News of Apple’s new iPhone SDK caused much excitement last week among Apple fans. It is not just the potential for adding local applications, but the fact that the device is already in use by millions of people. Even more important is the number of developers currently sat on their hands because the Palm and Windows Mobile third party software industries are all over the place at the moment. All of a sudden, a new mobile software market opens up and the gold rush has just started.

Love or hate the iPhone, we all know that there will be a huge number of third party applications and games flooding the market within a relatively short space of time, and that true innovation will be the only way to move an iPhone app above the rest.

I know a few developers who are struggling to survive in the Palm OS third party market and some that are also not happy in the Windows Mobile market. These people are ideal fodder (excuse the word) for Apple, and are ideally placed to start iPhone development. Some of the larger PDA software companies have resources a plenty to attack the market early and to establish a name for themselves before the rest catch up. It is just like the early days of Palm OS all over again.

Even the companies that are not having problems, or so I assume, like Astraware have a foothold big enough to start well and to grow quickly in a new mobile stream. I can imagine that Howard is already scratching his beard at the thought of it:) To clarify, I have no idea what Astraware’s intentions are, but the prospect of the well known smartphone developers jumping onto the iPhone bandwagon is more likely to get traditional users moving over than the allure of Apple’s fancy iPhone gimmicks.

Apple wants 30% of all software sales, which is not too bad compared to what some current mobile ESDs charge, and the developer will have to purchase a Mac to develop properly. All software will be distributed via iTunes and some will argue that this is a good idea because it enables Apple to control the type of software being installed on the devices. Obviously, this will be worked around within a short period of time by some enterprising 14 year old and that will be the model every iPhone user has to live with.

The 30% charge can be attributed to the work that Apple will have to do to ensure that the software is suitable and stable enough, but it appears to follow the traditional mobile ESD business model and I for one feel that this is steep. Like the iPhone pricing, Apple has offered no flexibility to the process and it is iTunes or nothing for the developers who want to turn a profit. At least the marketing will be much cheaper for the developer and there are many advantages and disadvantages to not having multiple ESDs running the show. On the one hand, it is more cost effective to have one account with one distributor but there is a danger of being crowded out in a huge market in one place. It could also make the developer’s site much less important as the iTunes site grows to become an all encompassing monster housing the iPhone world.

Everything in the above paragraph is of little consequence though. Too many people look up to Apple and Mr Jobs, and will devour every piece of software and pricing plan offered with glee. Reminds me of a joke- Q: What’s the difference between Steve Jobs and God? A: God doesn’t think he is Steve Jobs.

There has been some mumblings about having to buy a Mac to develop for the iPhone, but you have to have a Windows machine to develop for Windows Mobile, so they are ever on that point.

Apple has infiltrated the mobile market impressively so far, and will continue to do so at an alarming rate. I say good luck to them and I for one do now look more favourably on the iPhone as a potential smartphone. If the pricing plan becomes reasonable, and I can lose my unhealthily negative view of Apple, it may be one to look at in the future. However, I suspect many smartphone and PDA developers have already paid their $99 and are hatching plans for iPhone software domination.

To sum up, here is a telling comment from a developer, whom I shall not name- "For us it makes a lot of sense--we're already up and running, know the mobile market, etc.  We have a few successful apps and so will have a bit of a name for those who moved to an iPhone. 30% really isn't too bad--it includes transaction costs (Handango and others charge extra for those.) Plus as mentioned, I don't have to spend another chunk of change on adverts on THEIR site (well, not yet anyway).  So my costs really go down.  And there are people out there who WANT to buy apps.  So there are customers again!  Plus while you have to certify your apps--you don't have to pay for an outside test house to do it!  The $99 is supposed to include that.  That's dirt cheap.  I've joined inside dev programs for that and gotten squat."

The Toshiba Portege G900 has had many problems since its inception.

The biggest and most obvious of these was the fact that when it was new, you couldn't switch the thing off because nine times out of ten, it wouldn't come back on again. Even though this was patched fairly quickly, the damage was done and a perception grew up that Toshiba don't give a stuff about either the G900 or its owners.

The patch fix was made permanent in the form of a ROM update in quite a short timescale, but this did nothing to appease the masses since the update was only available on a 'return to UK' basis. (OK, there probably aren't 'masses' of G900 owners but you know what I mean) The update did the job required of it (with a very quick turn around in my case) but it did nothing to address the 'Toshiba doesn't care' feeling amongst users. A physical return is just too inconvenient in an industry that is expected to work on downloadable, do-it-yourself software releases. In some cases devices took months to be returned to their owners.

The return actually turned into a PR 'shot in the foot' for Toshiba since it inspired all sorts of further rumours that the G900 hardware was being modified as part of the update process.

Another update is now available and this time Toshiba have released the software to specific branches of Carphone Warehouse in the UK.

The postal return wound the customers up the first time round so for an encore we now have a 'walk-in return' policy. If you can't get your device to one of 22 CPW branches in the UK then you can't have an update.

Having to take a device like this somewhere to get it fixed feels like something out of the Stone Age. I posted my device away for the first update but now having to take it somewhere and lose it for a couple of days is almost too much to contemplate. (I did actually try to get my G900 updated but the branch of CPW I visited told me to get lost as 'we don't touch Toshiba'. I haven't tried again.)

A version of the latest update has appeared on the web in a downloadable form and it works very, very well. (It certainly fixes all my niggles with the device so far) Toshiba really seem to have got on top of the software problems with this release but have blown away all of the positive publicity that this could have generated by the mechanism and limited release of the update.

Good one Tosh!

Happy now, bitches? by 'Fake' Steve Jobs (who seems to be a 'real' a**hole) made me chuckle- "Yeah, we rocked your friggin world, right? I mean 29 June 2007 might be the day the world changed, but today it just changed again. BlackBerry is dead. Microsoft is dead. Windows Mobile is dead. Amazon is dead. Kindle is dead. Nokia is dead. Motorola was already dead but now they are even more dead. Google's Android is dead. Samsung is dead. LG is dead. Sony is dead. UTStarcom is dead. We've thrown $100 million into an iFund so people can build iApps to sell on iTunes and give us 30% of their iMoney. The coming onslaught of new applications will make iPhone the only smart phone that anyone in the entire world will ever want to use."

I am sure this is tongue-in-cheek, but if it isn't this the kind of attitude that really winds up many non Apple fanboys...

SplashMoney has 'finally' been made available for Windows Mobile Professional and Standard users. This is the first really good quality finance application available for Windows Mobile Standard and is a huge release in my view.

Manage your money anytime, anywhere. Connect to your online bank from your desktop computer or wireless handheld and download transactions directly into SplashMoney. Create budgets and then track and analyze your spending with customizable reports and charts. Synchronize your phone with your desktop PC to Includes free desktop companion software for Windows.

Smartphone version / Pocket PC version.

Alongside the launch of the official new SBSH Mobile Software web-site earlier this week, we are excited to invite you today to take part in our Shakin' It With SBSH activity and get a chance to win your own professional SBSH Cocktail Shaker!

SBSH Mobile Software new web-site introduce many new advanced utilities that ensure ease of use and confident navigation experience, such as: Device-Based and Platform-Based navigation helping users to find applications designed for their mobile device easily, automated RSS news feeds for new application updates and announcements and much more!

Starting March 5th thru the next two weeks (may vary between different web-sites) we'll be giving away 50 SBSH professional cocktail shakers with our different web-site partners! Wanna get ready for the hot summer? Take part in this exciting opportunity and you might become the owner of a shiny new SBSH Cocktail Shaker!

All you have to do is tell us which SBSH application you like the most, or your thoughts on the best things about SBSH via the comments link below.

Don't forget that you can still get a 14% discount in our Palm and Windows Mobile software stores using discount code '247forever'. Your purchases really do help us pay the bills!

Links: Palm Store / Windows Mobile Store

Gavin has recommended Pocket Digital Clock as a great piece of freeware- "Pocket Digital Clock (PDC) is a small and simple program that shows a large digital clock with second display on the Windows Mobile Today Screen. Date is shown above the digital clock very much like the HTC Home plug-in. Name of the service provider is replaced by day of week instead.

Tapping on Pocket Digital Clock will bring the user to the Clock and Alarms window, similar to the behavior of Windows Mobile default Date plug-in."

A Brief History of Telegrams is way off topic, but it's a comprehensive article and nice to think of the journey from telegram to email.

You can also send a Retro-Gram via email which is a nice touch.

"From the days of the earliest smoke signals and the wondrous lighthouse at Alexandria, people have been sending messages over long distances with the best technology they could devise. In 1791, a Frenchman named Claude Chappe, who had been experimenting with elaborate and noisy contraptions for transmitting messages, developed a system using synchronized clocks and a large wooden panel painted white on one side and black on the other. By showing one face or the other of the wooden panel in coordination with the moving hands of the clock, Chappe could encode a message into numbers which could be read by someone far away watching the panel through a telescope. Chappe and his brother, René, demonstrated this system over a distance of ten miles to a committee of government officials, transmitting a message chosen by a local doctor: “Si vous réuississez, vous serez bientôt couvert de gloire.” Chappe originally called his system the tachygraphe, from the Greek words for “fast writer,” but a friend persuaded him to name it the télégraphe — “far writer” — instead.

Chappe’s original apparatus was destroyed by an angry mob of French Revolutionaries in 1793, who suspected he was using it for espionage. But he recovered and devised an even better system using a movable pair of arms on a movable bar which could be put into any of 98 unique positions, each position corresponding to a letter, number, or coded word or phrase. An operator could move the arms by using a miniature version of the apparatus connected to the main one by an intricate system of pulleys and cables. Chappe’s optical semaphore telegraph impressed the new French government, and state telegraph towers were constructed in France beginning in 1794 for the communication of military and political intelligence. The commercial potential of the system was immediately apparent, and Chappe soon had many rivals in the development of other telegraph systems..."

Today's free eBook is The Helper and His Hero by Matthew Hughes- "GUTH BANDAR WAS ADRIFT in a formless, limitless, gray nothing. Above him was nothing, ahead and to all sides was nothing, and below was nothing. But no, far down (an arbitrary direction — it was simply the view between his feet), something moved. Something tiny that, as he watched, grew larger as it came toward him.
 
Now Bandar felt a shiver of fear. For this no-place could be only one place. He was adrift in the Old Sea of preconsciousness, the inert and timeless realm that underlay the collective unconscious of humanity. Only one thing moved in the Old Sea: the great blind Worm that endlessly swam its "waters" in search of its own tail. And only one thing could divert the Worm from its eternal, futile quest. As early noönauts had discovered when they had hacked their way through the floor of the Commons and dipped into the pearl gray nothingness beneath, the Worm sensed any consciousness that entered the Old Sea — and inerrantly swam to devour it.

It is a dream, of course, Bandar told himself. He applied the noönaut techniques that would allow him to take charge of the dream, to change its dynamic, or to wake from it.
   
But nothing happened. He floated in nothingness, and the Worm came on. Now it seemed as long as his hand. In moments it looked to be the length of his forearm, its undulating motion hypnotically compelling his gaze. Bandar looked away, sought to concentrate on the techniques of lucid dreaming, but when he looked again, the Worm was as long as his leg. Its great dark circle of a mouth, rimmed with triangular teeth, grew larger as he watched.