iPhone Applications and your business.

The iPhone has been a game changer on many levels. As the hype has increased many companies have felt the need to hitch along on the coat tails, scared that they might somehow be left behind if they don't.

Before setting off on a journey, even following the likes of Apple and the iPhone, it is always good to know something about the route .... The iPhone came out of nowhere in 2007 when Steve Jobs announced "An iPod, a phone, an internet mobile communicator. An iPod, a phone, an internet mobile communicator.... these are NOT three separate devices!" The iPhone Jobs announced was expensive and used only the slower data network available to phones known as EDGE, but it reasonably sold well and soon became an object of desire.

When the first iPhone was launched Apple told the world that it was not possible to create applications that would run on the iPhone but you could create something that looked and acted like an application using the built in web browser.

iPhone Applications vs iPhone Web Sites

Think of the programs that you run on your computer: Outlook for email, Word for word processing and Excel for spreadsheets perhaps. You have to install these programs and then click on them to get them to run. The iPhone has its own applications like these.

Now think of the web sites that you regularly visit: the BBC News web site or FaceBook for example. It is possible make a web site look and act like one of the applications mentioned above but it is done via Internet Explorer or FireFox.


Many people in the software industry thought Apple had missed a trick in not letting third parties create application for the iPhone and it wasn't long before a group of people created a method of "jailbreaking" the phone - cracking the built in software - so that those with the skills and time could write and install their own programs.

A year after the launch of the original iPhone Steve Jobs took the stage again to announce the second version of the iPhone, the 3G. It came with extra features such as a GPS, used the fastest mobile phone data network (called 3G, hence the name of the phone) and also announced that Apple would be making a Software Developers Kit available. Not only would Apple help you create programs to run on the iPhone, they would also distribute them for you as well via the "App Store". You could give your applications away for free or if you wanted to charge for it Apple would handle all that and take a 30% cut. While 30% might seem a little steep other companies that sell applications for mobile phones were taking a minimum of 50%, plus credit card fees plus other costs, making the total nearer 75%.

Apple had managed to create a cool phone, an easy to use Software Development Kit and a cheap and easy means of distributing software - what could be better? What could go wrong?

Many people, high on the hype, failed to notice that Steve Jobs announced that the only way that software developers could get their newly created applications on the iPhone was via Apple and the "App Store". This didn't seem like a big deal especially when Apple explained that they would check every submitted application to make sure it didn't do anything nasty to your phone, send out any personal information or call premium rate numbers when you least expected it.

In July 2008 the iPhone 3G was launched along with the "App Store" and around 500 applications. Very soon the number of applications in the store passed the 1000 mark in November 2009 reached the dizzy heights of 100,000 applications that were available for download. But on there are major problems with the "App Store".

100,000 applications sounds fantastic - with all that choice there must be something for everyone. Well image you are trying to eat a steak (or a raw carrot if you are veggie like me) and all you have is a big pile of thin plastic knifes and forks to use. Every time to try to put the fork in the steak (or carrot) the fork simple breaks. The fact that you can choose any one of the thousand plastic forks doesn't make your life any easier. The thousand forks you have to choose from are all rubbish. The choice between two metal forks is better than the choice between 1000 bits of rubbish - quality always trumps quantity. Quantity is not choice unless quality control is enforced.

The plastic knife and fork analogy is perfect for the "App Store". Developers are free to set the prices of their Applications. In the early days many developers thought US$4.99 was a fair price for some of the more involved applications. Others came along and simply copied the applications and sold it for US$0.99 or about £0.57. A race to the bottom ensued.

Literally to the bottom as it happens. "Fart" applications became the rage for a while - press on a button and your iPhone would make a farting noise.

The reality is this: the vast majority of the 100,000 applications that are available to day on the "App Store" are both worthless and useless. This makes finding something that is actually worthwhile and useful harder as it is submerged under the floating excrement.

Many companies are scrambling to get something, anything, into the "App Store" to try and give their company some exposure in the hope of winning new customers. This approach is doomed to failure unless you have a really fantastic application, lots of patents, can afford expensive lawyers and a huge dose of luck. Mildly successful iPhone applications are soon cloned and sold cheaply.

With all the hype surrounding the iPhone it is easy to remember that the iPhone is not the only internet capable phone on the market. BlackBerry's have been around for years, there is the Palm Pre and various Android phones. When someone writes an application for the iPhone, it will only run on the iPhone. If you want to make the same application available for the BlackBerry, Palm Pre and Android phones you would need to write, from scratch, three more versions of your application.

As a business you want to take advantage of the mobile internet so that your customers can be in touch with you at their convenience. "At their convenience" means being able to use your web site in a meaningful way while out and about. The good news is that they already have an application on their phone, be it the iPhone, BlackBerry, Palm Pre or Android, that does that - they have a web browser. Making sure that your site works with a mobile browser is standard practice at Hidden Agenda Ltd. By following web standards and testing across different browsers and versions your site already works perfectly for 99% of web users. And that 99% includes those using mobile phones.

We can, of course, make your web site display differently when accessed from a phone and optimise this to make life even easier for your customers.

There really is no reason to be swept away by the hype of the iPhone and its "App Store".