I am sitting at lunch sitting next to Adobe’s CTO typing to you from my iPhone with the just-released WordPress iPhone application. Very nice but I don’t see a way to read, review, moderate comments. That is the functionality I really need when I am mobile. I would also love to be able to post a picture and comment on it. Anyway, enjoying getting more of my life onto my mobile even if it shows how far we have to go. Kick me if I get too exuberant about iPhone apps, they are the fun “shiny object” of the moment.
iPhone Developers have a blockbuster weekend
July 14, 2008 By
Today I visited two iPhone developers to see how things went. First we visited Evernote, which makes a great note-taking app. This is the most useful app I’ve loaded on my iPhone so far (which has more than 30 apps loaded on it). Really killer thing? Take a picture of something with text in it. Say a sign, or a business card. Or a newspaper ad. Or a bill you received. Save it. Then, search for something on that bill. Wow. It turned all the text in the picture into something you could search for. This is the coolest thing.
The second app developer was Tapulous, producers of Tap Tap Revenge, the #1 free game (and was #9 on the overall list when I visited them tonight and they’ve been rising fast).
Some things I learned.
Evernote has seen 30,000 new people sign up for its service through the iPhone App Store (and many more have downloaded it but had existing accounts). Tap Tap Revenge, which was developed by Nate True, has seen about 200,000 downloads so far, which is made even more incredible because it wasn’t working for part of the day on Friday due to Apple not letting them onto the list at first.
Tapulous says they have several other apps (including a Twitter app, called Twinkle, that I got a first look at. That’s Mike Lee, Chief Architect, showing that off to me) that hasn’t been approved yet, and they are hoping Apple will approve their apps “any minute now.”
Here’s the videos:
Demo of Tap Tap Revenge. In this video you see Bart Decrem, CEO.
Meet Jeff Clavier, one of the investors in Tapulous.
Mike Lee, Chief Architect at Tapulous, shows off Twinkle for the first time, which is a new Twitter client coming soon for the iPhone.
Interview with Evernote’s CEO, Phil Libin, who shows me how his app works on the iPhone.
To give you some perspective on how much the world has sped up: in 1996 the hottest app was ICQ, an instant messaging client. The guys who started that company defined viral marketing. In the first six weeks that ICQ was out there they had 65,000 downloads. Tapulous saw that many downloads in less than a day.
I’d love to hear from other iPhone app developers, particularly ones that are getting praised, or are learning something unique.
Also, I’m hearing from other developers that getting apps approved by Apple is very difficult. Any tips for getting your apps through the system? Any news from developers so we can figure out how slow Apple is being in getting through the app backlog?
If you get iPhone 3G: go for white
July 11, 2008 By
I made a big mistake today. I bought a black iPhone 3G. My son told me to buy white. I thought white would look lame, but he was right (he bought a white one). The white doesn’t show dirt the way the black one does. Damn, it’s a schmutz attractor!
Learn from my mistake: go for white.
It’s worth the hell
July 11, 2008 By
Apple continues to amaze. I’ve never seen a company have a technical meltdown in front of the eyes of the world the way Apple did today. Yet when my son got out of the store after three hours of hell inside the store (we were snuck to the front of the line by someone who gave us cuts so that we could be among the first to get one, so that we could document what it was like for him to walk into the store and be #1 — he waited for two days) he said he still loved Apple and still loved his 3G iPhone.
After playing with it today I’ve got to agree. This is the company that can give you a crappy camera. No video. Charge you more than other devices. Make you wait hours in line. Take hours to get your credit card approved, your iPhones activated. And, at the end of it all, make you feel good.
I’ve been comparing the iPhone 3G to my Nokia N82 and N95 and my Microsoft Mobile-powered Samsung Blackjack II cell phones and, again, the iPhone kicks ass.
The App Store is simply brilliant. The new things available for the iPhone are just years ahead of other phones. The experience of using an iPhone is just way ahead of even the best Nokia and Microsoft phones (although I met with both companies recently and don’t expect them to let Apple have all the fun for long).
It’s worth the hell. Apple and AT&T will do just fine after fixing all the bugs that caused today’s debacle.
That said, no other company in the world has so much brand love in reserve that it can get this reaction. Any other company in the world would have seen riots after it took more than an hour to process even a portion of the first group of 20 people to enter the store.
VentureBeat has the video of the ‘iPocolypse.”
Unbelieveable.
It’s worth the hell.
What do you think?
I’m a phone freak
June 10, 2008 By
Everywhere I go I carry three phones now:
1. iPhone.
2. Nokia N95.
3. Nokia N82.
I also have a Blackjack II Windows Mobile smartphone that I occassionally carry.
I have three separate SIMs, er, three separate phone numbers (I only use one for voice calls, though, and my number is +1-425-205-1921).
So, why do I carry around so many phones?
Well, I need to do videos on Qik. I’ve done 700 already including three yesterday alone. To do those videos, though, I need 3G and video capabilities. The only one that fits that bill is the Nokia N95. So, why carry around the N82? Well, the still camera on that one is better. My photos on Flickr are probably shot with that or my Canon 5D camera.
So why the iPhone? I hate the browsers on the Nokias. The iPhone is much nicer for browsing, for looking at maps, for reading emails, and for looking at stuff like stocks and weather.
“But isn’t the N95 faster due to its 3G?”
Yes, but not enough to really matter. The reason you need 3G is for video. But I will buy the new 3G iPhone when it comes out and I’ll do a video demo so you can see the difference in browser speed. It will be noticeable.
Why not a Blackberry? Well, I had one in the late 1990s. I was so addicted that my hands started hurting. I lost it in a taxicab in New Orleans and since then my hands have never hurt, so I try to avoid phones with keyboards (which probably explains why I don’t carry around the Blackjack much).
Anyway, I’m looking forward to trying other phones out. I know Nokia has some new ones coming soon. Anything else? If I do a review, what would you like me to tell you about these three phones?
AT&T’s CTO says 3G is ready for new iPhone
June 9, 2008 By
Om Malik asks “will 3G be ready for new iPhone?
AT&T’s CTO John Donovan says “we will have enough bandwidth…” in this interview, posted today. It’s only five minutes long, and he talks about some of the other challenges 3G and more cell phones will bring.
