bye”. Did you know the 3G iPhone can be bought online NOW and home activated?! Also, the tech industry loses 100000 plus jobs, AND big reports that the iPhone sales are beginning to slow down. Ugh oh! Much more! www.moxiemoshow.com

In San Francisco, Apple’s chief executive officer Steve Jobs took the wraps off the new edition of the iPhone on Monday, June 9, 2008. Aesthetically, the difference between the two generations is barely perceptible. The news makers, however, were the new additions to the much-anticipated gadget. The new iPhone sports a 3rd-generation (3G) wireless support, affording faster Internet connections than the previous, slower, EDGE support.

Another is the addition of business-friendly capabilities, such as synchronized e-mail and calendar through Microsoft’s Mail Exchange, and access to corporate data. And of course, full support to third-party applications was touted and some were showcased. In addition, the new iPhone also supports global positioning system (GPS), which is good for locating colleagues with supported devices and for navigation.

And probably the biggest news was the price: USD199 for the 8-gigabyte model and USD299 for the one with 16 gigabytes. And the device will be simultaneously available in 21 countries on July 11, 2008, to be expanded to later in the year to 70 countries including Cameroon, Egypt, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Jordan, Mali, Niger, Qatar, Senegal, and Turkey. The new price is a big departure from the USD599 price tag of the first iPhones rolled out on June 29, 2007.

Except for the announcement on broadening the iPhone map into several dozen new countries, every piece of information in Steve Jobs’ keynote was widely rumored ahead of the event, though not confirmed. Exciting as Apple has made these feature to look, however, many users may not notice them. After all, Wi-Fi, which the iPhone has supported from the start, remains the faster, and most of the time cheaper, alternative to carrier-offered 3G. And what is the percentage of new young users who cannot live without Microsoft Exchange support?

What Is New in a New iPhone?

Still, the new iPhone is new in a curious way. It is the fullest realization of the bundling phase that mobile phones have been undergoing for the past eight years. Ever since Sharp, the Japanese manufacturer, offered a camera-mounted mobile phone in 2000, a near-consensus emerged among commentators (and it turned out, manufacturers) that bundling more services and features was the trend of the future for mobile phones.

And an arms race of sorts followed among manufacturers to add the most useful and intuitive (and not-so-useful-or-intuitive) features: a video-capture capability; a full QWERTY keypad; a gaming capability; MP3 player; support for business applications like corporate e-mail, Wi-Fi, WiMax, expandable memory, capable Web browser, Bluetooth (wireless short-range technology), infra-red, TV streaming, and bar-code reading; there were even experiments on adding landmine-detection capabilities to certain models of mobile phones. A 2005 New Scientist article rightly described the mobile phone as the new Swiss Army Knife.

But as is always the case with information technologies, the “how much is too much” question gradually arose. And it was not probably feasible to pack all the features in a single reasonably priced gadget. With a fierce competition and little time to ponder this long-standing question, most manufacturers seem to have opted for an easier solution: to segment the market. The ultimate exemplary of this thinking is Nokia, so far the world’s largest mobile phone manufacturer, with its tens of models geared toward different audiences. For instance, there is the “business” line, which is heavier on business applications, and the “media” line, with better support for music and video.

With a few exceptions (such as the unexpected success of Motorola’s extra-slim Razr, whose external design was its biggest selling feature), the segmentation paradigm seemed to hold. And other smart phones manufacturers, like Palm and BlackBerry, in fact toed the line, offering different models aimed explicitly at different purposes.

Interface Supremacy :

Until the iPhone emerged. That was in December 2006, when Steve Jobs gave the first glimpses of the new keypad-less, multi-touch gadget, with a user interface carrying visual resemblances to the Mac operating system, which runs Apple’s computers. On the new gadget, icons glowed, menus flowed, and the wide (3.5 inch) display seemed the first realistic option to browse the Internet and actually read stuff online.

If the ensuing media fixation on the iPhone, particularly after it was released about seven months later, was any indicator, that was Apple’s finest hour. A Harvard business professor estimated that the free media publicity Apple received in coverage for the iPhone was in the vicinity of USD400 millions, Wired magazine reported last March.

As far as features were concerned, the iPhone appears to have struck a successful formula for the “how much is good enough” question. Most importantly, the sophisticated features were hidden under the hood of a breakthrough user interface. Internal complexity was cloaked in outer simplicity, similar to the Google homepage. Indeed Apple, which offered the first graphical user interface in 1983 in its Apple Lisa systems, made a point in its iPhone: Features were important (the Wi-Fi, the camera, media player, etc.), but the user interface was even more so. The interface was the fabric that held these features together and determined how they were, or were not, going to be used.

In its iPhone second act, Apple is focusing on making the best of its advanced interface. Thanks to a powerful processor, the new games, map applications, GPS, media player, all look exactly at home on the iPhone. Most of what the iPhone offers, strictly speaking, has been offered by others for years. But Apple’s focus on striking the right bundle (instead of multiple lines and consumer segments) and superior user interface puts its iPhone far ahead of the competition. At least for now.

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Welcome to a very special edition of Tech-fo! Check it out…AJ’s in the studio!! BUILDING PROJECTION VIDEO: vimeo.com This week, a lot of iPhone news, and a lot of “Games made into movies” news! There will be no Tech-fo for the next 2 weeks as I and Henry are on Holiday in France. Sorry fans! Enjoy the show!

China Unicom will launch a customized version of iPhone news of a confirmed, immediately attracted a large number of domestic iPhone fans eye. Although the iPhone, China Unicom and the starting time to market location and the bare-metal prices, the problem is not clear, but it will not affect the consumers iPhone expectations. From the China Unicom headquarters in Washington received the news, only this 11 “golden weeks” 8 days, with the official business of China Unicom 3G craze, Unicom online business hall of the first iPhone book break 10000.

Unicom version of iPhone be so favorable for reasons:
Tailor-made packages for the user
As pressure on China Unicom China Unicom version of the highlights of Taiho iPhone, provides users with iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS two kinds of models, and have a different memory options. According to China Unicom to provide the information: “3G iPhone packages from 126-886 yuan a total of eight files, package contains 450MB to 4GB flow, 120-880 SMS, MMS 15-95, presented Caller ID. Package in contains 320-3000 minutes call, make voice calls outside the package 0.15 yuan per minute. throughout the country to answer for free. “users can according to their actual needs to choose their own packages.

Unicom-depth customization of the business
China Unicom version of iPhone has built an exclusive Unicom, China Unicom, “Wo” services, including mobile phone information, phone broadcasting, mobile music, mobile life, mobile email, video-on-demand, mobile Bookstore, cell phone security, cell phones and mobile phone business newspaper hall, Through these services with the 3G high-speed networks, will give the user a more pleasant online experience.

Reservations APPStore
The APP Store Apple’s iPhone is to make iPhone much hot the decisive factor in this application stores attract a wide range of software and games manufacturers own software applications and games which have been ported to iPhone use. China Unicom version of the iPhone live up to expectations APP Store will be retained from this application, users can freely download all the resources they need, and to join with China Unicom version of iPhone custom business applications will be the most convenient full devotion to the user, allowing China Unicom version of iPhone more attractive.

Cell phone hardware and powerful
China Unicom version of iPhone with Apple’s iPhone in appearance, and no difference, equipped with high-definition 3.5-inch screen, makes the screen display is outstanding, while the capacitive multi-touch screen support, so that iPhone superior in entertainment, whether it is in the display effect, or the pairs of pictures and video appreciation, both possess excellent display effect, and that the aircraft in support of the game very perfect, the game interface is extremely bright, beautiful and playable high.

It can be seen that Unicom version of iPhone mobile phone itself, whether the hardware features, or user tariffs all have a great advantage. Meanwhile, with China Unicom on the future of the customized version of iPhone application development and comprehensive use of iPhone sales will inevitably play a greater role in promoting.