Ben
16th August 2008, 12:37 PM
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/16/apple_appstore_software_sales/
Quite a nice, long piece linked to above that's worth a read.
One thing that surprised me is that it's all a bit doom-and-gloom about Apple's level of control over the iPhone. Does this really surprise anyone? Is anyone even bothered? I'm sorry, but the most important thing at this fragile transition time for the mobile industry is quality, and Apple having the ability to veto malicious, and even commercially unfavourable, applications isn't a bad thing right now.
Developers wont care, largely, that the iPhone is so locked down. Not when the top 10 App Store developers took home $9m in revenue! I mean, damn, no 10 Nokia developers are going to generate that revenue from application sales alone in such a short space of time.
Looking forward, yes, the iPhone platform will need to open up, and become more powerful. In fact, it will probably share a lot more with OS X than it does now, and may even ultimately become a 'touch' version of OS X used on a wide range of "thin screen" mobile devices of various sizes.
But right now, the mobile networks don't want that. They want to do their thing, and they want to have a massive sense of self-importance. So the iPhone really is the perfect first step.
I think in years to come we'll look at our mobile phone and find it hard to believe that, regardless of manufacturer, it's so unchanged from the original iPhone. Anyone picking up an old 'smartphone' will be bemused by the clunky, unintuitive menus that are navigated by a tiny, stiff key. In fact, it's completely likely that another manufacturer, aka Nokia, will take the new concept and sell so many phones that Apple's iPhone becomes a distant memory. But Apple will always be the manufacturer that took mobile phones into the future by providing the perfect environment that no other manufacturer or mobile operator was able, or brave enough, to do at the time.
Quite a nice, long piece linked to above that's worth a read.
One thing that surprised me is that it's all a bit doom-and-gloom about Apple's level of control over the iPhone. Does this really surprise anyone? Is anyone even bothered? I'm sorry, but the most important thing at this fragile transition time for the mobile industry is quality, and Apple having the ability to veto malicious, and even commercially unfavourable, applications isn't a bad thing right now.
Developers wont care, largely, that the iPhone is so locked down. Not when the top 10 App Store developers took home $9m in revenue! I mean, damn, no 10 Nokia developers are going to generate that revenue from application sales alone in such a short space of time.
Looking forward, yes, the iPhone platform will need to open up, and become more powerful. In fact, it will probably share a lot more with OS X than it does now, and may even ultimately become a 'touch' version of OS X used on a wide range of "thin screen" mobile devices of various sizes.
But right now, the mobile networks don't want that. They want to do their thing, and they want to have a massive sense of self-importance. So the iPhone really is the perfect first step.
I think in years to come we'll look at our mobile phone and find it hard to believe that, regardless of manufacturer, it's so unchanged from the original iPhone. Anyone picking up an old 'smartphone' will be bemused by the clunky, unintuitive menus that are navigated by a tiny, stiff key. In fact, it's completely likely that another manufacturer, aka Nokia, will take the new concept and sell so many phones that Apple's iPhone becomes a distant memory. But Apple will always be the manufacturer that took mobile phones into the future by providing the perfect environment that no other manufacturer or mobile operator was able, or brave enough, to do at the time.