Behind the iPhone's big weekend

Apple has announced they have sold 1.7 million units of the iPhone 4 over the weekend. Oh, and that didn't include Sunday sales. Remember, it took 80 days for the iPad to get to sales of three million, and reports indicate the iPhone 3GS had sales of just about one million in the same amount of time it has taken the iPhone 4 to reach the 1.7million mark.

What's going on here? Many sites have attributed the increase to iPhone upgraders: first and second-generation iPhone owners making the upgrade. My observations indicate something bigger is at work here, and it has happened before.

When the iPod launched, it had modest success at first. Sure Apple fans thought it was a great design, but the price point and Mac-only compatibility kept growth in check. By the the time the third-generation iPod rolled around, people who had never purchased an Apple product before were lining up. What happened, from what I could tell working the front lines of an Apple Store in those days, was the iPod crossed over from the world of early adopters, and into the hands of everyday consumers.

In the lead up to the iPhone 4 release, I noticed many of my less tech-savvy friends were talking about the phone on facebook, twitter etc. People I thought would never buy an iPhone, heck some who had never bought an iPod, were looking forward to this launch. Why now? Why is this the iPhone to make the leap to a more mainstream audience? When the iPhone originally launched, it was a smart phone. Not only that, it was one of the "smartest" smart phones: many of the features, like internet and email on the go, seemed like needless luxuries to a large portion of phone-buying consumers. Fast forward to 2010, and many more phones offer a mobile internet experience. Sure on the surface this means more competition for Apple, but for the average consumer, it helps to sell these features as a standard part of a phone today. And if you're going to get a "standard" phone, you might as well get the one your friends have been talking about over the last few years.

iPhone sales were by no means slow over the last few years, but it looks like iPhone 4 has reached a tipping point. Let's hope AT&T is ready for the onslaught of new smartphone customers.

AppSniper for the iPhone and iPod Touch Video Review

I'm on a quest to (eventually) have a blog post about how the iPhone can pay for itself in saving you time/money. Since today's app merely helps you save money on more apps for the phone, I suppose it doesn't count, but it does allow you to add more apps for free, rather than paying for them.

AppSniper tracks prices in the App Store, and shows you how the price of specific apps is trending over time. It also gives you a list of previously pay apps that are currently free, and also app that are reduced in price. See an app you want but it's a little too expensive? You can set a sniper watch on it, set the price you'd like to pay, then the app will notify you when the app drops to that price. AppSniper quickly pays for itself, and there aren't a ton of apps that can't make that claim.

(iTunes link)

Here's a look:

Gel Doodle for the iPhone and iPod Touch Video Review

Show of hands: Who didn't play with their Jello as a child? Well maybe the next generation will be able to have all the fun of gooey Jello without the mess thanks to Gel Doodle. Gel Doodle turns your iPhone or iPod Touch into a mold for different shapes. Add fruit just like you would in real life, or add objects only available in the digital world like photos from your photo album. Your creations can then bounce around the screen, or be added to your photo library.

The fun for most adults will be short-lived, but for super-young kids, it could be quite a hoot. That said, you'll have to decide whether it's better to have your four year-old play with your iPhone rather than a few penny's worth of Jello.

(iTunes link)

Here's a look:

Jet Ball for the iPhone and iPod Touch Video Review

What do you get when you take the gaming classic breakout, and throw in a healthy helping of the old Mac favorite Airburst? You get Jet Ball.

Jet Ball uses the same paddle/ball premise as Breakout and countless other games. However in addition to clever, cool, and challenging block layouts (which has been done elsewhere) Jet Ball adds special features like long paddle / short paddle, magnetic paddle, etc., all of which are similar to the different extras in the balloon-popping action of Airburst. Jet Ball has so many special functions/features, it can get tough at times to keep them all straight, and remember at a glance whether a feature is good or bad (if you're brave, go for the negative features like short paddle: they're worth three times as many points)

The action is fast, the levels are fun, and you're always left with that "just one more time" feeling at the end of the game. This version has a few quirks due to the location of the OpenFeint information, which covers the paddle/info at the bottom of the screen, but otherwise, it's hassle-free:

(iTunes link)

Is Apple Becoming The New AOL?

With the iPhone OS 4.0 event, Apple added some great user features like multitasking and folder organization for apps. And perhaps the most important non-user feature (maybe even an anti-user feature) is Apple's iAds system. Apple will be providing engaging (obtrusive?) ads at the OS level, and splitting the revenue with the app developers.

Here we are with a mobile ecosystem of over 185,000 apps, and now an integrated ad system to go with it. Probably half of the iPhone apps are specialized version of content otherwise available online: wikipedia, netflix, ABC, etc. Most sites present their information in a better layout in an iPhone-specific app. While Safari will probably stay on the iPhone, at some point, if Apple eliminated the browser, would you still be able to get to all the information you want on the iPhone? (Note: we are working on our own iPhone app.)

Apple, with the help of developers, is creating what amounts to an internet replacement: a secondary, walled garden of Apple-approved information. From the everything old is new again department, this all seems like AOL all over again: a corporate-approved, sanitized world of information, serving as a subset of the entire internet.

Sure many apps use the iPhone in novel ways, but do the app store offerings replace the internet for you on the go?