Charles Arthur over at The Guardian reports that some enterprising software patent owners have decided to have-a-go at mobile application developers that they fear might be infringing their intellectual property.

Charles quotes a few developers, including MIR favourite, Mr Simon Maddox, who are, I think it is fair to say, understandably running scared over the potential fallout.

Charles reports that Simon has taken the rather dramatic step of withdrawing all his applications from US app stores (on all platforms). Why? Well, he doesn’t want any problems.

I wouldn’t either.

If I was making a wicked living from my mobile apps, the last thing I need is some 800lb Gorilla arriving and demanding royalties. That would be a very bad day, especially since the moment I have to even think about the issue, it’ll cost me £300 per hour on legal fees. Yeah. No thanks.

Here’s one of the issues that’s giving folk the willies:

Meanwhile Kootol Software of Mumbai announced that it has sent a notice to Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, Google, IBM, Research in Motion, LinkedIn, MySpace, Research in Motion and a number of other companies – including Iconfactory – claiming that they infringe US patent application 11/995,343 – “A Method and System for Communication, Advertising, Searching, Sharing and Dynamically Providing a Journal Feed” – which it said has also been applied for in India, Canada and Europe.

It says that patent it is seeking is an invention which “allows the user to publish and send messages using one way or two way messaging and by subscribing to posts of other users of a network. By indexing each message of each user the system provides real time search capabilities to users of the network in turn creating a unique form of communication.”

Yeah. I think it’s a pile of rubbish too.

An ‘invention’?

Oh come off if.

But let’s not get into the nitty gritty.

The last thing the big platforms need is for their developers to get cold feet and start panicking about getting sued. The marketplace dynamic relies on independent and small developers innovating the hell out of the rest of the market, running fast and responding swiftly to end-consumer needs. This is why there’s half-a-billion-trillion apps out there for iPhone. Everyone piled in. Everyone messed around. Some lucky developers found small niche markets for their products. Other even luckier ones got big very, very fast.

The key point is that the consumer was delighted. And the platform’s value grew and grew. This is the case with Apple and, to a lesser extent, the other platforms.

Can you imagine what would happen if Apple had 50% of apps removed from sale because of patent fears? This is somewhat conceivable.

One would imagine that patent holders would only attack the biggies — the companies with money. But you only have to look at the mindless antics of the record industry to see some people have no qualms suing individuals who don’t have a room full of lawyers.

The fear, though. That’s the problem.

Pulling your apps is a highly sensible precaution if you think you’re anywhere near infringing on a patent. We only know about these particular problems because of the post from Charles. Chances are, the next app you’re working on could well already have a patent lurking somewhere that you’re infringing.

But if you’re a developer with £500 in the bank, are you going to spend the resource checking this out? No.

The continued threat of a patent problem could have hundreds of thousands of application developers pulling their apps from multiple platforms.

Indeed, if you really, really want to screw up Apple, one would imagine that you should setup a company, invent a lot of useless stupid patents — or buy some existing ones for a lump of dosh — and set-about PR’ing the hell out of your infringement war, scaring all and sundry and demanding millions in compensation from each developer. You obviously wouldn’t need to go through with it to have an effect on Apple. Twitter, Facebook (and now Google+) mean that our world is super-hyper-amazingly connected. Developers even more so. What would happen to Apple’s share price if this practice became widespread?

One solution is to use some of the $70-odd-billion-dollars to buy up the problem companies and shut them down. Job done. Another would be to counter-sue. This would go on for years and put the willies up everyone though. Or Apple could arrange a global license fee that applies to the platform as a whole, so developers aren’t involved. Another possible alternative would be for Apple to indemnify every registered iOS developer with unlimited liability for these kinds of patent claims. That would give a lot of reassurance.

As for the other competing platforms such as Nokia/Windows, WebOS, RIM, Bada and, to a lesser extent, Android, a similar indemnification shield would be useful for attracting and retaining developer attention.

This is one of those issues that’s worth keeping in the back of your mind. It could easily, easily turn into a News of the World style debacle for Apple — I think they’ve got the most to lose from this, given their scale.

Perhaps the issue will simply go away? We’ll see.

Meanwhile, I hope the platforms take note of the plight of some of their developers.

Over to you Tod:

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The Death of the App Store

As has been well reported, the FT recently created its own HTML5 app to circumnavigate the App Store. Some commentators think that this is a bad idea, however we believe that it is a sign of the way things will develop and may well be seen in the future as the start of the end for the App Store.

It’s true that there are many positive things about the App Store and the app eco-system that has grown up in large part thanks to Apple. But it is also true that we may need to consider that the App Store and the whole concept of app stores has had its day.

Shopping for Entertainment

If you’re looking to create an entertainment app – if you want to be the next Rovio and create the new Angry Birds game – then the App Store has obvious advantages.

The simple payment structure is clearly one of them. For your potential customers to be able to pay with just one click removes any barrier and allows them to purchase on impulse – exactly what you need if you’re going to target as many people as possible. And of course if consumers can easily purchase, then it means that the payment structure is in place for the publisher to generate revenues.

On top of that the App Store is seen as the place to shop for digital content, or as Michael says in his open letter, “Like it or not, Apple’s channel has become like the Wal-Mart of digital content.”

New Growth through Utility

However, this is all assuming that revenue is the goal and that app creators / publishers want to reach a new audience. We believe that the growth of mobile apps from this point on will no longer be in the sphere of entertainment, but will be in utility apps.

More and more the mobile is the way we access the every day information that we want – whether it is the FT, or the menu of the local pizza restaurant, or even our office’s internal policies. The rise of smartphones, and even the increasing ‘smartness’ of feature phones, means that many people turn to their mobile first.

For many companies presenting targeted information to their customers, employees or shareholders is a key goal – it stops people searching for information and finding alternatives. Apps provide the perfect delivery mechanism for this kind of targeted information and will continue to grow as more and more information needs to be delivered.

Of course, we shouldn’t forget the ‘cool’ factor of apps. Many marketing teams will want to create apps just to show that they are trendsetters in their industry … and soon everyone else will have to catch up. In fact we are entering a period now where not having a mobile app will be the sign of a ‘dinosaur’ organisation, much like not having a website was in the mid to late-90s.

Private Apps don’t need an App Store

And so it is the growth of these private utility apps that will eventually kill the app store model. As a publisher of a private utility app there are actually many disadvantages to using app stores. While companies will want their information to be delivered to the right people, they don’t want everyone to be able to access it. Not only that, but they want to publish, update and amend their apps when they choose, and not be at the mercy of a long-winded approval process.

Finally, they will want their content to be able to be accessed by all handsets and devices – not being restricted by app stores or specific devices.

For all of these reasons, we at MobileNationHQ believe that the FT’s HTML 5 app is a glimpse into the future, and is the way nearly everyone will be creating mobile apps in the near future.

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Tod Pedler is CEO of MobileNationHQ, which has developed tools to address the imminent demand for apps designed for targeted user groups rather than the mass market. MobileNationHQ is free to use – register at www.mobilenationhq.com.

Tod, thank you for taking the time to write. I’m in agreement — there’s no need for an app store for private/internal apps. I think the biggest issue you raise is the approval process. It’s all very well for leading consumer apps to have to get approved, but goodness me, it’s positively ridiculous for internal enterprise apps to have to go through the same process — all so that the end-user can press ‘update’ via the App Store.

What do you think?

I’ll be having a play with MobileNationHQ’s online toolset shortly!

But there’s a bigger problem here – with both the operators and handset manufacturers now generating revenue from application sales old friends have now become competitors.  How will the operators feel about the Blackberry store offering competitive navigation or music store offerings to their own?  And will operators want to allow the handset vendor’s stores onto their branded handsets when they could keep that revenue for themselves?

Ask the people involved (and I have) and there’s much talk of partnerships, co-operation and marketplace-growth.  In face, if I hear the phrase ‘bigger pie, not bigger slice’ used once more it may turn nasty… but the question remains to be answered: Apple’s making hundreds of millions of dollars from app sales.  Those numbers are too big for this to stay friendly.

What’s Zit Picker you ask? 

It’s exactly what it sounds like it is. You know what are Zits, don’t you? Zit Picket makes you pinch, pop, touch and pick the Zits off a beautiful girl’s face on the iPhone. The goal of the game is simple. Keep the girl’s face clean off any marks and she’ll be thankful to you. If not, all the stress and pain will make her cry.

The game makes use of the iPhone’s multi-touch screen, allowing your to zap the Zits with either one of two fingers, touching or pinching them. Do that and *ploop* goes one. You are awarded points for every single Zit you clear. There are 3 different types of Zits and based on their complexity, they carry different points.

Zit Picker is FREE for the first 2500 downloads, so get it in the App Store while you can.

It contains a Breviary prayer book in Italian, English, Spanish, French and Latin and, in the near future, Portuguese and German.

It also contains 2 other sections, the prayers of the daily Mass, and various other prayers.

It’s available for €0.79 on the app store.

Happy Praying for the festive season.

Apple’s App Store has finally given developers the ability to release up to 50 promotional codes for their applications, allowing them distribute their apps to press and friends free of charge directly through the App Store.

This is going to be really, REALLY useful for developers. We’re often asked to test out Apple iPhone apps (and we’re delighted to be asked). Our policy is that we will generally pay for the app ourselves anyway — but promo codes make it all a bit easier.

Jason points out that there are a few teething issues — most notably that developers don’t quite have launch dates for their apps yet.

Excellent evolution. More please.

Apple(R) today announced that iPhone(TM) and iPod(R) touch users have downloaded more than 100 million applications from its groundbreaking new App Store since its launch on July 11, 2008. More than 3,000 applications are currently available on the App Store, with over 90 percent priced at less than $10 and more than 600 offered for free. Applications can take advantage of iPhone’s large display, innovative Multi-Touch(TM) user interface, fast hardware-accelerated 3D graphics, built-in accelerometer and location-based technology to create mobile applications unlike any seen before.

Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating stuff.

What’s interesting about this deal is that T-Mobile is aiming to make the app store work across all its devices, from the whizz-bang smartphone to the does-what-it-says-on-the-tin lower end feature phone. Or, to put it another way, whether your device is Windows Mobile, Symbian, Java, or what have you, the apps will work regardless.

There’s no specifics from T-Mo about this but we can only hope it’s true. I guess the most interesting thing about this is why more operators haven’t tried to do it before – surely the ideal situation is that mobile users don’t have a clue what operating system they’re using, because every service and piece of software will just work painlessly.

1. 10,000?
2. 100,000?
3. 1,000,000

Actually, it’s none of the above. We got news this morning that iPhone and iPod Touch users have already downloaded over 10 million apps.

Whilst Apple hasn’t stated just what proportion of this 10m downloads are made up from the 200 free ones (including Facebook, AIM and German phrasebooks) either way, 10 million is more than 90 per minute.

Crash Bandicoot and Super Monkey Ball may be worth £5.99 but somehow I doubt many people will pay even £1.19 for noughts & crosses (Tic-Tac-Touch).

Still, if you’re looking to develop a widget for Facebook, it might be worth generating something for the iPhone at the same time.

A little from the release:

Many of these amazing new applications take advantage of iPhone’s large display, Multi-Touch(TM) user interface, fast hardware-accelerated 3D graphics, built-in accelerometer and location-based technology to bring far more powerful applications to the mobile arena than ever before.

The App Store on iPhone works over cellular networks and Wi-Fi, which means it is accessible from just about anywhere, so users can purchase and download applications wirelessly and start using them instantly. Applications are free or charged to the user’s iTunes(R) account and the App Store notifies the user when updates are available for their apps. The App Store is also available in iTunes (http://www.itunes.com/) running on a Mac(R) or PC, which syncs applications to the iPhone or iPod touch using a USB cable.

CNET quotes a source as hinting the App Store will be up and running on Monday. More good news for iPhone apps from iPhone Atlas: after making developers wait months for approval into the iPhone Developer Program, Apple is apparently sending out a slew of acceptances. More proof the App Store’s coming?

Apple’s download centre (the App Store equivalent for the Mac) is deliciously addictive. Hopefully the App Store will mean more of the same – and who knows, might even kill off the jailbreaking trend.