I got bored waiting for my BSOD on my MBAir to resolve so I went to see the status of the iPhone.

Again, boredom kicked in and I decided to chat, even though Sales don’t usually have information, something may have been passed out.

See picture:

The iPhone on the UK and USStore both 8GB and 16GB are unavailable.
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Could the rumors of iPhone 3G in may be imminent?

Apple is asking for 30 per cent of subscriber revenue and can’t provide enough iPhones for a Christmas 2007 launch in Spain, according to Spanish technology company SevenClick, which reports that it got the information from a senior manager at Telefonica. It also claims the May 2008 launch will see a 3G version of Apple’s super-slate.

The company’s technology blog explains that Telefonica Spain would have liked to launch the iPhone this year, along with the UK, Germany and France, but Apple couldn’t supply enough handsets. Telefonica would also like to negotiate down the 30 per cent revenue cut before signing up.

It comes as no surprise that Apple is working on a 3G version of its handset, and May 2008 sounds like a reasonable time frame for such a device to be launched … The Register.

In a recent patent relating to mobile instant messaging, I came upon an interesting picture. In a couple of the pictures, it shows figure 164, which says Optical Sensor beside it. Why is this so interesting? Because it is on the front side of the device.

I dugg a bit deaper and found a couple refernces to 164, including a part detailing a CCD (charge-coupled device), or basicially a camera on the front of the device. If this proves to be true, can we expect to see a camera on the front of the iPhone? It also goes on and talks about video conferencing. I think this further points to 3G in the iPhone, as I am sure that EDGE would not be able to support mass video conferencing.

There also quite a few refrences to a GPS module, and quite a few other interesting parts to the patent. You can read it over at USPTO site.

While working today, I thought of an interesting concept, .Mac for the iPhone. What if you could get an @iphone.com email, similar to those of the blackberry users’ (@*carrier*.blackberry.net)? Backup your iPhone from anywhere, access files on your Mac and upload your pictures directly from your camera roll to it? And Sync your calendars and contacts to it?

Would you be more willing to pay the $99 a year for .Mac with these ideas included? I can tell you that I would.

So why would Apple do this? To me, this idea is interesting, but it doesn’t appear to be so revolutionary. For one, and @iphone.com email would help emphasize the iPhone brand. Backing up your iPhone on the run would be essential to users in small businesses, not big enough to worry about full size enterprise management, but concerned about their sensitive and valuable information. You forgot a valuable file at the office, why not just use your iPhone to get it back over the internet. Or you’re at a party, you pull out your iPhone you take a picture, and click upload within the camera roll, and its on your .Mac iPhone page. You add an event in or a contact, and your iPhone automatically syncs it up with the server, also getting synced to your Mac.

This seems like an obvious next step for .Mac. I think this could be a very valuable tool for iPhone users. I’ve already started crossing my fingers that this will be announced alongside the iPhone 2.0 software.

Got any ideas? Post a comment and let me know what you think.

Thanks to Nik Youdale of Acqualia for feedback on this idea.

If you’ve got a chance, please digg it.

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As I am sure many of you know, Apple recently announced the iPhone Software development Kit.

To get a developers perspective on the SDK, I have interviewed Kenneth Ballenegger, the developer of Exces. He runs a personal blog at seoxys.com.

What was your first impression of the iPhone SDK?

This is the coolest thing ever. Apple totally blew me away with that one. I mean, I was totally totally expecting this to be decent at best. But as I followed the keynote, I couldn’t believe it as awesome features kept being announced.

Will the SDK change how you plan your desktop apps?

I’m sure it will affect how I code for the Mac. One thing to consider when creating a Mac application will be whether I can create an iPhone version, or a companion product. Also, the iPhone also has a definite influence on how I think of interface design, even on Mac applications.

What do you think of this $0.99 and $1.99 app concept?

I read an article recently on this (The Beauty Of 99¢ iPhone Apps). The good thing about $.99 apps is the potential for impulse purchases. People will not be afraid to buy an app, because, after all, $.99 is nothing. If the app were priced more expensive, potential customers would have to think about whether they really want to buy the app. With the inability to offer try-before-you-buy, it will be harder to sell a more expensive app. Of course, there are problems with $.99 apps. Firstly, it devalues your product. People will associate your product with the notion of “cheap”. I think the better option would be to price apps between $5 and $10. It is still low enough for impulse buy, but increases profit 5-fold and adds perceived value to the product.

What is your view on the 30% Apple takes per sale, and $100 fee?

In the wake of the announcement, there has been lots of complaining from independent Mac developers about Apple’s 30% profit cut. I think it actually is very decent, and I am totally prepared to pay this. If you do the math, for every $100 I’d make, Apple gets $43 (Apple gets 43% of whatever I get. For every $100 of total sales, Apple gets $30 and me $70. $30 is 43% of $70. Therefore, if I make $100 of sales, Apple gets $43, and the total sales must have been $143). But they take care of all the hosting, Credit Card processing fees, update mechanism, distribution, marketing, and virtually everything other than actually coding the app. Agreed, it is unlikely that it uses Apple’s full 30% to pay for that. They must get a cut from it. But, this does not bother me. What I lose to Apple’s cut, I make up tenfold in extra exposure. My app would be only a few taps away from every one of the 5M iPhones users out there. (Probably around 10M when 2.0 ships). When compared to the rest of the mobile industry, this is actually a really sweet deal.

About the $99 fee, I think it is a good thing. If it was up to me, I would make it even higher, around $500. The advantage of this fee is to let only the serious developers build iPhone applications. We do not want our apps to be drowned in a sea of crappy apps and other junk. The less crappy apps, the more exposure we get. It will also make for a better experience for consumers, who will have a much higher rate of good app to crap app purchase ratio.

Any chance we will see Exces for the iPhone?

I’ve been thinking about this ever since I bought my first iPhone. The main problem is not technical, but more of a design decision. Would Exces be a vault on your iPhone? Or would it be a full app with the ability to open Exces vaults? With the absence of an open file-system on the iPhone, it is really hard to decide how to implement Exces for it. To be honest, I have not decided yet what I will do, and I will keep my options open. However, I am planning on building a new iPhone app that has nothing to do with Exces. But for now, it’s still a big secret!

Thanks Kenneth for the interview. Make sure to check out Exces at excesapp.com, and Kenneth’s blog at seoxys.com.

As many of us know, the iPhone and iPod Touch hacking communities have built many apps for the iPhone/iPod Touch, everytime Apple releases an update though, the apps need to be re hacked onto these devices. There has been much skepticism weather Apple would release an official Third Party Application SDK for Developers. Well, Steve Jobs, in his latest open letter, anounced a iPod Touch and iPhone App SDK. Here is the orignal open letter.

Let me just say it: We want native third party applications on the iPhone, and we plan to have an SDK in developers’ hands in February. We are excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users. With our revolutionary multi-touch interface, powerful hardware and advanced software architecture, we believe we have created the best mobile platform ever for developers.

It will take until February to release an SDK because we’re trying to do two diametrically opposed things at once—provide an advanced and open platform to developers while at the same time protect iPhone users from viruses, malware, privacy attacks, etc. This is no easy task. Some claim that viruses and malware are not a problem on mobile phones—this is simply not true. There have been serious viruses on other mobile phones already, including some that silently spread from phone to phone over the cell network. As our phones become more powerful, these malicious programs will become more dangerous. And since the iPhone is the most advanced phone ever, it will be a highly visible target.

Some companies are already taking action. Nokia, for example, is not allowing any applications to be loaded onto some of their newest phones unless they have a digital signature that can be traced back to a known developer. While this makes such a phone less than “totally open,� we believe it is a step in the right direction. We are working on an advanced system which will offer developers broad access to natively program the iPhone’s amazing software platform while at the same time protecting users from malicious programs.

We think a few months of patience now will be rewarded by many years of great third party applications running on safe and reliable iPhones.

Steve

P.S.: The SDK will also allow developers to create applications for iPod touch. [Oct 17, 2007]

Apple has just posted a site with tons of iPod Touch and iPhone compatiable web applications. These are iPhone/iPod Touch style sites that allow you to access some of your favourite content right from the iPhone or iPod Touch web browser, formatted for the 3.5″ screen. Some of my favourites are the Big Bang Sudoko App, the Digg App and the Stop Watch App. We would love to hear about your favourites as well, post a comment and tell us about your favourites.

You can check out the mini site at http://www.apple.com/webapps/ or you can check out the WebApps RSS Feed at http://www.apple.com/webapps/feeds/recent.rss

I have been working on the back-end of iAppblog over the last few weeks and have now integrated some new features. The most notable is iAppblog Mobile, which is now works perfectly on the Apple iPhone. This is based on the plugin by Alex King. We would love to see users pictures of iAppblog running on their iPhones and other mobile devices.

In the next few weeks we will try and get our hands on an iPhone. This is a useless without any apps to test on it. So we ask you, our readers what iPhone Apps you would like reviewed. To let us know, just post a comment and we will try our best to review it once we get the iphone.

EDIT: oops. sorry. I turned comments off by accident. Fixed now.