Yesterday’s release of Apple’s iPhone 7.7 version was
received with great enthusiasm by many of the company’s fans and more. The 7.6
version introduced the new rental feature amongst the company’s services, so
the update had to top its past efforts. It did just that, by offering support
for the new iPhone 3G and also most notably, opening the Apple App Store.
The Apple App Store offers hundreds of third-party
applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch users. Steve Jobs talked to the New
York Times about the store’s offer, saying that from day one, it will feature
more than 500 software applications, ranging from games and educational
programs to mobile commerce and business productivity tools.
The company decided on investing in the project in order to
boost its iPhone sales and not looking to make a profit from selling the
applications. In order to attract developers to participate in enriching the
apps library, Apple set a rule which entitles the designers to 70 percent of
their apps’ sales price.
Steve Jobs announced that a quarter of the first set of 500
apps will be free of charge and 90 percent of the remaining ones will cost
$9.99 or less, which is sure to attract a massive clientele over the next few
days, not to mention in the long run. So far, there are 85 applications
available for $0.99, 82 applications sold for $9.99 each and 62 other for
$4.99.
Jott Networks is one of Apple’s partners who recently
announced that its iPhone application is available as a free download on the
company’s App Store and will provide an extremely useful productivity tool in
the form of a notepad with voice-input and the new Multi-Touch technology.
An Internet radio company called Pandora, known for offering
a personalized Web music service, also registered an application for the iPhone
3G which will allow its users to access their favorite songs through the
Internet whenever they feel like it. The company already released a similar
program under a monthly fee with carriers AT&T and Sprint, but the popularity
of the free Apple service is expected to go through the roof, as the company’s
executives are confident in the uniquely of their offer.
"This is going to open the
floodgates," said Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora, as quoted by SFGate.
He also added: "It is going to redefine the category of the Internet
radio, which is huge for us because we have been playing in a pretty small
sandbox."
The App Store plans to offer a new perspective on using an
iPhone, allowing the discovery of new ways to entertain yourself with music,
games and videos and will surely reach its target of significantly increasing
the smartphone’s global sales.
Unfortunately, at this point, out of the 554 applications, 214
are tagged as related to entertainment but only 20 deal with video and music.
Many of the other entertainment tags refer to games and books, and new add-ons
from the big music labels and TV networks would surely be greatly appreciated.
