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£100 off will drive a few sales, but why do it at all?

£100 off will drive a few sales, but why do it at all?

Picture courtesy of TUAW.comFor the third time since its release, the iPhone has had a massive price cut. Following the recent price drops in Germany, today saw O2 and Carphone Warehouse knock £100 off the price of an 8GB iPhone. Plus, if bought through cash-back merchant Quidco with an O2 contract, the price drops to just £69!

Why is Apple’s unsubsidised uberphone suddenly so cheap?

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Introducing Jim

In case you hadn’t noticed, this is a blog about the iPhone, and one of the striking aspects of this device is the web browser. It is one of the most usable of any mobile platform, and in its short existence has forced web developers to re-think how they develop for the mobile web.

In this vein, I’d like to introduce All About iPhone’s newest writer, Jim Callender. Jim’s an award-winning web developer who’s going to give us insight from the other side of the coin – the developers who are responding to demand for websites that work just as well when mobile. Browsers such as Safari on the iPhone are a key part of this trend.

Jim’s just back from South by South West. Do read his wrap up of the conference if you get a chance. He has lots of fresh ideas, and I hope you’ll enjoy what he has to say.

There’s something else in the air

There’s something else in the air

Sync is in the airBack in the day (ahem, 2003), I was amazed when I hooked up my Nokia N70 with an account at Mightyphone and was able to bi-directionally sync my contacts. Any changes made through their web interface appeared on the phone and vice-versa. This was my first smartphone, and it seemed like magic. Unfortunately (owing to Orange’s data charges) it was expensive magic, and consequently I had to drop the service because of cost. But in the following 5 years, data charges have dropped. Over-the-Air (OTA) synchronisation is now not only technically feasible but actually affordable.
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Awesome and innovative games are coming

The iPhone is now not just your phone, iPod and web pad – it’s your PSP as well. The game demos at the SDK launch looked fantastic, and I think great things are in the offing for games on this platform. Time to dial up the hyperbole, but not quite to the level seen with Roughly Drafted’s take on iPhone gaming. Am I being blindly optimistic or is there something to back this up?

Well, for starters, consider the line-up of companies who’ve already said they’ll be developing games for the iPhone: Sega and EA both demo’d games at the SDK launch, and since then others have announced upcoming games, including Artificial Life, Aspyr, Feral Interactive, Freeverse, Gameloft, iD, Pangea, PopCap, THQ, and Namco Bandai. Plus I know one additional large games company that is likely to enter to the market, and whose entry would be huge.

But aside from great games houses developing quality games, I think iPhone gaming will be massive for a few simple reasons.

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Smartphones Show 55

Sorry for the hiatus. The Smartphones Show 55 is out, available at http://www.smartphones-show.com, featuring me blathering on about the SDK release and what I think it means. Thanks to Steve for cutting it down from my rambling rant :)

I’ll be posting expanded thoughts about gaming on the iPhone later today.

The importance of a good background

For all the plaudits that Apple rightly got for the things they did well with their announcement of the iPhone SDK and their supremely well thought out AppStore ecosystem, there’s (at least) one major brickbat which needs aiming in Cupertino’s direction.

It seems that third party iPhone applications will be forced to exit when you press that ‘Home’ button to bring up the launcher – a big mistake that will limit (again) the iPhone’s potential as a true smartphone. As a longstanding smartphone user on other platforms (S60, Windows Mobile, etc.) (more…)