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Next Line On The iPhone Horizon: Micropayments

Apple has a tried and tested approach of creating complete, yet simple ecosystems and the one it has developed for the iPhone is testament to this genius.

However, ecosystems need to evolve or they devolve to the lowest common denominator. Much has already been said about the “commoditisation” of apps to very basic one offs with gimmick appeal.

Allowing for a deeper level of engagement within an app is key to this “appolution”. And one of the most important steps forward in achieving this in my view is to open the spigot for micropayments.

Om Malik has also called for this:

I would be spending a lot more if Apple extended the API to allow for the ability to transact within apps.” Nothing like buying a song, an application or a ringtone with a simple click, only to be billed in a batch, later. Such buying habits are the reason why we believe Apple’s iPhone could prove to be an ideal micropayments platform.

Top 5 UiPhone Rules: Building Successful Apps

As the cult of Mac gives way to the cult of iPhone, it’s worth putting a peg in the sand around a set of design rules that define what makes an iPhone app work.

John Gruber has posited an excellent starting point with one overarching guideline for iPhone UI design:

Figure out the absolute least you need to do to implement the idea, do just that, and then polish the hell out of the experience.

From this starting point he goes on to list a set of five rules or guidelines to continually parse against:

1. Each screen should display one thing at a time. That “thing” may be a list, but it should just be a list.

5. As you show more detail, conceptually you move from left to right - but it’s best to minimize how deep you can get while drilling down to the right.

Craig Hockenberry, who put me onto John’s “First Law of iPhone Development” reduces this to a one word iPhone principle: simplicity. As he points out, “doing as little as possible” can be your greatest challenge, but it will produce the highest reward - a successful app.

Craig’s methodology is to seek out the core function of your app and keep yourself true to this every time you work on it. He uses the example of Twitterrific, a Mac OS X client for managing your Twitter account. This, however, is not the core function of Twitterrific. Say what?

In fact he sees the core function, or the “nut”, of this app as being reading:

Twitterrific is all about reading what other people are doing, thinking, or experiencing. Even its secondary function, posting tweets, is related to reading. The posting interface functions as a way for you to give your followers something interesting to read.

Knowing this core function, his team at Iconfactory could manifest it within their iPhone app in a number of ways that you can read about in his post.

I really like both John and Craig’s approaches and encourage iPhone developers to adopt their thinking and build upon it.

Funware Dominates iPhone Apps In 2008

Apple has released a series of lists showing which apps have been downloaded the most in the 5 months since the App Store launched.

You can read thro the lists over at MobileCrunch.

The key takeout: funware apps rule.

MySpace Taps The RIM: Record Breaking Blackberry App

Designed to help Blackberry users stay connected to the MySpace social network, a new app from the Fox Interactive company has been downloaded 400,000 times in its first week. This goes a long way towards dispelling the unhipster Blackberry myth.

A Facebook app, which launched in 2007, has been downloaded 2.5 million times.

Android Followed iPhone, But Wait (There May) Be More: The MicroPhone

The Inquirer reportedly has knowledge of a Microsoft Phone, which we are dubbing the MicroPhone.

Thanks to MG Siegler for bringing this to our attention. The veracity of this report is pegged as “highly dubious”.

Either way as I see it at the moment the two key platforms to focus on for native, mobile Internet-focused apps are the iPhone and Android, given that there are already millions of iPhones out there in the wild and it is anticipated that there will be millions of Android-enabled phones out there next year.

iPhone Image Recognition: Snap And Tell

Wouldn’t it be great if you could take a picture of a book someone is reading in your local coffee shop and before the sugar sinks into your cappucino you have all the data on it and where you can buy it.

Or similarly, what if you could snap a billboard as you hurtle down the 101 (preferably with someone else driving) and before you reach your destination you’ve already pulled up more details on the concert being advertized and bought tickets.

Palo Alto-based SnapTell has the solution. Their image matching technology handles real life photos snapped on the majority of cell phones and parses these against a growing database of products. They are also able to extract text from pictures and use this to drive search.

The company has recently launched an iPhone app - read Jason Kincaid’s review.

How To Price Your iPhone Apps

This evening I got a hold of Google’s Voice Search App for the iPhone. Something struck me as it was downloading - I had not even checked to see the price. In fact, up to a certain price point I doubt I would’ve balked at downloading it even had I checked.

I am perceiving, as are others, that there are certain price thresholds for iPhone, and in time - other mobile, apps.

Let me run through them:

* Blind at price
The combination of a trusted source and high anticipation results in a “blind at price” threshold. As with the Google app - I would not have hesitated, but see later for the upper ceiling. The caveat here is that subconsciously I may have anticipated the app would be free given it is Google’s modus to give apps away for free and make money off ads.

*Buy to try
$2 seems to be the common wisdom of a price point at which most people are prepared to front up with the cash simply to try out an app. It is also a price point at which you are not likely to make much noise if you don’t get sufficient value for money. Adam Ostrow, in reviewing PhotoArtist, agrees as do a number of the people who commented on his story.

In contrast, when I downloaded CameraBag for $3.99 I was disappointed with the initial functionality and seriously considered creating a stink. Thankfully the app has since wobbled straight and I am loving it. In fact it is the primary photography app for me on the iPhone, which I am experimenting with as my primary photography device at present.

* Excellent marketing
Between $2 and $5 an app needs to both satisfy an immediate need and promise sufficient value. This translates into having excellent marketing of the app - a great picture, brand and blurb about the app and most of us will download it. This is what hooked me on CameraBag for example. It took about three “look sees” before I decided to take the plunge, but their story eventually thresholded me.

* Trusted name, compelling app

Between $5 and $15 there aren’t many apps that get me interested. However, with Will Wright’s Spore app I had no hesitation in putting the cash. The combination of his name, the corporate behind him and the actual app’s reputation had me hooked.

RockYou Raises More Funding To Climb Virtual Superwall

Eric Eldon at VentureBeat has a great piece on RockYou’s move into the Asia Pacific region courtesy of another round of funding from strategic investors in the region, namely Softbank and SK Telecom.

Why Asia Pac you might ask? The answer is - virtual goods.

Cracking the formula for monetizing social networks via virtual goods is the current holy grail. Where better than China to learn the ropes - bigger than web advertising, virtual goods are a $1.2bn business there already.

In addition, Softbank ploughed $400m into Xiaonei - a socnet similar to Facebook, but ahead of the curve: they recently introduced a virtual currency system. Teaming up with these players is a smart move.

UPDATE: Facebook has started to head down a similar track - they’ve moved to a micropayments system as of today.

LinkedIn Looks Out For Users By Opening Platform

Reid Hoffman has announced that his professional social networking tool, LinkedIn, has opened up its platform to third party developers. The current roll out includes a suite of, eight external and one internal, apps that are aimed at enhancing user productivity through file sharing, project management, arranging business trips etc.

Open Mobile Markets: How To Drive Impetus

Open mobile platforms and markets are all the rage.

Apple generated $30m in the first month with its iStore, and has attracted a plethora of app developers of all shapes and sizes - from Electronic Arts through to start ups like Palo Alto-based Tapulous.

The first Android-powered GPhone is about to hit the streets and this means the Android market will be open for business. RIM is working on something similar and Microsoft is creating a platform for selling apps on its Windows Mobile systems called SkyMarket.

But take a closer look at the Android Market and one thing is glaringly obvious - it’s relatively deserted. Sure it’s a chicken and egg thing, but what made Facebook’s F8 platform so successful in gaining immediate impetus was the critical mass element.

Currently, only a handful of apps are ready for Android - MySpace has a basic version of its soc network ready, imeem’s Internet radio service and a number of weather related apps are the pick of the bunch.

Where is everybody? EA’s Spore, which is the best mobile game I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing would be a great marquee.

So here’s the rub. The beauty of the iPhone Store was that you could generate revenue immediately. The Android Market is currently missing that key revenue enabler - a closed commerce system.

As the number of app markets proliferates and the total addressable market mushrooms I suspect we’ll see a number of meta solutions appear. In particular meta systems that can market, track and monetize apps across all the platforms as well as tools that allow developers to code once, and release cross platform.

In the meantime, app store owners need to focus on getting traffic in the door, app developers buzzed about their platform and a monetization mechanism in place.