Playing around with the iPhone App Store this week got me thinking about Apple’s revenue streams. It seems that now, in addition to hardware, Apple makes a lot of money through digital downloads: music, movies, TV shows and now software.
In fact, Apple started digital distribution of iPod games a while ago in the iTunes Music Store. But only a small number of titles are available, and the development process includes making a direct deal with Apple. But the iPhone developer process is open to just about any serious developer. There are at least 500 titles available.
So, now that the iTunes Music Store delivers iPhone and iPod software, why not Mac software?
This should be an easy addition, and the pieces are probably already in place. Apple could start with their own applications, like iWork, and then let third-party developers get in on the act, with Apple taking its 30 percent cut. I’d bet developers would jump at the opportunity to distribute this way given that most software stores still ignore the Mac platform.
Come to think of it, they could do this on Windows. The iTunes Music Store, and even the iPhone App Store inside it, works in iTunes for Windows. Apple could become the largest distributor of Windows software.
This goes further than the PC and the iPhone. Apple already distributes to living rooms via Apple TV. So with digital downloads, Apple is taking on Blockbuster and NetFlix, they are already dominating retail music stores, and they could soon be challenging retail and online software stores. Apple could be the next Amazon.com, but for digital products only, which is probably the most profitable type of product — at least from a distribution standpoint.
So I still have my old iPhone. As I have plans to develop some iPhone Apps, it seems to make sense to keep it around. I could use it to test my Apps, without causing any problem in my new iPhone, which I rely on for communication.
Once you write off the phone as “worthless” it suddenly becomes extremely valuable. I pulled the SIM card out, to make sure there is no confusion in the system, and I am able to use WiFi to surf the Web, check email, play videos, etc. I can also use all the Apps I installed, and sync with iTunes to put must on there. It is essentially an iPod Touch with a camera and a mic. And that, in itself, is a very nifty device. If a Skype. application ever arrives, it could become my main office phone. Right now, it can be a Pandora streaming music box. I can use it as a voice recorder. I can pass it around the room with the Band App and someone can play drums while I play piano on my new iPhone. I could even use it to complete replace my alarm clock — I can set alarms, have it play music, check the news on the Web, and even my email.
The bottom line is that this old iPhone may just be starting its life as a cool gadget, not ending it.
So, with about 500 iPhone Apps available, you’d think we’d have a little of everything. But there are plenty of duplicate applications, like Sudoku, and tons of Apps that just mimic what we already could get from Web sites.
Here are some iPhone Apps that I thought someone would make for the launch, but they just aren’t there:
1. GPS Gadget: Just a geeky read-out of your location in latitude and longitude, maybe with a little memory so you can track a path. Basically, what a GPS device did 10 years ago, before they had maps. It would come in real handy for hiking and GeoCaching.
2. USB Keyboard: The iPhone has a dock, which goes to USB, which can then go to a USB keyboard with a little cable adjustment. It would be great to bring a super-thin Apple keyboard along and take notes at meetings and conferences without dragging along the MacBook.
3. Skype VOIP: I know they can’t make this work over 3G for legal reasons, but it should at least be available for WiFi. Another app exists that has you pay for calls. Yuck.
4. iPhone Camcorder: You should be able to record video with your iPhone’s camera.
5. Telnet/SSH: Every Webmaster gets a little uneasy when they are out of reach of a way to access their server through ssh. The “Terminal” application was my favorite on the SideKick, even though I never used it. I just liked knowing that I could get in if I needed to. There could also be a ton of uses for this very simple App.
When I started making the video today about the iPhone lines, I wanted to find both people that were upgrading from an existing iPhone and people that were getting their first iPhone. I thought it would be hard to find the later. I mean, if you find it worthwhile to wait in line for an iPhone, wouldn’t you have already had one 6 months or a year ago? Shouldn’t the line people be the early adopters?
But no, the opposite was true, I had to try really hard to find someone who had an iPhone already. Most of the people, inclusing those at the front of the line, were buying their first iPhone. So that meant that of the 500 or so people that waited in line all day last year, perhaps only a handful came back for another line. At the same time, Apple did a good job of hyping this launch, to get the new users onboard.
A geekier reason may have been that iPhone 2007 users may have wanted to wait to update their old iPhones to the 2.0 OS before they deactivated. That was my only hesitation on buying a new iPhone right away.
Update: Cali and Neal from Geek Brief told me the same was true for their line.
So I spent some time this afternoon playing Super Monkey Ball, Band, and trying out some of the other apps. Super Monkey Ball looks great and runs smoothly. It is a tough game because of the way you control movement. As a gamer, I’m not so sure I like the idea of the challenge being in how you can control movement. I prefer strategy or reaction time.
Band is interesting, but I got bored with it quickly. It may be more fun if there are a few people who have it and you can “jam.” Or, it may grow to be an excellent app once more instruments are added and perhaps there is a better system for saving and editing music. I’d love to see a desktop version so you could start composing on your iPhone and then polish it off on your Mac later on.
By far, the app I like the best is Pandora. Pandora is the Web site/service that plays music it thinks you will like based on feedback. I’ve been a user for a while, and I love the commercial-free “make your own radio station” idea. Now that it works on the iPhone, oh boy. That’s the end of radio for me. I even tried it in the car on the drive home and it played song after song over the Edge network without missing a beat.
I was a little please and also disappointed in AIM (AOL Instant Messenger). This is basically iChat for the iPhone, as you can use your AIM account or your .Mac (MobileMe) account. It just seemed very buggy. And I used an AIM account at first, and the only way I could figure to switch to my .Mac account was to delete the App and re-install. Likewise, Twitterrific seemed unfinished. I can’t seem to get it to display the most recent tweets when I start the App. It is still easier just to go to Twitter.com on the iPhone and get what I want faster.
Looking through the App Store, I saw a lot of junk. There were Apps for $1 that really didn’t do much. There were others, like the FaceBook App that did LESS than the equivalent iPhone-formatted Web site. So what’s the point?
Breaking news: once you have downloaded iTunes 7.7, which is available via software update, click on this special link in Safari and iTunes should launch and take you right to the app page for the iPhone Remote application. You can even download it, though I guess we will have to wait for iPhone 2.0 software to install it.
You can then use the navigation at the top to go to other sections of the App Store.
