9to5 Staff

Well, maybe not, but there could be thousands of applications immediately for sale on the App Store, which launches 11 July – though this does depend on just how quickly Apple can process and vet apps recently submitted for the first tranche.

Business Week suggests (hints, intimates) as many as 4,000 apps could be in the cut, making the claim in a report which takes a birds-eye view of what’s to come, including applications for productivity, health, remote working, customer relationship management and more.

Salesforce VP, Chuck Dietrich says: “The iPhone and its applications will have huge ramifications for how people conduct business. The ability to run sophisticated applications on a handheld will change how people conduct life and business.”

This news emerges as the first images of the App Store have surfaced within the ‘What’s New’ video published by Apple yesterday.

As displayed, the App Store will let users group applications by the following criteria: 

• Featured
• Categories
• Top 25
• Search
• Downloading
• New/What’s Hot

 Polarbit, developers of Raging Thunder for the iPhone, are now working on a Crash Bandicoot-branded kart racing game for the device – and will introduce the title through the App Store when development is complete.

The game includes twelve tracks, many characters, multiple weapons and configurable controls.

Mmm, yes, and there’s a video here, enjoy…

 Take a break from iPhone mania with this somewhat interesting selection of tricks for Time Capsule. (Thanks to Cult of Mac for the heads-up).

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It has been a busy day here in iPhone land.  The latest bit of rumor news comes fron the Boy Genius report.  According to their "reliable source" the iPhone will be available later this year from Best Buy and Radio Shack.   The deals are already secured and the iPhones are en route. 

This isn’t as big a stretch as we originally thought because both Best Buy and Radio Shack already sell AT&T phones and activation plans in the store.  Best Buy even sells Apple Computers and iPods while Radio Shack is an authorized iPod dealer. 

They sell iPods, they sell AT&T plans.  Why not?  This makes perfect sense. 

10 million iPhones?  Probably by September!

Yes, you heard right!  Ma Bell is slanging iPhones without plan obligations in the US for $400 extra without a contract.  The unlocked devices will not allow users to switch SIMs however when they travel overseas which would negate most of the benefit of buying without a contract. 

As it stands, it is hard to see why someone would buy without a plan because you can opt out of your AT&T plan right after signing up for much less money.  This isn’t a prepaid contract either, AT&T is still working on that…

BTW, if you want to see how to get ready for AT&T 3G iPhone goodness check this video if you are a new customer and here if you already roll with AT&T.

The AP goes on to say:

Without a contract, users can cancel service without incurring an early termination fee. But both contract and contract-free phones will be "locked" to work only on AT&T’s network, and the monthly service plans available will be the same, said AT&T spokesman Michael Coe. The plans add a $30 monthly charge for data like e-mail and Web surfing on top of a calling plan.

As previously announced, the cheapest monthly calling plan for the iPhone will cost $70 per month, before taxes and fees that can add $10 per month. That plan includes 450 minutes of calls and unlimited e-mail and Web browsing.

AT&T is working on providing a prepaid plan, Coe said. A prepaid option was available to buyers of the first iPhone who failed a credit check.

Yes! According to the sometimes accurate and always wittily sarcastic (in a British sort of way) Register.co.uk.  They go on to give all of the prerequisite "rampant speculation alerts" but say they have contacts inside mobile operators (ahem O2?  you are now on Jobso’s shitelist) who have seen the device. 

According to their source, the slide out keyboard isn’t perfect but it does work and there are prototypes aimed at the corporate market.  That would indicate that they will be available fairly soon.  El Reg says one year, but that seems kind of a long way off if the carriers are already messing with it.

(Yeah we know that isn’t an iPhone to the right but an iPhone with a slider would most likely look like this.)

Apple’s senior vice president of Industrial Design, Jonathan Ive, has won yet another award, this time in recognition of the disruptive effect of the iPhone. 

Announced today, the 2008 Mobile Data Association Awards aim to recognise companies and individuals who have contributed to the UK mobile data industry.

The MDA Personal Achievement Award went to Jonathan Ive of Apple (News – Alert), in recognition of his contribution to the design of the Apple iPhone and its groundbreaking user interface. 

The judges remarked: "This year the MDA personal achievement award winner is Jonathan Ive for his design of the Apple IPhone and its user interface. The physical design of the IPhone and its intuitive user interface has completely redefined the mobile phone as we know it. "The iPhone is arguably the most talked about consumer-electronics device that has hit the market in the last 5 years. Ive has designed the best implementation of a touch UI, this with the Safari eb browser has definitely pushed mobile content into the forefront of the consumer consciousness. It sets the bar very high for all present and future competitors and as such, is shaking the mobile phone industry. We look forward to seeing Ive’s design innovation continuing to challenge the mobile world."

The 2008 judging Panel consisted of:

• Steve Reynolds, Vice Chairman, Mobile Data Association
• Anuj Khanna, Mobile Media Director, Mobile Data Association
• Martin Ballard, Director, Mobile Data Association
• Nick Hunn, m-Health Director, Mobile Data Association
• Mike Grenville, 160 Characters

The Mobile Data Association is a Trade Association that is now in its 14th year of operation. It includes all UK Mobile Network Operators as well as many content providers, aggregators and mobile data solution providers amongst its members.

 Here’s the latest Apple video on what’s new in iPhone.

Bono plans to launch an AIDS-fighting music subscription service under the Product (RED) imprint in the autumn.

The deal is – users pay $5 per month to receive three key digital items – music from a leading artist (U2, Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, Elton John, Emmylou Harris and Death Cab for Cutie have all signed-up to take part in this initiative), a track from an up and coming act and a surprise piece of content, which could be a song, video, short story or anything else. Subscribers will also receive detailed stories of (RED) cash being spent in Africa.

Don MacKinnon, President of (RED) Content explains: “The world’s best brands created (RED) products that have generated over $110 million. What we are doing now is applying the (RED) model to music. Every week you will receive great music from amazing artists and people living with AIDS in Africa will receive lifesaving antiretroviral medicine.” 

“Don MacKinnon just might be the penicillin the ailing music business needs. He is an innovator by nature and I have no doubt that some of the music software we are working on at (RED) will help change the way music is received, as well as changing the lives of Africans who will die without the AIDS drug that (RED) can help purchase,” said Bono.

More information.

Check them out..

Veteran Electronics Arts games developer Neil Young has begun a new venture – iPhone game development.

Young, who has work on The Lord of the Rings, Sims 2 and Majestic to his name, has launched his new firm, Ngcomo, which he says will develop games for the iPhone and mobile platforms.

"I’m leaving EA to found a new type of mobile games publisher that is specifically focused on games for the iPhone and beyond — that class of mobile phone, a more open mobile platform that has the type of capability you see in a device like the iPhone," he told Gamasutra.

He confessed to being drawn by the potential of the Apple mobile platforem, saying, "if it wasn’t for the advent of the iPhone and the advent of the App Store and the SDK, I would probably still be at Electronic Arts focusing on making Blueprint as successful as it could possibly be."

Young points out that the performance of the iPhone is pretty close to a PSP, but,  "unlike the PSP, it’s got a touchscreen, accelerometers, a camera, it’s location-aware, it’s got all of your media on it, it’s awake with you, it’s always on, and it’s always connected to the network." 

"So if you think about the types of games and entertainment experiences that you can build on a platform like that, it’s got to get pretty exciting pretty quickly."

"I think it’s incumbent upon anyone who wants to be a successful creator and publisher of games on the iPhone to ask yourself what kind of experiences you can build that take full advantage of what the device has to offer," Young explains.

Similar sounds too from Bioware, where CEO’s Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk told MTV Multiplayer: "We look at every platform that comes along. Obviously, something that’s as big a cultural and technical success as the iPhone is something you really got to take a close look at." 

 Apple faces "unprecedented" demand for the iPhone 3G, reports RBC Technology analyst, Mike Abramsky.

Citing recent research conducted on behalf of RBC Technology, the analyst told Silicon Alley Insider that 56 per cent of those planning to purchase a smartphone in the next ninety days plan to buy an iPhone – that’s up form 35 per cent in March.

The research also revealed that consumer interest in the iPhone has grown faster than in advance of any other phone launch recorded by the company. And 10.5% of those surveyed intend to buy a smartphone — any smartphone — up from 7%-8% average over the last few years. 

Additional findings:

– 25 per cent of those surveyed may buy an iPhone 3G in the future – twice the level of interest seen before launch of the first product last year.

– Top reasons for buying the iPhone include lower price (67%), 3G Internet connection (63%), GPS (47%), Microsoft (MSFT) Exchange email support (35%), and third-party apps (20%).

 Retail Week has compiled a list of the 100 “must visit” shops from around the world – with Apple retail outlets in London and New York taking two spots on the list.

Apple Retail Stores on Regent Street, London and Fifth Avenue, New York won places. The criteria for selection demands each store excels in product, service and creativity. “For someone who has not grown up in the technical generation”, said one retailer about Regent Street, “this shop is very simple, has a great range, excellent service and everything is laid out easily

On the New York store, Liberty chief executive Geoffroy de la Bourdonnaye  told Retail Week: "Apple has implemented the three key factors in retail: excitement, education and ease. It makes your life easy, the store is exciting and people are available to educate you. The outside is unique. It is transparent, features a glass cube and has no ground floor, only basement. This represents the transparency of the retailer itself and the design is in line with the DNA of the brand." 

Read the report here.

Apple today released Leopard update version 10.5.4.  Today’s update prepares the OS for the MobileMe Service .  It also fixes a number of bugs including:

General

• Includes recent Apple security updates.

• Resolves an issue with saving and reopening Adobe Creative Suite 3 ?les on a remote server.

• Includes additional RAW image support for several cameras.

• Addresses an issue that may result in a partially installed X11 application.

• Improves L2TP VPN client reliability.

AirPort

• Addresses AirPort reliability issues with 5GHz networks.

• Addresses AirPort issues that may result in slower performance in Logic Studio or MainStage.

iCal

• Improves overall iCal reliability for meeting requests, cancellation notices, delegation, and syncing with iPhone.

• Resolves an issue that prevents deleting an iCal event without notifying the creator.

• Addresses an issue in which events in all calendars affect availability.  A checkbox now enables information-only calendars to be transparent from free/busy lookups.

• Resolves a UI issue preventing delegated calendars from showing up as a separate window.

• Addresses an issue with copying and pasting attendees from one event to another.

• Resolves an issue in which iCal may not delete events after a speci?ed time interval, even when set to do so in iCal preferences.

• Addresses an issue in which To Dos cannot be marked private.

Safari

• Addresses a potential performance issue when loading secure web pages.

• Resolves issues that may be encountered when accessing secure web pages with client certificates that reside on a smart card.

Spaces and Exposé

• Addresses an issue in which switching from a space with a Finder window keeps the Finder as the active application instead of the application residing in the destination space.

• Fixes an issue in which dragging an application from the list of application assignments in Spaces System Preferences does not assign the application to the desired space.

• Resolves an Exposé issue that may result in only a subset of windows being shown.

 Apple’s pushing a high street retail strategy in order to ensure its greener iPhone is in widescale distrtibution. 

We know the iPhone is sold at AT & T and Apple retail stores in the US and at O2, Apple and Carphone Warehouse stores in the UK. Similar deals are also revealing themselves across Europe now, with the latest information revealing a range of German retailers will be offering the device when it goes on sale there on 11 July.

Die Welt reports Metro AG’s Media Markt and Saturn shows will join Debitel in offering the iPhone 3G to German high street shoppers.

The news was confirmed by Debitel chief exec, Oliver Steil, who told the German magazine of his deal with T-Mobile to sell the device through his shops.

In related news, Apple has also made a green decision for its new iPhone 3G, moving to package its new device in recycled, biodegradable packaging, manufactured in quantity by Dutch firm, PaperFoam, Dutch blog Bright reports.

If true, the report claims iPhone 3G will ship in potato starch paper containers, which Apple has ordered "millions" of, apparently. The product will be packaged in a fully recyclable. cardboard box with a starch tray (the inner part of the box), which is fully recyclable for a carbon footprint reduction of 90 per cent in comparison to plastic.

 A consortium of five companies have founded the Enterprise Desktop Alliance (EDA) to promote the deployment of Macs in the enterprise. 

The five founding companies include Centrify, LANrev, Atempo, GroupLogic, and Parallels, all of which already produce solutions to help integrate Macs into Windows-dominated enterprises.

The alliance will validate and promote the availability of solutions that make it easy to deploy, integrate and manage Macs using Microsoft Windows-based solutions.

“Interest in the Mac at large organizations is growing along with Apple’s market share,” said Bob O’Donnell, Vice President, IDC. “The challenge has been overcoming objections surrounding managing Macs within these corporate environments. Efforts that can make life easier for the IT professional and help the Mac become a more appealing and realistic alternative within the enterprise could help turn that interest into a stronger Mac presence.” 

EDA will be host a series of events, including webcasts and seminars, and will provide white papers, product information and other resources to help enterprise users make the move to Mac integration.

“The popularity of the Mac among corporate end-users does not mean that there have to be headaches for IT administrators,” said Peter Frankl, Founder and Chief Operating Officer of LANrev. “We are determined to help companies integrate Macs  into their enterprise environments by reducing total cost of ownership and increasing IT acceptance of Macs in the enterprise.” 

 Apple’s notebook sales have shot up 61 per cent since the first quarter of 2007, Display Search revealed last week. That compares to overall growth of the sector of just 35 per cent.

The monitoring firm claims Apple shipped over 1.4 million notebooks in the first quarter 2008, compared to near 900,000 the year before. While these sales leave Apple as seventh place notebook manufacturer according to Display Search figures, they do mean Apple and Asus are the biggest growing brands, with 61 and 67 per cent growth rates respectively – most other manufacturers experienced 20 – 40% growth.

"DisplaySearch analysis indicates that the increasing transition of consumers from desktop PCs to notebook PCs is having a direct impact on brands’ growth and market share. Brands with established enterprise and retail presences have had the most success in growing market share in the past several quarters," the analysts said.

Apple’s seventh place in overall notebook market share at 4.6 per cent, trailing behind leaders HP (20.8 per cent), Dell (15.1 per cent), and Acer (14.7 per cent) but still ahead of Asus (4.3 per cent) and Sony (4.2 per cent).

In the emerging and fast-growing Mini-Note PC market (the class of devices with displays from 4.5" to 10.2" like the Asus Eee PC, Acer Aspire One or HP 2133 Mini-Note), Y/Y growth was an astonishing 3,056 per cent and Q/Q growth was more than 70 per cent, the analysts said.

…while Asus’ success in this market is outstanding, rumours continue to bubble speculating Apple may introduce a competing sub-notebook product, straddling the space between iPhone and MacBook.

 Apple’s impact on the music industry continues to grow, with its Complete My Album feature reportedly accounting for 5 per cent of sales of recent Lil Wayne album, ‘Tha Carter III’.

Six tracks from Lil Wayne’s album were released before it shipped, and despite the entire album being leaked, it sold one million copies, Billboard reports.

"What’s more, 10 per cent of the album’s sales were digital, up from less than 1 per cent for Wayne’s past titles. And the most eyebrow-raising statistic? Fifty-two per cent of the album’s sales on iTunes came through Complete My Album."

These reports come as record labels today revealed digital sales in the UK to be going from strength to strength, with digital formats now accounting for around 85 per cent of all Top-20 singles sales. "More than 200 million downloads have now been sold in the UK since the launch of the first mainstream stores in early 2004. In total, digital formats now account for 8.6 per cent of all UK record company sales income," said BPI ( a UK version of the RIAA) chief executive, Geoff Taylor, adding: “Today’s record business is unrecognisable to that of five years ago. Labels have rapidly evolved into digitally literate businesses that generate significant revenues through licensing.”

Artists are becoming more imaginative, also: "For artists that have multiple tracks out, if the album is solid and there’s an offer that makes sense to consumers, they will use it," Universal Motown senior VP of digital business development Cameo Carlson says.

In related news, signs of change in music are also clear in Procter and Gamble’s Pantene shampoo brand’s plans to release music from an unsigned act through iTunes. Artist Rosi Golan’s song ‘Shine’ was chosen as the song for the ads – given the success now enjoyed by the Ting Tings following the use of their song in an iTunes ad, it’s pretty clear today that good music + high profile branding + cool ad = a chance to break new talent, with iTunes forming the casual storefront to make it possible for people to pick up such songs as and when they like.

Speaking to Billboard, Seth Klugherz, Pantene brand manager, P&G, North America, said, "iTunes is instant national distribution. There’s a trend of people wanting to learn more about the music they hear in commercials. iTunes is not a profit generator for us, it’s more to give consumers access to the song."

 iCall is an intelligent iPhone application that lets users switch between VoIP and normal GSM calls anywhere in North America – effectively using the WiFi at Starbucks to make a call. We’re told this is an official Apple-approved application that’s expected to debut at the App Store soon. 

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNoq5w3mkMU&hl=en]

Features include:

• Make and receive calls over WiFi
• Transfer inbound calls from a regular cell call to WiFi instantly and seamlessly – save your expensive minutes
• Access your same address book
• Customize your voicemail options

 Something for the gamers out there, now that Blizzard Software has confirmed it intends shipping Diablo III for Mac and Windows, here’s a video of what you can expect.

On this day, one year ago, Apple released arguably the most important product of the decade.  The iPhone has transformed the high end smartphone market and captured the imagination of Apple fans and technology nuts the world over.  With Apple set to release version 2.0 in two weeks in 22 markets (and 70 more to follow), the future is looking very bright for this device.

We remember getting our hands on it for the first time (after a sneak preview or 3) and thinking how this device was was something different that anything before it.  While every smartphone maker in the market is falling all over themselves trying to make their devices similar, few have come close.  There is only one.

Happy Birthday iPhone.