Amazing iPhone Apps

In the year 2008 the Smartphones took the consumers to different levels and iPhone has been a revelation which was embraced by the masses. What is most striking in the success of the iPhone is the applications which are available on it.

Below are the top 10 iPhone applications.

1 Pandora Internet Radio

This application is available free with the iPhone and is all-time best for music lovers. You pick a song, album or artist and Pandora immediately builds a whole "radio station" around it, endlessly streaming complete tunes from top artists. You can even tweak your station by giving songs a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. Music quality is amazingly good for audio and as far as I know the audio streams for free over AT&T's data network. The music library is solid for genres ranging from rock to pop to jazz to classical. It really needs some Indian Bollywood music, though.

2. AroundMe

Simplicity makes this app a must-carry for the road warrior. Like the name applies, it lists all the critical services around you i.e. banks, coffee shops, bars, gas stations, hospitals, movie theatres, restaurants and so on. Using geo-location, the app orders each service by its proximity to you by giving further details like how many yards away the bar is(I would be mostly interested in that). This apps is very much aimed at the traveller and like any other apps it maps out a route from here to there, if requested. It also creates a contact page for every entry, which you can save to your own contacts list.

3. Mobile News Network

The Associated Press's news-on-demand app is the gold standard. It gives you top news stories, as well as business, sports, show biz and other categories, which you can sort by most recent or most read. It even uses the phone's GPS chip to deliver up local news. Stories and photos load fast, look great and can be read offline. You can email or text the story to a contact, or save it in your own news archive.

4. Ocarina

Some genius figured out how to use the microphone on the iPhone as an air-flow sensor, as a result now we've got a virtual ocarina, albeit not potato-shaped. Hold the phone up to your lips and blow; four "holes" appear on your touch screen allowing you to play almost any scale (which you select under Settings). Share your tunes with other Ocarina players around the world, or just set the app to listen to their masterworks. The Ocarina app costs $0.99 in US from the AT&T network.

5. Wikipanion

O.K., so it's not always accurate. But if you need to understand the gist of something, there's no better reference tool at your fingertips than Wikipedia. While there are many Wikipedia apps for the iPhone, this one is the best of the bunch. It automatically searches while you type, which is cool as well as time-saving, and its rendering of the Wikipedia page on the touchscreen is as perfect as you'll find. By upgrading to the pay version, Wikipanion Plus, users can save articles and do offline browsing.

6. Adrenaline Pool Lite

Virtual pool has been around since the advent of computers. It wouldn't be surprising to hear that it was first played on the UNIVAC 1. And like everything else with a chip for a brain, e-billiards continues relentlessly to improve — this app being a case in point. Fire up Adrenaline Pool, log into a server, and you can play anything from eight-ball to snooker, against other anonymous iPhone pool sharks. The physics are so good; you'll want to take up smoking again.

7. Instapaper

Sign up at Instapaper.com for a free account then drag the "Read Later" tag to your browser's toolbar. Now, whenever you're sitting at your computer and stumble upon an article or blog post on the Web that you'd like read later, hit that button. Instapaper's app instantly stores it on your iPhone in a format that's especially readable.

8. NetNewsWire

There's no better way to keep up with your daily perambulations on the Net than via an RSS reader, which basically pushes content from any website or blog to your computer in a format that resembles email. NetNewsWire is one of the best free programs for computers, allowing you to easily subscribe to any feed and synchronizing what you've read across any computers you use. This app adds your iPhone to the party, allowing you to read perfectly formatted text on demand, as well as offline.

9. iTalk

A reporter's best friend, but also indispensable for anyone who wants to dictate memos or record other audible stuff on their phone. The app is little more than a big, red RECORD button on your iPhone screen; push it to capture audio in the high-quality AIFF format. What makes iTalk especially cool is the free, companion iTalkSynch app, which you download to your computer. That program can "sniff" the audio files on your iPhone and download them to your Mac or PC, via Wi-Fi. Now all we need is an app to do perfect voice-to-text translations

10. FakeCall

Because everyone needs a decent, iPhone party trick. Set up a fake contact and that person calls you, on demand. Great for getting out of dull business meetings, or impressing friends when Steve Jobs calls to ask if you really, truly think cut-and-paste would be a good thing to have on the iPhone.

Together with the above Apps there are so many programmers around the world who are busy in writing or developing some more interesting Apps on the apple i-phone Apps store. One of the most interesting I came across recently was a British-made iPhone program that allows the user to read the Kama Sutra.

Eucalyptus, a book reading application developed by Edinburgh programmer James Montgomerie, allows users to download and read thousands of classic titles from the library of Project Gutenberg, the respected website that hosts out of copyright books.But after repeated attempts to get Eucalyptus onto the iPhone's popular App Store, Montgomerie was told that his application was being rejected because one of Gutenberg's books happens to be Sir Richard Burton's 1883 translation of the famous guide to sex.

The link below from Guardian UK tells you more about the above story.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/may/21/apple-iphone

Killer Applications or Devices

Here is my breakfast briefing presentation.

Killer Applications Or Devices

View more presentations from Zahid Ghadialy

As expected, we had a very lively and interesting discussion. It is not easy for me to remember and detail the discussions but the presentation will give some idea regarding the things we discussed. I also referred to a presentation about Japanese market which is embedded below.

Mobile Services in Japan

View more presentations from MobileMonday Norway

Please feel free to comment, criticise, suggest, etc.

iPhones in the War Zone

Tying the hands of a person who is speaking, the Arab proverb goes, is akin to "tying his tongue." Western soldiers in Iraq know how important gestures can be when communicating with locals. To close, open and close a fist means "light," but just opening a fist means "bomb." One soldier recently home from Iraq once tried to order an Iraqi man to lie down. To get his point across, the soldier had to demonstrate by stretching out in the dirt. Translation software could help, but what's the best way to make it available in the field?

The U.S. military in the past would give a soldier an electronic handheld device, made at great expense specially for the battlefield, with the latest software. But translation is only one of many software applications soldiers now need. The future of "networked warfare" requires each soldier to be linked electronically to other troops as well as to weapons systems and intelligence sources. Making sense of the reams of data from satellites, drones and ground sensors cries out for a handheld device that is both versatile and easy to use. With their intuitive interfaces, Apple devices—the iPod Touch and, to a lesser extent, the iPhone—are becoming the handhelds of choice.

The sheer versatility of the kit – with the capability of over 30,000 programmes – allows a huge variety of functions needed for operations ranging from providing language translations to the transmitting of sensitive information and working out trajectories for snipers. Projects are on the way to use them as guidance systems for bomb disposal robots and receivers of aerial footage from unmanned drone aircraft.

The US Marine Corps is funding an application that would allow soldiers to upload photographs of detained suspects, along with written reports, into a biometric database. The software would match faces, in theory making it easier to track suspects after they're released.

Members of the British military who have seen the Apple instruments in action drool about the opportunities on offer. The Ministry of Defence, however, remains wary of security implications and has "no plans" at present to go down the American path.

But Lieutenant Colonel Jim Ross, the director of the US Army's intelligence, electronic warfare and sensors operation, believes the iPod "may be all that the personnel need".

"What gives it added advantage is that a lot of them have their own personal ones so they are familiar with them," he said.

Another plus is the cost. The iPod touch (which soldiers can use over a secure WiFi network) retails for around $230 (£150) and the iPhone for $600. Bulk orders placed by the Pentagon bring further savings. The manufacture of a specific military model would be much more expensive.

Robert Emerson, a security analyst who has advised foreign governments on computerised warfare, said: "The US military has had a reputation for being somewhat heavy handed, with justice. But what they are doing with iPods and iPhones show they can also be nimble on their feet. Other militaries should learn to be equally open minded."

Presentations on Mobile Apps

There are couple of interesting Mobile App related discussions in Forum Oxford recently, for anyone interested:

An interesting presentation on Application Stores and Mobile Social Media by Cedric Giorgi is available on SlideShare.

Another one titled, The App store and Future of Mobile Applications by William Volk is available on Slideshare as well.

William has also started an interesting discussion where he makes an interesting point:

In the case of the Android App Market, paid app sales are a fraction of what one would expect. The top paid apps have sold only a few 1000 copies, free apps have reached download numbers of over 250,000.

Why? Most users have not opted-in to Google Checkout, which is the billing system used.

Apple, of course, requires users to opt into iTunes, but iTunes already has widespread acceptance. 93% of iPhone users have purchased an app.

My understanding is that Google approached T-Mobile about this and the idea of adding carrier billing as an option was rejected.

So let me get this straight:
1. Apple cleverly cuts operators out of the app revenue stream.
2. Competing 'open' platform, Android appears.
3. Operators reject Google's offer to use their billing systems for app purchases.
4. Operators see no revenue from app sales on iTunes AND Android App Marketplace.
5. Android is a non-starter for app developers in business terms.
The question is, will users opt in for PayPal when the RIM App World turns on?

You can follow the discussion here.

iBangle: Not a phone but great concept

The iBangle is Gopinath Prasana’s vision of a future iPod where the devices have become darn close to becoming jewelry. If you factor in inflation and the cost of Apple products today - might as well call it jewelry because it’ll cost as much. I digress, the iBangle is a thin piece of aluminum (of course) with a multi-touch track pad. To achieve the perfect fit, a cushion inside the ring inflates to keep itself taught against your wrist. Unisex? Maybe.

If this concept becomes reality, it would be just mater of time before a phone is rolled in along with this.

The wearable concept is also puched in the Nokia concept phones like the Nokia 888 and Morph.

10Million+ iPhones in 2008

Apple sold 6.89 million iPhones in its FY2008 4th quarter ending Sept. 27. According to the Merc,, the iPhone was the US leader for smartphone sales during that period, surpassing the BlackBerry.

This figure is slightly below the estimates of the biggest iPhone boosters, and totals only 9.3 million phones for the year. However, MacWorld reports that Apple has confirmed that it passed the 10 million mark in the past few weeks after the end of the quarter. This means that with the Christmas season their 2008 sales should easily surpass 12 million units.

Before the iPhone was released, many (notably including Steve Ballmer) predicted they would not hit 10 million.

The company has so far sold 6.9 million iPhone 3G units, eclipsing the 6.1 BlackBerry sales pushed by RIM in the same quarter.

“Apple outsold RIM last quarter, and this is a milestone for us. RIM is a good company that makes good products, and so it is surprising that we could outsell them in any quarter after only 15 months in the market,” said Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

According to Tomi Ahonen at ForumOxford:

Apple reports it sold 6.9 million units of the 3G iPhone. That compares with 6.1 million units of the original 2G iPhone. During the past 4 quarters, total 2G and 3G iPhone sales were 11.6 million, so Apple did clear its stated target of 10 million iPhone sales during fiscal year 2008 by a happy margin of 16%.So the installed base of iPhones (2G and 3G) is 13 million today, and more than half of all iPhones in use today are 3G versions.

Keep fit with 'Run Keeper'

A new application on iPhone helps keep fit without worrying about keeping track of the minute details. Run Keeper, centers on a really simple tracker that follows your location as you run via GPS, then puts that information into a personal database.

Every time you complete a run you can see how far you went (to the best of the phone's tracking capabilities), along with the time spent and how it compares with previous runs, all on a Google Map.

Developer Jason Jacobs of FitnessKeeper tells us it's just the tip of the iceberg for planned development and that much bigger things are on the way. For people too cheap to shell out for Nike's iPod nano-centric run tracker this makes a viable alternative albeit with less integration with iTunes. Nice, however, is the option to check out your data from any computer since the maps and runs are stored in the cloud.

While Jacobs has designed the application for tracking runs, another viable use for this is tracking trips in vehicles. Businesses looking to keep an eye on their employees' short-haul trips could use such a system to make sure they're going where they said they did.

The following Video on youtube has demonstration:

Everyone wants a iPhone (16/05/07)

In a survey by Shiny Media about iPhone, everyone sounds very interested in it.

When questioned on how likely they were to buy an iPhone when it arrives, 7.6% said that they'd definitely be getting one. A massive 46.2% said that they'd seriously consider getting an iPhone, but only if the available deal was attractive. 17.4% said they'd get it if nothing better was on the market, while 23.9% said that they were unlikely to get it, and 4.8% said they'd definitely not buy an iPhone.

I am not very sure how useful these surveys are because we all want the latest gadgets and we definitely say so in the surveys but when it actually comes to buying them we have a second thought.