iPhone, The App Store

 

 The App Store resides within iTunes on the Mac or PC and uploads software to the iPhone whenever it syncs. 

For many people, the biggest problem with the original iPhone was that it was a closed, scaled unit. And we are not just talking about the hardware, for just as you could not change or upgrade the battery, you also could not install your own applications. Well, not legally, anyway.
   

In truth some enterprising owners found workarounds that allowed them to hack a way into the iPhone's system and add their own applications — or those they had downloaded from the net — to its core system tiles. It worked, but it was risky, as Apple did not authorise such modifications. This meant that some users who had hacked their iPhone discovered that it no longer worked after downloading a firmware update.

Then Apple announced a Software Development Kit, and a store through which the results could be downloaded. It is not surprising, then, that when he announced the iPhone 3G, Steve Jobs spent around half of the event highlighting all the new applications that had been written specifically for the iPhone by third-party developers as well as those written by Apple.

Every application on the App Store, which runs through iTunes, must be approved by Apple. This sounds draconian, but it is not surprising: few network operators are happy to have their users installing their own software onto their handsets for fear that they may cause damage to the networks themselves. They can be free or charged for, and all are developed using Apple's free Software Development Kit. Before they can have their applications certified for use on the iPhone, however, developers must pay a $99 registration fee that buys them an electronic certificate to prove to Apple who they are, and that they are a reliable developer.

Large applications must be downloaded through iTunes on your Mac or PC , but smaller applications of 10MB or less, can be downloaded wirelessly over the wifi or mobile phone network direct to the handset itself. Each one is registered on the phone, which monitors the App Store for updates and notifies you of any that are available by posting a small red number beside the App Store icon.
   
For developers, Jobs outlined six key benefits in developing for the iPhone and distributing applications through the App Store. Key among these was the fact that the developer gets to keep 70% of revenues, and that they themselves can pick the price at which they sell their products. Other benefits include access to Apple's payment mechanism, meaning they do not have to deal with credit card payments themselves (which is also a benefit for the end-user as it means we arc always dealing with a trusted company), no hosting, no marketing fees and regular payments.

More impressively, from a developer's point of view, is that as the applications arc hosted within the iTunes Store, they benefit from Apple's own digital rights management software, FairPlay, so end-users will not be able to buy one copy and then pass them around between one another.  



 If you would like to try your own hand at developing applications for the iPhone, the software development kit can be downloaded from  developer.apple.com/iphone/program.  .  


App Store applications

So what can you expect to find on the App Store? Steve Jobs was keen to point out that it runs the full gamut, all the way from games to business applications. Key among the games that he demonstrated during the App Store launch was Super Monkey Ball, which uses the integrated accelerometer to roll a moving ball as you tilt the iPhone forwards and backwards, and side to side, through 110 levels of play. An eBay application lets you track and bid on auctions without using the web browser, and the team behind Movable Type has ported an edition of its hosted blogging software, TypePad, to run on the iPhone, allowing you to update readers on your latest train delay while you are still delayed. Perhaps most excitingly, this latter application will even let you post pictures from the iPhone's camera straight to your blog. If you wanted to post iPhone photos to an  online journal before, you first had to download them to your computer. See www.typepad.com/features/blog-iphone.html for more details.

Fans of social networking will welcome Blog It, also from the TypePad team, which allows you to post to Facebook and Twitter, while Loopt (loopt.com/loopt/iphone.aspx) lets you keep Facebook constantly updated with your current geographic location using the iPhone's built-in GPS receiver, and in doing so find other contacts who are close by.

 Smaller applications can be installed directly over the 3G network or by wifi.

Finally, if you would rather not rely on trawling the web yourself or using the iPhone's online RSS reader application, you might want to check out Mobile News Network (www.ap.org/mobilenews). Announced at the same time as the iPhone 3G, this is Associated Press' news amalgamation service that merges local and national news in both text and video format.

Signing up for downloads

Before you can download anything from the iTunes Store, of which the App Store is a part, you need to sign up for an Apple ID. If you have downloaded music from the Store for use on an iPod then you already have an ID - just as you have if you are a MobileMe subscriber. The easiest way to get yourself an Apple ID is through the link in the right-hand margin, online at service.info.apple.com.



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