kickingtyres

Apple – iPhone – iPhone OS 3.0 Preview.

In looking at the preview video of the new iPhone OS 3.0, a number of additions strike me as being incredibly useful from a business and revenue perspective.

• In-app purchases:  Allowing the user to buy stuff from within the application, the purchase itself handled by iTunes store, so no worrying about credit card payment service providers.

• Subscriptions: Allowing users to access application content based on a payment subscription model.

• Push notification:  whether it’s by visible numerical alert, text display or audio alert, you can now push notifications to users.

The only caveat of these paid functions is that they are only available within paid-for applications.

Still, there’s a lot to see happening here.  I should really get myself a more powerful mac and start developing some of my own ideas.

This chap has been working, for the last few months, on an application for synching various aspects of the iphone with Linux.  So far, he has it working with calendar items, as well as some address-book functionality, and notes.

Matt Colyer » iPhone Linux Syncing with Conduit

While I use a macbook at home, my work laptop is an HP running Ubuntu, and it would be nice to be able to sync some stuff.  I’ll be keeping my eye on this one.

more info on the project itself is here:

http://matt.colyer.name/projects/iphone-linux/index.php?title=Conduit_Syncing

Flash for iPhone may exist, but it’s not there yet 

http://www.telecoms.com/itmgcontent/tcoms/news/articles/20017576365.html (from Telecoms.com)

This, and java, is one of the few ‘issues’ I have with the iphone.  It’s not a show-stopper, and doesn’t detract from the overall useability of the phone, but it is probably the most obvious piece of functionality  that’s lacking from the, otherwise superb, browser.

It’s not that Flash doesn’t work on the iPhone.  Far from it, Adobe already have flash there for the iPhone, but it’s a political and commercial game that’s stopping it from reaching the handsets.  A combination of licencing issues, and the fact that iTunes is the only legitimate delivery method.

Come on Apple..  when are you going to let flash and java onto the iPhone?