Check out the article I wrote for Rhythm Interactive’s September 2009 issue of The Source.
I recently attended a week-long iPhone Training Boot Camp, during which I was reminded of an interesting fact – when the Apple iPhone originally launched in June of 2007 it did not have an App Store. It wasn’t until almost a year later in March of 2008 that a SDK (Software Development Kit) was released to allow developers to use anything besides the custom JavaScript library built into Mobile Safari to leverage the power of the iPhone. Of course, now the App Store is the basis of their whole iPhone sales campaign with its popular “We’ve got an App for that” tagline.
Of course, developing for the iPhone brings with it a whole new complicated set of processes. From ensuring that your application adheres to Apple’s strict Human Interface Guidelines, to guiding your Application through the time consuming App Approval Process. And, of course there is the whole issue of making sure you don’t step on Apple’s toes in the process, and duplicate any functionality that is built into the phone like the recent boondoggle with Google and their Google Voice application.
Now that the iPhone proved there is a market for apps, we are seeing the other mobile vendors launch their own App Stores. The Google Android phones are the next most popular, followed by stores for phones based on Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, as well as stores for Blackberry and Samsung phones. But Apple is the clear leader, having benefited from being first to market. Especially in light of the fact that the market for iPhone Apps was recently estimated to be in the neighborhood of $2.4 billion dollars per year.
With the iPhone’s constant Internet connection and the power of the iPhone SDK, we are finally seeing the mobile revolution materialize. You no longer need to have someone sitting in front of a television or computer to get your message in front of them. You can extend your brand experience to them in a relevant way when they are waiting for a train in the subway, eating lunch at a cafe, or even “answering the call of nature.” Now advertisers are beginning to see the amazing opportunity to have a regular, relevant presence in people’s lives while they are on the go, and many are asking themselves the question “Do we have an App for that?”
The original article is still preserved at archive.org