rowan.depomerai

The best thing about the iPhone these days is its software model. I’ve talked in detail before (1, 2, 3, 4) about the device itself, and mentioned the AppStore, but Apple Insider presents (as part of their extensive and pretty good series of posts on the iPhone 3G) a fascinating comparison of iPhone software versus Windows Mobile, Blackberry, Symbian and even PSP and DS software platforms. Some headline figures: Super Monkey Ball (from Sega) costs $10 on the iPhone, while an incredibly similar PSP version costs $40. (And yes, the graphics are very nearly as good on the iPhone, while the gameplay is better due to the accelerometer controls. See the pictures here). Nokia N95 users (or other Symbian phones) can also get a copy for $10 – great, right? Wrong. For the same price as the iPhone’s 3D, tilt-controlled full version of the game, Nokia users get a crappy looking 2-dimensional cut-down version. Oh. Dear. There are many other examples in AppleInsider’s article here. Particularly interesting is the note that, of Windows Mobile’s top apps, $444 worth of software either provides functionality built into iPhone or which simply isn’t necessary due to differences in the platform, such as task managers and backup utilities. (iPhone is backed up when you sync.) I’m not sure I agree 100% with all of the assessments of what is/isn’t unnecessary on iPhone, but it’s impossible to disagree with most of them, and to be amazed.

It gets even worse for the developers. (Info from Roughly Drafted.) Apple charges $99 to get on the iPhone developer program, and then takes 30% of your revenue (if you charge for your app). Sounds a lot, but for that you get all your promotion, distribution and hosting costs, plus payment processing and the ability to have your app available directly on every single iPhone and iPod touch ready for download, even over the cellular network. RIM (maker of the Blackberry) on the other hand charges $100 for each application to digitally sign it, compared to Apple’s one-off charge per developer or company. Symbian 9.1 and later (the OS that runs most Nokia and Sony Ericsson smartphones) implements a similar application signing policy and they charge developers $200, which has to be renewed every 3 years. To distribute on Nokia’s Software Market will cost you 40% of your revenues (10% higher than Apple’s AppStore) and you’ll only get paid every 3 months, where Apple pays you each month. Microsoft recommends Windows Mobile developers use the Handandgo store to sell their apps, which – despite providing no direct-to-device sales like the AppStore – charges between 40% and 70% depending on the developer size. Makes the AppStore look like a very sweet deal indeed.

And then finally there’s the user experience. I can browse well over a thousand apps either on my computer or right from my phone. That’s 3 weeks after launch, with more and more apps all the time. I can download direct to my phone or via iTunes on my computer. I get notified when updates are available, straight on my iPhone, so I get bug fixes and new features (for free) in double quick time. And my iPhone gets automatically backed up to iTunes, so if something goes wrong, all my data and my purchased apps are safe. That includes me losing my phone and having to replace it. Beat that, Nokia, Microsoft or RIM.

So that is perhaps my new favourite reason why iPhone beats the pants off its competitors. There ends today’s sermon.

UPDATE: Interesting article from the Wall Street Journal here.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 7th, 2008 at 10:17 am and is filed under Personal Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.