Digital books on iPhone with Cyberlibris

In 2001, Cyberlibris revolutionized the access to books.
By inventing the flat-rate subscription to the digital book, Cyberlibris has democratized the access to knowledge and open new sources of revenue to authors and their publishing houses. By the 12 of March, about 500 titles will be available on the iPhone in the form of a monthly subscription of 3 euros; files are accessible in streaming. The use will be facilitated by a library theme, it should be possible to create new entries in the library...

Shazam, an application indispensable

Shazam is in my opinion one of the "must" and main interesting applications for iPhone and iPod touch.
This software allows the identification/ recognizing of songs, as well allows to get informations about the author who composed the song.
The application is very easy to use, as you just have to orientate your handset to the source of music ( Hi-fi, TV, radio...etc), and push on "tag". Then the tag is directly sent to iTunes, so that you could buy the song you want.
The application requieres of course a wifi, Edge or 3G connexion, and is available for free in the AppStore.

iPhone from the Asian side, or 2009 as the japanese attack on Appstore

The iPhone is not only a revolution in Europe and North America, where its success finally created the conditions for a takeoff of the Internet and mobile multimedia. But it represents a new challenge for the traditional leaders in this area: South Korea and Japan. In very different contexts, the success of the iPhone has changed the look from the actors of the market in these two countries in Europe and could lead to a return in force for developers of applications, including Japanese, on the Old continent.

On the side of Japan, iPhone has a limited success on the archipelago, but its impact on the strategy of the players is likely to be major. Launched by the third operator Softbank Mobile in July, iPhone does not have two main popular functions of the Japanese Mobiles - FeliCa Sim contactless (and its functions as payment and transport mobile) and mobile TV. Unlike the case of South Korea, iPhone has a small impact on the Japanese market. However, it radically changes the look of content providers on the Japanese mobile market from Europe and America.

A new opportunity: 2009 could be the year of the Japanese attack on iPhone
For those publishers Japanese, iPhone is a new opportunity to develop on the mobile in Europe. It makes it possible to create a global market of mobile applications, as software developed for iPhone in Japan, is used around the world (only the cost of translation and localization of content to ensure). Moreover, the repayment of Apple publisher application is much higher than that proposed by European operators, including traditional subscribers downloading anyway few applications.

The publishers of video games from Japan decided to seize this new chance to take a position in Europe. In July 2008, at the Wireless Japan exhibition in Tokyo (the largest mobile event in Japan), I was struck by the number of publishers who annunced their desire to launch applications on the Appstore, and locate in Europe in 2009. It is true that the Japanese mobile market - over 90% penetration of 3G, and the equivalent of 3.5 billion euros in annual revenues for mobile content - is now saturated. Japanese mobile publishers are now investing again in Europe, and sees iPhone as a beautiful and inexpensive door.

A weak signal of this movement is the arrival of Sunsoft. The Japanese publisher, specializing in "casual games" type MahJong, but also well-known in Japan for his "horror games (See the video game" Alice in distorted land: http://jp.youtube .com / watch? v = faDwOSmTl0E, which was a major success on the Japanese mobile, particularly among teenagers) has launched in recent months its Mahjong Solitaire on Appstore for the global market, which represents a test for his Developing iPhone in Europe.

All the information I collected from Japan suggest that Sunsoft, but also other developers prestigious Japanese video game should go on the offensive on iPhone Appstore and during 2009, on this new the media entertainment titles in Japan. 2009 could be the year of the Japanese attack on iPhone.

Save the AppStore!

The proliferation of cheap applications on the AppStore is stifling innovation and holding Apple’s mobile touch platform back from realizing its true potential, think developers and companies developing quality mobile softwares.
The question became more obvious with the letter from Craig Hockenberry ( Iconfactory) to Steve Job : http://furbo.org/2008/12/09/ring-tone-apps/

The Apps Store and the iPhone 3rd Party Platform as a whole is barely 22 weeks old. And it's success is staggering. I can't think of any other computing platform (or any media platform for that matter) that has created over 10,000 totally new pieces of content in it's first 150 days. 150 days!!!
25 million iPhones and Touches out there at the moment, that will likely double in a few months, and a few months later too.

But I think it's becoming obvious that something needs to change with the way apps are listed and browsed in the store, as well, I think the business model of the app store is hitting an inflection point.
Apple could introduce more varieties of lists, we've seen them all in other places, fastest movers, most viewed. Apple's headings aren't clear, I presume 'Top' means most downloaded (in the last 24 hours, week?). I'm rather less clear about 'What's Hot' is.

I think so many people are jumping into I phone application development after having heard about that guy who made $250K with a casual puzzle game...but I think that about 80% of them will provide garbage applications that even free I won't pay for it.
With almost 10,000 apps in the App Store, and maybe 20 new apps per day, there's no nice way to give attention to all of those apps!

If you make an iPhone app, I suggest to prepare you to make less than $1000 on your app, for the lifetime of your app , even if you have a few developers and designers working on your app.

I really think that iPhone got a real potential that Apple must preserve, so, it may got to study and reorganize the pertinence of the App store, that will keep on growing...