Flavour of the month: A for Apple A for Applications

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Flavour of the month: A for Apple, A for Applications

Good enough, but still a long way to go is what one derives when one takes stock of the applications around iPhone. A quick look:

Pratima Harigunani

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

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PUNE, INDIA: If the first generation was about features and touchscreen, the next generation could probably be all about the many bells and whistles of applications.

With the launch of iPhone 3G, also came a SDK (Software Development Kit) that can pave a new road to smarter and long-desired applications to this much-loved and hyped-about gadget. Apple has also professed to try eliminating the complexity for users to install and run software on phones.

The new AppStore, offering one-button access to buy and install programs on iPhones, is touted to transform what is expected from software on phones.

In fact, Apple resisted opening up the iPhone to software developers at first, meaning that only Web-based software could run on it. But since October, the space has seen software developers plunging in and taking advantage of new powers to run programs on the phone rather than, slowly, via the Web.

iPhone 3G includes the new iPhone 2.0 software with both the iPhone SDK and key enterprise features such as support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync to provide over-the-air push email, contact and calendar syncing as well as remote wipe and Cisco IPsec VPN for encrypted access to corporate networks.

The iPhone SDK allows developers to create applications around its Multi-Touch user interface, animation technology, accelerometer and GPS technology on the world's most advanced mobile platform.

It is interesting to note a user review in this context. "Phenomenal design, guts fall short." So does the iPhone have enough guts, i.e., real applications. And what more is possible with this breakthrough gadget?

Applied well

As an expert has pointed out, the most significant addition to the iPhone 3G (as well as the original iPhone and iPod touch) is the App Store, which finally enables users to trick out their phone with whatever programs make it through Apple's rigorous developer screening and software testing process.

The AppStore has been reckoned as a category-redefining experience with eyes and ears open for a radically open version that might make its way to Android. Apple has taken a good note of applications.

Additions like character recognition support for logographic-based languages, localized keyboards for nearly two dozen languages, Mobile Me, the Exchange support, Google maps, GPS bells, ability to read PowerPoint, Pages, Numbers, and Keynote documents, to save images from the web to camera roll, ease of entering passwords, scientific calculator, visual calendar options, email-contact-calendar granular control from system settings, parental control for kids, and of course, the 3G promise and EDGE capabilities are some of the high points as far as some noteworthy additions to iPhone go.

iPhone's has also managed to stay ahead on grounds of usability and seamless integration of service and software, desktop and mobile, and media and internet.

In fact, it has been a commendable sight to see Apple traversing from the buzz around sleek design and touch screen, to the power of software that could is making iPhone a regular incumbent to the spotlight.

Software has taken over style and new additions like better Web speeds, security for business users or using the phone's direction-finding capability game controller or location-aware abilities, are just a few of the things that will give a new flavor to the application part of iPhone.

It has already been well appreciated for gaming features, built-in accelerometer, Global Positioning System (GPS) chip, and so on.

Additional features available with the iPhone 2.0 software include the ability to do real-time mapping and track your progress with GPS technology, mass move and delete multiple email messages, search for contacts, access a new scientific calculator, turn on parental control restrictions for specified content, save images directly from a web page or email them to your iPhone and easily transfer them back to your photo library on your Mac or PC.

Riding the wave

Applications go beyond Apple. It's not just Apple but many other players who haven't lost time and focus to leverage the application space on iPhones.

San Francisco start-up Stitcher introduced a software in February that detects what streaming audio news iPhone users like and lets them "stitch" audio programs into personalized radio stations to and help deliver local news, weather or sports.

Another one is Quickoffice, a package of word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software that lets iPhone users view full-screen PowerPoint presentations or zoom in to read or edit individual characters in the document.

Then there is MobileMe, an Internet service that pushes email, contacts, and calendars from an online "cloud" to native applications on iPhone, iPod touch, Macs and PCs.

With MobileMe email, messages are claimed to be pushed instantly to iPhone, removing the need to manually check email and wait for downloads, and push keeps contacts and calendars continuously up-to-date so changes made on one device are automatically updated on other devices.

With Glide 3.0, TransMedia has made bi-directional synchronization and rights based business collaboration applications available for the iPhone as well.

Glide is a mobile desktop solution featuring some productivity and collaboration applications in about 18 languages including English, Albanian, Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Thai and Turkish.

There is also cross platform synchronization and collaboration accompanying it as Glide Syncs the 3G iPhone with Windows, Solaris, Linux and Apple Computers and Android, BlackBerry, Palm, Symbian and Windows Mobile Phones. iPhone seems to have taken criticisms around messaging and IM in stride already.

There is now download availability of Palringo's rich messaging service (RMS) application from Apple's new App Store. This can offer picture messaging, text-based messaging and, expected soon, vocal instant messaging over the iPhone's data connection.

Palringo incidentally also integrates with several existing, popular instant messaging services like AOL's AIM, Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger, Gadu Gadu, ICQ, Jabber and Windows Live Messenger.

People can also use Palringo to contact their friends using iChat, Apple's instant messaging (IM) client. Palringo could address another important area of improvement on iPhones – the ability to send and receive picture messages using the iPhone's data connection.

Another new application player layer is from CellSpin that could help on mobile blogging area. CellSpin Soft Inc. has announced it is adding Apple's iPhone to CellSpin's featured mobile blogging software platform list.

This will be a GUI-based mobile application for the iPhone, allowing iPhone users to capture audio, photos and text, or select existing media on the iPhone, and publish that media to one or many of a user's favorite blogging, social networking, photo sharing and/or auction sites simultaneously.

Sites would include MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Pownce, Blogger, Picasa, Flickr, Live Journal, Live Spaces, TypePad and eBay, with more to come. The application also allows podcast.

Interestingly the interest around applications and iPhone's possibilities is not limited to these players.

It also includes behemoths like Oracle which unveiled first in a series of free Oracle business applications for the Apple iPhone, known as Oracle Business Indicators that will include Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition Plus (OBIEE) and Oracle Business Intelligence Applications, Fusion Edition to provide access to key metrics and analytical data for mobile executives.

In addition they will also cover SOA capabilities of OBIEE and Oracle Business Intelligence Web Services. Action is coming from India too, though still in nascent stages.

A well-known player in the Web Messenger space was expected to release its flagship service for Apple iPhones.

This application is believed to have been specifically designed to work devices such as Apple's iPhone and touted as the only interoperable instant messaging application that is now available for the much awaited and talked about Apple iPhone, which does not include a native instant messaging client. Final details on this launch are still awaited.

Potential galore

Ask the user and he will tell you so much more that is possible with his adorable gadget. iPhone pedometer for walkers and joggers, iPhone radar detector, iPhone camera flash, iPhone digital video camera, fingerprint recognizing technology and the list goes on.

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