Nov

10

iPhone Tech Talk - Los Angeles

Filed Under geeky, mobile, technology | Leave a Comment

(I’ve been rather caught up lately, and this is a slightly late post!)

Update 11/11/08: Correction, when I wrote below that a certain Apple product did not have a camera, I was referring to the iPod Touch, not the iPhone 2G! Tks CaArRrRny.

About 2.5 weeks ago, I took a day off from work and drove 2 hours up to LA to attend a mini iPhone developer conference. It was a free event, but seating was limited and reservation was a must. I was lucky to get a spot, a few of my developer buddies from the San Diego area were not able to secure one (the event “sold out” almost immediately!)

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Apple also announced that they have just launched a developer forum site just the night before. This forum is late in the game, also because it was only recently that Apple decided to lift the developer-community-killing NON DISCLOSURE (duh) agreement.

I got to meet some interesting dev guys, and learned a bit more about this new mobile platform (below are some pictures). Some of my thoughts:

The iPhone App Store really does provide value

As much as some folks criticise this “centralized” distribution method, it provides value like Digg.com, Reddit.com, and Slashdot.org does - in discovery. Does Digg create its own content? No. Digg’s largest value prop: The most interesting news at that point in time on the ‘net, when you visit the site (great for ADD news addicts). It’s a great discovery service. So if you’re an iPhone app developer, the App Store is a great way for people to discover your app. You are exposed to an audience world-wide. Or at least, the 50-60 some countries that iPhone is officially distributed in.

To contrast, in absence of the App Store, you can distribute your app on your own personal web site. Uhh, and how are you going to get discovered? Are you going to spend $ on a marketing SEO force? Look at Windows Mobile and Symbian. If you developed an app on these said platforms, you are free to give/sell it exclusively from on your own web site. There’s not an equivalent “App Store” for Windows Mobile and Symbian OS. (And how are apps doing on those platform again? Right..)

Apple’s seemingly arbitrary process of approving apps sucks

Yeah it sucks. Apple provided lunch at the Grand Wilshire hotel, so we didn’t have to go out and spend money. Nice move, because developers can discuss and get to know each other over a meal (aligned with AAPL’s motive of cultivating a developer community - and oh, I like free food too). One thing that appears to be the consensus is Apple’s no-guidance on what apps they will approve or not approve to be on the App Store.

For an app developer, after you have done building your app, you then have to wait for Apple’s final thumbs up/down on whether your app will be accepted for distribution. While some checks and balances are necessary for various reasons (quality assurance, no malware apps, etc.) - this current process is one big black box and the trouble is that if you were a real corporation who had to justify engineering resources to allocate, complete with revenue projection plans, you have this one step where it looks like it’s a dealbreaker: the review process.

The trouble is, you don’t know before hand if Apple would say “hell no” to distributing your app after you have already spent the time/money/effort toiling away learning the platform, and then painstakingly building an app. Your resources spent would be effectively be written off as a sunk lost, if they just rejected the app. This is arbitrary outcome is hard to accept, if you’re the I-allocate-my-engineering-resources-wisely-with-planning kind. If you’re a {one, two, three}-man “side project” startup guy app developer, then whatever .. because you’ll just likely chalk it up to fun. But if you’re doing this solely to put food on the table, this process sucks.

One developer over lunch mentioned how his app was submitted, and Apple did not deliver a decision within the time they said they would (IIRC, 90 days), and told him to resubmit (essentially beginning the whole submission process from beginning again). He did call once in a while to check the status, and he said the operator’s sole job was to basically just remind callers that the 90 days have not been reached, and they should just wait by the mailbox for an answer.

Fragmentation is veeeery minimal in the iPhone

Minimal, yes, not zero. Why? Because the older iPhone iPod Touch does not have a camera. So if you’re developing an app using a camera, you had to include in your code an “if no camera, do this, else do that” statement. Think about the Android. It’s made to run on a bazillion type of different hardware from different manufacturers. If you were developing an app using the a camera, you have to do a “if no camera, break, if else, camera supports X resolution, do this, else if, camera has this special feature, do this, else … ” nesting an unnecessarily long if/else conditional (or a conditional equivalent type check).

The art of symbiotic co-creation

Back “in the day”, one has to negotiate with carriers and stuff (no one man dev shop is going to do that) - clearly the barrier-to-entry has been lowered significantly for mobile app developers. Also, Apple takes care of billing, local taxation stuff (recall that the iPhone is distributed globally in 50-60 some countries), and the hosting of your app. I think the 30% cut is reasonable, as they are creating real value for mobile developers.

It’s really nice how Apple has removed a lot of friction in developing a mobile app. The success of the iPhone hinges just as much on the app developers as do the success of the mobile developers, on the success of the iPhone. The more attractive applications exist out there, the more that would drive iPhone sales globally, further strengthening the buyer-seller network-effect (like eBay, they are un-toppable at this point). As an app developer, you’d want to develop for the platform with the widest audience possible.

Anyone can engineer an app for any niche they choose, so even obscure verticals may have their needs met. Apple knows there’s no way it can possibly meet *everyones* app tastes, so it’s smart to just farm out that piece to the free capitalistic market.

On the flip side, not providing an open market for developers would mean not being able to feasibly meet a certain need by a certain category of consumers (some will be left out, by definition!), and those folks would be ripe for poaching by iPhone-competitors. Thus, AAPL is really covering themselves from a potential attack from the low-end of the market there (which if were to occur, would force Apple to keep moving higher in the market - classic b-school case study stuff). This reminds me of an article on innovation by McKinsey Quarterly that I had just previous blogged about (good read about innovation, do check it out. Warning: soul-sucking registration required).

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In all, this was a nice event to get to know other iPhone devs around the Socal area (one guy actually flew in from Phoenix!). I learned a lot of best practices type stuff, e.g. excessive and unnecessary polling of the GPS quickly drains the battery life, and most apps don’t need that kind of geo-location precision (so don’t be a hog!)

Hooking up an iPhone to a Macbook for real-time live debugging:

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Real-time performance benchmark stats:

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Hey, does that spell an “A” for .. Aquaduct?

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Oct

1

Hello World Cocoa Touch, and …

Filed Under mobile | Leave a Comment

Hello World Mobile (and Apps)! Ready or not .. here I come :)

Hello Cocoa Touch and .. hello,

That’s a hello world on an iPhone simulator. The photo itself is taken on a, you guessed it - an iPhone ;)

Jul

13

iPhone 3G MS Exchange sync pricing strategy

Filed Under business, entrepreneurship, marketing, mobile, product management, strategy | Leave a Comment

Unless someone knocked you out in a hockey fight last Friday and your consciousness has just returned, chances are that you have heard of this thing called the iPhone 3G launch. I’ve been going back and forth on my decision on whether to get it or not. There are 2 things that are holding me back from getting an iPhone 3G:

  1. MS Exchange synchronization pricing
  2. No tethering option

It’s a classic pricing strategy–their (AT&T’s) attempt to extract more value from the wireless consumer segment that well .. has more money to dispose. Not only have they hiked the price of the unlimited data plan by $10/month from $20 to $30, but they charge you an additional $15/mo if you want to synchronize with an Exchange Server.

I’m a price-sensitive customer *and* I’m a techie at heart, thus I simply balk at having to guarantee AT&T’s revenue for 2 whopping years merely to transfer a sequence of low and high electrical signals to some proprietary email server, as opposed to any other email server, or as opposed to just casually serving the web.

The techie in me knows that they’re simply charging more by discriminating against MS Exchange data from casual web surfing, or any non-Exchange email data.

From Wikipedia’s entry on Net Neutrality: Neutrality proponents also claim that telecom companies seek to impose the tiered service model more for the purpose of profiting from their control of the pipeline rather than for any demand for their content or services.

The entrepreneur in me knows that they are just playing it by the pricing strategy books. To that end, I say, all the more power to them. Maybe I won’t buy the phone, but seeing that they are so savvy and nickel and diming the segment I am in (the “tough” crowd), I’m considering buying their stock instead.

My second gripe is the inability to tether the iPhone 3G to a laptop (without hacking it). This point is important to me because when I travel with my laptop, and if I’m in a spot where I don’t have wifi access, I just need that option to tether my laptop to my mobile phone.

Maybe AT&T is worried about people starting to use the iPhone as a modem and thus cannibalizing revenues from their existing wifi hotspot sales. To that end, I feel like if I’m already putting up with the hike in price for monthly unlimited data, putting up with the extra monthly charge for their discriminating against MS Exchange data, it’s just simply un-polite to ding me again by forcing me to cough up even more for a separate wifi hotspot plan. Come on.

And I quote Bruce Scheier:

Anyone with wireless capability who can see my network can use it to access the internet. To me, it’s basic politeness. Providing internet access to guests is kind of like providing heat and electricity, or a hot cup of tea.

I can see how they might have justified this impoliteness though. Corporate users probably have their companies paying for the bills anyway, and corporations have much deeper pockets and can easily justify such a cost as a business expensive. However, this pricing model obviously neglects the average work-for-a-corporation-joe-but-this-is-an-out-of-pocket-expense.

All said, here’s a message from a randomly-selected passionate early-adopting techie from the price-sensitive “tough crowd” segment, to whoever green-lighted this pricing strategy. You guys suck, and I hope you enjoy this video.


How to Get Broke by Buying an iPhone

May

11

iPhone apps for healthcare technology — plus some robots

Filed Under changing the world, healthcare technology, innovation, mobile, regular reads, technology | Leave a Comment

Cell phones, mobile phones, hand phones, whatever they are called, wherever they are in the world–can change the world! We already see it help drive economic development in microfinance, and now, we’re making strides with healthcare technology, another field I’m interested in because I love seeing technology change lives. The convergence of sophisticated UX-centric mobile devices, Internet/Web 2.0, Software as a Service, cloud computing — not to be missed!

From the article:

Despite all the advances in medical diagnostics, two-thirds of the world’s population has no access to imaging technologies. Worse, about half of the imaging equipment sent to developing countries goes unused because local technicians aren’t trained to operate it or lack spare parts, according to the World Health Organization. But thanks to the proliferation of cellular and other wireless networks, researchers are stepping up efforts to deliver crucial medical services from afar. “You go through India, anywhere, in the middle of the road, there’s someone with a cell phone. A friend calls me from the jungles of Costa Rica,” says Rubinsky. “I can see so many applications in which the cell phone becomes an integral part of a medical device. A cell phone can cut the cost of almost every [diagnostic] device.”

We have the $10Mil fbFund for Facebook apps, $100Mil iFund for iPhone apps, $10Mil for Google Android apps, and the to be announced $150Mil Blackberry apps fund — will we see a fund to drive healthcare technology apps?

With the iPhone spurring more handset makers to introduce similarly robust devices, the U.S. market for medical cell-phone software is expanding rapidly. Sales of phone applications for medical professionals are expected to rise from $111.8 million last year to $276 million in 2011, according to consultancy Ambient Insight.

On the “heavier” tech side, we’re definitely making huge strides in having robots that can now operate on people.

Consider this: Suppose there are only 10 surgeons in the world that specialize in this really complicated brain disease, affected by not that many people, but the number of victims dying from it is significant enough (say, 5,000 deaths a year worldwide). There’s only so many surgeons to go around, and with that many victims around the world, even if these surgeons worked themselves to death to save the world, they can’t possibly help everybody with just two hands and only 24 hours in a day. Seriously, it takes almost a day to just travel halfway across the world, and that’s just a one-way.

The solution: remote surgery. In terms of supply and demand, the supply is scarce (the Ph.Ds in this very narrow field) and the demand far exceeds the supply, and the number of victims is probably going to grow at a rate faster than the rate Ph.Ds in this field can be minted. Technology here serves to increase supply, that is, not by letting universities churn out more doctors (although that would work too), but rather by increasing the “utilization rate” of the existing doctors by allowing them to perform their work anywhere at anytime, by saving on travel time and expense. Even if we had an infinite amount of money to spend on the fastest jets, nobody can buy more than 24 hours in a day. 10 hours on a jet spent traveling is 10 hours that could be spent operating on a patient.

“If you are looking at the future, it’s hard to envision a hospital not offering robotics,” said Robert Glenning, chief financial officer at the Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey

Technology, changing lives and making the world a better place–I love it!