Mobile Executives on the iPhone's Software Distribution
Mobile executives at a Silicon Valley roundtable discussion exchanged some colorful comments about the iPhone and its impact on the mobile space. Some application developers, in particular, have been very pleased with the distribution model provided by Apple.
Pandora Media's free Radio application [App Store] acheived 350,000 installations on the iPhone within the first 6 days. Pandora plans on monetizing their iPhone application through ads in the future. In contrast, over the past 18 months, Pandora has only achieved 12,000 paid monthly subscriptions through all other mobile platforms. Apple is apparently the only provider that will allow developers to offer a free ad-supported distribution model.
Facebook and Loopt have also seen impressive adoption over the course of a week. Loopt claims the average iPhone user is 47 times more active on their network than other platforms.
When discussing the promise of Google's Android mobile platform, some developers were skeptical about the experience:
"I need Android like I need a hole in the head," said Pandora's Conrad, picturing it as "another OS platform that sits on top of buggy firmware, with devices with hundreds of manufacturers, with different characteristics."
Meanwhile, Loopt's CEO was optimistic at the relative openness of the Android platform, as compared to the iPhone platform.
Apple has been undergoing considerable criticism from developers about the ongoing non disclosure agreement (NDA). The NDA is preventing developers from publicly discussing iPhone development and is also holding up a number of iPhone programming books from being published.
Popular Stories
Apple previously announced that macOS Sonoma will be released this Tuesday, September 26. The free software update includes many new features and changes for the Mac, including the five that we have highlighted below. In addition to these five features, we have shared the full release notes for macOS Sonoma below for a complete overview of everything new. Desktop Widgets macOS Sonoma...
Are you skipping the iPhone 15 Pro and waiting another year to upgrade? If so, we already have some iPhone 16 Pro rumors for you. Below, we recap new features rumored for the iPhone 16 Pro models so far:Larger displays: The iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max will be equipped with larger 6.3-inch and 6.9-inch displays, respectively, according to Ross Young, CEO of Display Supply Chain...
The iPhone 16 series is expected to gain an additional capacitive button, known internally as the "Capture Button." Codenamed "Project Nova," the button is likely to be one of the main selling points of the iPhone 16 lineup, assuming it gets past the initial testing phase. The Capture Button is located on the same side as the Power button, only positioned slightly lower - where the mmWave cutout...
Apple could be preparing to release a seventh-generation iPad mini before the end of the year, based on a new report by DigiTimes. In an article discussing stagnating global tablet demand in the second half of 2023, the Taiwan-based outlet forecasts an uptick in Apple's share of the market owing to orders for a "small-size" iPad in the fourth quarter. From the report (see bold): In the...
