It just a week-and-a-bit before I arrive into San Francisco for the BlackBerry DevCon event. I’m in Houston first, followed by New York, before flying into the Valley. So that means I’ve been doing the usual jiggery-pokery with hotels and flights. In many cases, I’ve been lucky enough to have a colleague or agency take part of some of the scheduling and booking. In other cases, I’ve sorted it out myself.

Mid-way through I thought I should really try out BlackBerry Travel properly. I’ve had a wee look previously but I’ve not really had the opportunity to use it in anger since the new Bold 9900 arrived.

It was about time.

BlackBerry Travel is a key offering on the platform — just like Facebook and Twitter. It’s a ‘super-app’ — that is, it makes full use of the device capabilities including calendar and messaging integration.

And it’s magic!

Perhaps the most challenging element of business travel nowadays is juggling everything and having the right information at your fingertips, *all* of the time. My schedule next week is a good example. I’m on 6 different flights, 4 different hotels, 3 cities. Trying to keep all the booking numbers and timings in order gets challenging. You end up having to print stuff out and place it in chronological order just to make sense of it all. Not any more.

Once activated on your phone (and entirely free of charge), BlackBerry Travel scans your inbox. The moment it comes across a booking record email — or any of those long complicated corporate travel confirmation emails, it springs into action. It’s really fast. The app parses the email and extracts all the relevant bits and builds a trip for you.

Now, I knew this. I’m sure I’ve actually had a briefing on this too. But seeing it in the flesh, using it in anger? Amazing.

The first part of my upcoming journey to be confirmed by email were the outbound flights. The email arrived and almost simultaneously, I received a prompt in my inbox from BlackBerry Travel telling me that it had added them.

I clicked through. And, I’m delighted to say I was stunned. Boom! There was the flight schedule and ticketing information organised beautifully. The app then pointed out that although I was due to arrive into Houston on the 10th, I didn’t have any accommodation arranged. Would I like some help with that, asked the app?

Geez! Yes. I clicked. Boom! Again! All of a sudden I saw a list of available hotels along with prices in my local currency. Unfortunately I couldn’t book them as that was being done for me via another email.

When that booking was made — woosh — the BlackBerry Travel app was updated immediately, now with all the relevant hotel details.

Simply phenomenal.

Plus, my device calendar now has the various flight details programmed in. Excellent.

My week has continued like this. As another booking is and received by my email, it’s automatically integrated. So now I have a beautiful itinerary on my phone. Hugely, hugely valuable.

I’ve hooked it up to LinkedIn so it helpfully tells me who amongst my network is nearby at the particular locations in my itinerary. Yelp is also directly integrated too so finding restaurants and the like is that bit easier.

Plus, weather is integrated as well. Useful, because it looks like it’s going to be rather hot in Houston.

I’m seriously impressed.

You’ll no doubt have seen similar from the likes of TripIt (which I also use) however the super-tight and seamless integration with BlackBerry Travel is nothing short of astounding. When I think of the amount of hassle I’ve had to go through in the past writing all this stuff down or printing sheet-after-sheet and placing it all into a special plastic cover.. I’m simply delighted with the app.

If you’re a BlackBerry user and you travel regularly, I strongly recommend taking a look and trying it out.

You can find out more at blackberry.com — you’ll get it on any modern BlackBerry.

I’m off to Houston, Texas, next week. I’m going to the Internet Retailer M-Commerce Forum and I’m very much looking forward to that. My intent is to speak to as many participants as I can to find out how the field of M-Commerce is moving in the States.

My airline of choice is British Airways. Someone asked me why, the other day, pointing out that they very much enjoy Virgin Atlantic. I’ve flown with Virgin now and again but my heart remains with British Airways — and here’s the rub, if I sit and examine why I feel this way, it’s primarily because of their iPhone application.

I have always found their staff attentive, professional and kind — and I do like how their pilots tend to sound serious and competent. I don’t need jokes at 50,000ft. Give me the calm confidence of a British Airways pilot.

Anyway it’s all about the app for me. From the mobile app, the rest of the experience unfolds before me. The fact that I can check-in for a flight whilst in the cab on the way to the airport is an utter joy — and the ability to then be able to call-up my boarding pass and walk straight past the legions of confused and stressed folk checking in on the machines, ahh, pleasure. It makes the business of flying that bit nicer for me.

I really do miss the app experience when I’m flying with other airlines — for instance to Cork recently with Are Lingus. I had to dick about with an A4 piece of paper as my boarding pass. Annoying. Very annoying.

More and more airlines are beginning to get with the programme. However I think it’s fair to say that in terms of integration, British Airways are very much the pioneers. Is that right? I know Lufthansa have been doing a lot in this area. I do enjoy the fact that British Airways have managed to spread mobile boarding passes to a veritable ton of airports now. I should check out the other airline mobile offerings.

Meanwhile today I got my flight details through from the very nice lady who booked the travel. She asked for my executive card number before she did the booking. That was useful because I checked earlier and — boom — the flight is already registered there in the app.

Love it.

(If you’ve had good mobile experiences with other airlines do let me know.)

You can pick up the BA iTunes app at this link.

James Parton writing over at IT Pro Portal has discovered a genius little app.

It’s called “iHi” — and it’s really, really simple. Here’s the description James uses:

Put simply, iHi is super simple visual communication. You can pick from a list of pre set words or phrases:

When selected, the phrase is displayed as a striking white Arial font on black background for maximum contrast and visual impact.

The free version is limited to a few phrases. Upgrade to the premium version and you can type in your own messages.

But, let’s just stop there. Watch this video and toward the end, the value of the app will be come clear — especially the reaction of the girl once she gets off the tube. Trust me:

Every success to the chap behind the concept, Neil Stanley.

Here’s Neil himself introducing the app:

Pick up iHi+ on iTunes for £1.49.

A little while ago I wrote a post on one of my pet subjects, Operator Innovation. I decried the total lack of innovation in messaging. I was particularly annoyed that, on the whole, operators hadn’t bothered doing anything with text messages and voicemail. Why is it LIMITED to my sodding handset and your rubbish voicemail system, I remember asking.

Why can’t I get my SMS on whatever phone I want? Why can’t I see my MMS online or wherever I wish?

Well, I’m delighted to report that AT&T has taken my screams to heart and actually implemented AT&T Messages. Yes, they’ve done it.

Do not adjust your sets.

Seriously.

Chris over at TechCrunch wrote about this yesterday (“AT&T Messages moves your conversations to the cloud“).

Quite simply, AT&T has taken your text messages, picture messages, voicemail and missed call register and stuck it all in an online portal.

It looks ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT!

Let me stick in some pictures to get the juices flowing…

You can use the online portal, or of course you can use the app. Right now it’s only available on Android but Craig reports the iOS version is coming shortly. There will also be a tablet version by the ‘fall of 2011′. So, sometime soon.

Here’s a bit of text from the service FAQ:

AT&T Messages is an application that lets you view, send, and receive texts, calls, voicemail messages, and voice text messages from a single inbox. Messages seamlessly sync in the cloud and are easily accessed from your Android smartphone, Android tablet, or computer. All your communications are organized by person and sorted by when you receive them. Messages sent from AT&T Messages will appear on the Web or on your tablet as if they were sent from your Android smartphone.

AT&T Messages integrates with AT&T Address Book so that all your contacts are available to your phone and your computer. AT&T Address Book may not be available for all devices.

Genius. This is enough to definitely get me to change operator. I bet you react in a similar way. I particularly like this observation from Chris’ Techcrunch post:

Their cloud communications concept sounds quite a bit like the messaging half of Google Voice, but AT&T Messages has a few distinct advantages. One big one is the fact that it integrates with your existing AT&T phone number without any extra legwork. Any message sent to an existing AT&T number gets pushed into the cloud, where it’s viewable from any other compatible device.

It’s all about the phone number, still.

This is a key USP for the operator. Still.

Utterly brilliant.

I’m delighted to see a good level of innovation from AT&T. It really does kick the shit out of the bollocks offerings from the mobile operators here in Europe. Vodafone? Where are you?

I know the team at o2 Innovation have some stuff in the bag. Come on guys — forward this to the dithering executive in charge of holding things back and tell him or her to either resign or get off the sodding fence and let you get the stuff out to market.

Interestingly, I think France Telecom are nicely positioned — through their Orange Vallee efforts — to deliver a response to this. I can very much see the Life Is Better On team (given appropriate access to the right FT APIs) deliver a beta version of this within weeks. Imagine ON: Voicefeed with your SMS, missed calls and MMS integrated beautifully? Nice.

But dear me Vodafone, come on!

You can find out more about the AT&T Foundry (their developer operation) here.

And you can read the official announcement on ‘Encore and AT&T Messages’ here.

I’m very excited to see what else the Foundry can deliver to market.

Bring it on!

However, he got the iPhone to test. He obviously asked for a few recommendations.

I got my iPhone and proceeded to browse through the screens observing which ones I actually used. I thought this might be an interesting exercise for you to read. If time permits, it would be super if you could do the same in the comments as I’m sure I’ll discover some good apps that way.

Here’s my as-I-scrolled list — I’ve put iTunes links to every one:

- Evernote for keeping notes, files, WiFi passwords across multiple devices (not just computers)
- Kindle, from Amazon, to read my ebooks when I’m on-the-go
- Amazon Mobile, for buying stuff that comes to mind (e.g. shoelaces, batteries, etc)
- SocialCam, for shooting video and then sending that video out to Facebook/Twitter
- Posterous, for maintaining my own personal blog/blog for friends/family
- Google+ app is really, really good — you need to try ‘Huddle’
- Spotify, for audio on-demand (tenner a month)
- Find My iPhone, so I can locate the iPhone if it’s lost
- DropBox, obviously — have you got a dropbox account?
- LinkedIn is sometimes useful
- Osfoora, for twitter — my client of choice
- UK Train Times — national rail app, expensive but super useful. Really like ‘next train home’
- British Airways — so you don’t need to ever bother with paper boarding tickets ever again
- Instagram, for snapping cool looking photos.
- Hullomail, for visual voicemail because (so you can always access your voicemails via the app and in your gmail)
- ON Voicefeed is another visual voicemail app, it’s brilliant
- LogMeIn, for accessing your desktop remotely. I use this two or three times a day for getting files and controlling my home machines from wherever I am
- Skyfire — full desktop browsing experience
- Audioboo, for recording audio ‘thoughts’ and sticking them on twitter (also, iPadio)
- Qik Plus, for live broadcasting video straight from my phone
- MIR, the mobile industry review application (just a news feed) that I paid $400 to a chap called Pavel to make
- Shoeboxed, for taking photos of receipts and having somebody else type in the value, company, date etc. so the accountant can download it later on
- OpenTable for booking Gaucho Grill in 10 seconds
- Reeder is a really good Google Reader client
- SoundHound is a billion times better than Shazam — song identification (every time I’ve tried Shazam lately, I’ve got a ‘sorry, dunno’ reply! Hardly ever from SoundHound..
- Sky+, because sometimes — rarely — I want to record stuff from live TV
- Touchnote, for sending my digital photos as real postcards to granny every week. She loves it.
- WordPress, for maintaining the sites on-the-go
- PizzaExpress, because I can’t be bothered with the 60-second faff with the credit card machine. I always pay via PayPal with the app now.

There are plenty more applications I do use, but these ones are most definitely regulars.

What about you? I’d very much welcome a list from you of your *every day* apps. If you don’t have much time, stick down one or two apps in the comments?

Pradeep over at wmpoweruser.com has published an email that is being sent out to the (apparent) legions of developers jumping ship from WebOS to Windows. The email is from Brandon Watson, top man at Microsoft’s Windows Phone developer relations.

You have to hand it to Microsoft: They really do know what they’re doing when it comes to developers.

Here’s the first part of Brandon’s note:

First things first. Thank you so much for reaching out to the Windows Phone team to signal your interest in bringing your talents to our platform. To be honest, we didn’t expect this level of response, so we were caught a bit flatfooted. It took a few days (on the weekend) to pull all the mails together into one place to allow me to respond in a smart way and not retype every mail by hand. Consider this a first step in building a relationship with the Windows Phone team. We are psyched to have you aboard and to see what your imagination can do on the Windows Phone canvas. Read on

Brandon goes on to list out the names and email addresses of every single Windows Phone ‘mobile champ’ in a whole list of countries.

He also points out that free phones are available — something that, ultimately, any successful developer is going to want. I get the impression that if you can prove your credentials to your local champ, they’ll sort you out with a device or two.

It’s unclear how many WebOS developers there are flocking to Microsoft. Irrespective, it’s nice marketing from the Microsoft team. It’s continuing to get the word out. This is just what Microsoft needs at this point as Mango ships and new devices (particularly from Nokia) begin to step into the light.

You can find out more about developing for Windows Phone at create.msdn.com/.

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Tiny Tower (iTunes link, free) is a game for iOS devices; it’s insanely addictive and best of all it’s free, kind off.

You see Tiny Tower, developed by NimbleBit, is one of a growing breed of freemium games based around the model used by Zynga for their Facebook games. If you’ve never played this type of game before this is how it basically works: You start your game with a certain amount of in-game currency, in Tiny Tower its called ‘Coins & Bux’. This allows you to start playing but soon enough you run out of Coins & Bux or their equivalent. This is where the (pre)mium part of the name kicks in, because to continue playing you have the choice of waiting for your Coins to build up again or you can buy more Bux with real life bucks, £20.99 for 1,000 at time of writing.

This game model is by no means unique nor is there anything intrinsically wrong with it. Every developer has the right, and most people would agree needs to make money on their products. However in Tiny Tower’s case I think NimbleBit has crossed the line.

When the game launched a couple of months ago it was arguably too easy to keep playing for free, I certainly got hours if not days of fun without spending a penny. Did I mention it was insanely addictive? However I soon succumbed to the need for instant gratification and used Apple’s heinously easy in-app purchasing to spend about £25 to keep building higher and higher.

On the 11th August NimbleBit updated the App to version 1.3.

The iTunes store mentions the new elevator and ability to dress up your own Bitizens. What it doesn’t mention is that your in-game elevator lovingly upgraded many times from stock now runs like it was built in the 30’s. Thus forcing you to buy the new lightspeed lift for 499 Bux or wait, wait and wait some more for your previously zippy contraption to wheeze itself asthmatically to the top of your tower.

The rate at which you earn Coins has also halved meaning everything takes twice as long; you can of course convert Bux into Coins.

Basically to continue enjoying playing Tiny Towers you have to get your wallet out.

Rebalancing gameplay mechanics is an integral part of many a game but this is bait and switch. I feel like the kid that was sold my first rock of crack cocaine for a fiver only to find that now I’m addicted the next one is £50.

It may be a Tiny Towering Inferno, but I’m still playing. I did mention it was insanely addictive?

Update 16th August: NimbleBit today released another update 1.3.1 which restores your coin earning to the previous level. It was classed as a bug!!!!

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That’s a mighty useful ‘bug’ isn’t it, Neil? Ah well, at least it’s corrected. I’m going to check the game out later tonight! You can follow Neil at @TheNeilRamsay on Twitter or visit his musings online at talkinmobile.com

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!

Anyway, let’s get on with the overview. First, here’s a cunningly photoshopped set of photos of the podcast protagonists — (left to right) Ben, myself and then Rafe.

This week we’re recording remotely again as Ewan calls in from Austin, Texas. In the last episode of series 1 (don’t worry series 2 is already on the way) we have a bit of a whinge discussing ‘bothersome things‘ (as Rafe terms them).

Ben‘s list covered pages by the time we finished listing them pre-recording so here’s a few choice ones… We discuss:

• WiFi hotspots
• MMS
• Batteries
• Mobile apps failing without coverage
• Context sensitive ringing

Gumpy old men we might be, but these are the niggles which drive us mad daily. What are yours?

There are lots of ways to follow the podcast or you can subscribe using iTunes and other popular services.

Now then, if you’re not familiar with FamilyShare, you can read the background here and then the follow-up here. The service is intended as a completely frictionless method of sending photos (and video) of your offspring to your parents (i.e. the grandparents).

Well, 8 months have passed. The web server is live. The 1.5 version of the iPhone application is coming in a few days. Goodness me, it’s almost here. It’s taken a long time because I’ve been busy on a multitude of other things. I’ve been keeping a vigilant eye out for competing services that would negate the concept completely. I’d have been glad to adopt them. But nothing comes close to what I want. In fact, instagr.am is the only service that has sailed near to my requirements. So much so that I’ve had Pavel (the developer) completely change around the photo-upload process to account for the super-nice way instagr.am do it.

You can find the developmental version of the site at www.familyshare.co.uk. It’s still very much alpha. But it won’t be long ’til we see beta. If you’d like to get a copy of the iPhone app to test, just let me know.

I’ll be documenting the FamilyShare story at http://about.familyshare.co.uk but I’ll keep you updated here too.

We have a very swish mobile web site now thanks to the WPTouch premium plugin and, for more limited devices, the WordPress Mobile plugin is working really nicely. Try it out by visiting us on your mobile browser.

For apps, though, well… our iPhone app was programmed for us by talented developer Pavel about 2 years ago. It’s looking a bit dated. And we need to be on other platforms.

Nokia’s super-brilliant Ovi App Wizard (video) has been excellent for getting apps out to the Nokia platform. But for everyone else? Here’s what The Next Web has to say…

Enter ShoutEm. The company has been around for ages, serving as a microblogging and messaging platform. Its newest feature, though, could very well turn the mobile apps market on its ear. ShoutEm is now billing itself as “the world’s simplest mobile app maker”. After a 5 minute run through the service to create a mobile app ourselves, we’re inclined to agree.

via You need a mobile app. ShoutEm makes its creation incredibly easy..

Possibly the most exciting element about ShoutEm for me is the pricing. The small package is $30/month and the big one is $100/month. That makes it far easier for me to consider.

I don’t really want to spend $5,000 on the Mobile Roadie app. That’s just a bit too expensive for me. But I do want some reasonably good features in the app for you all to use.

Time to look closely at ShoutEm.

Any recommendations?

Kudos to the management team at Imagine Publishing, one of the brightest sparks in the publishing marketplace. They’ve decided to make sure their team are right there in the fast lane when it comes to digital interactivity. That’s right! Every employee has been given an iPad.

Now in case you need a quick primer on the company, here’s the overview:

Imagine Publishing is one of the UK’s fastest-growing consumer specialist publishers. Formed in May 2005, Imagine now publishes 20 regular print magazines, 29 digital apps on the iPad/iPhone, and 27 websites in the videogames, computing, entertainment, motoring and photography markets. An Imagine magazine is purchased every ten seconds.

iPads for everyone is a bold move, not to mention an expensive one.

But I think it’s a good move.

Whether it’s an iPad or a Samsung Tab, a Motorola Xoom or RIM’s new BlackBerry PlayBook, by putting one of these devices in the hands of every team member, you all of a sudden equalise the digital divide.

If Imagine Publishing are like any other company, the chances are a percentage of the team had already bought an iPad.

But ‘a percentage of’ isn’t good enough any more. I think more and more senior executives are beginning to realise this.

It’s the reason everyone has a computer on their desk. Or a laptop. It’s rare to find a white collar employee who is not assigned their own computer — or at the very least, limited access to a shared machine — even just to check their corporate email.

Why give them all an iPad? Because you don’t know where it’ll lead.

Chances are, if you put this kind of new technology in the hands of everyone, you’ll get better results. The cynics reading will assume that half the iPads at Imagine Publishing will go straight into the hands of the employees’ children — or sit unused in the office drawer. It’s about the majority though.

Indeed, it’s a very useful barometer. If an employee receives an iPad and files it straight into their bottom drawer after playing with it once, that tells you something.

First, they’re not likely to come up with any useful, credible or delightfully innovative ideas for your business based around tablets (beyond a rather drab ‘er, yeah, didn’t use it myself’). It also tells you they’ve got limited time to invest in innovation. Fine if it’s the tea lady (or man) we’re talking about who’s 2-months away from retiring. Not fine if you’re expecting your employees to contribute.

I don’t think issuing iPads to everyone will add an extra 50% to the Imagine Publishing profits next week. But it will make sure everyone on the team has a play with the technology. You just don’t know where it’ll lead.

And, given that Imagine Publishing actually produce 29 iPad apps, it’ll ensure that every employee has at least had the opportunity to look at one.

Seeing the iPad in use by the family will have its benefits too. The ability to actually understand and experience the technology out of the work environment can do wonders for innovative thinking.

I know a lot of people who’ve literally crossed their arms and said, “I don’t need one, I don’t want one, I won’t ever use it,” who… when *given* an iPad, have a complete change of heart.

For those people who take one look and give it back, that’s fine too — because those people know what they want. For everyone else who’s slightly curious, well, I think the results for Imagine Publishing will certainly be interesting.

Let’s hear from the Imagine team:

Creative Director and co-founder, Mark Kendrick, said of the iPad gift: “We felt strongly that each employee at Imagine should have the gift of a free iPad from us, not only in order to enjoy our expansive digital magazine and bookazine portfolio, but because we hope this initiative will spark a multitude of new creative ideas for magazine and apps in the future.”

I reckon that may well happen Mark!

“Our digital future is exceptionally bright,” said Managing Director Damian Butt. “Imagine’s print and digital magazines are bought by passionate, well-informed, technology literate individuals who happily enjoy our content in many different formats, including iPad – this gift is the perfect way for everyone at Imagine to join in the digital publishing revolution.”

My only concern? Don’t just limit it to Apple. I know the company is doing incredibly well — 15 million iPads sold in the first year if memory serves — do keep an eye out for the rest of the marketplace. All those PlayBook users (and there are bound to be a lot) are going to want to experience Imagine’s content too.

And for all the new iPad owners at Imagine Publishing, please do remember that Mobile Industry Review is iPad-web-enabled! You’ll get a nice fancy experience when you point Safari to www.mobileindustryreview.com.

PS: I liked this from the bottom of the press release: An Imagine magazine is purchased every 10 seconds. Nice.

Congratulations to the team at Rightmove who, today, celebrate achieving 1 million iPhone application downloads and 100,000 iPad application downloads. Rightmove is one of the UK’s leading property aggregation sites and, for a long time, I’ve been a regular user whenever the topic of property has arisen.

My wife regularly sits back on the sofa with the Rightmove iPad app in her lap and flicks through the local area (“just in case we see something we might like”). She loves the app and particularly enjoys the way you can flip the photos of each property across the screen.

And a tip-o-the-hat to the team behind the iPhone app, 2ergo.

As for search volume? The Rightmove mobile platform (iPad, iPhone, mobile web) is now delivering 500,000 searches a day. Really impressive stuff.

Yes I’ve got DropBox and Gmail and most of my stuff is in the cloud — but often I need to get back to my computer to do stuff. For example, I’ve got one Mac Pro dedicated to producing video. That one I need to get to regularly to export videos with different titles and so on when I’m out-and-about or abroad. Genius. The service has got me out of a number of fixes. It even works on 3G — although I always set the colour resolution to black/white for the fastest service if I’m not on WiFi.

It’s a piece of simplicity to use from the iPhone (although since I have 2x 27″ monitors on my two key machines, there’s a lot of zooming about involved). The iPad version is even nicer to use.

LogMeIn itself is a freemium service. You can use it free. You’re obviously encouraged to upgrade to some of their premium plans. I’ve got one computer upgraded but the rest are just on the free service. Perfectly fine.

So you need a LogMeIn account first. Then to use the iOS app, you need to buy it. That’s where there’s a bit of a sting. The app is a whopping £17.99.

Fair enough though given the basic service is free.

But until January 4th, you can pick up the app for £11.99. Be quick.

You’ll be amongst friends too — it’s a hugely popular app and thanks to the price tag, it’s Apple’s #3 top-grossing app of 2010.

Download here: iTunes link, £11.99

I was rushing into London the other day for one of the Windows Phone launch events. Normally I’d take the train but the car made a lot more sense given I had my camera equipment with me.

I should explain that I drive a Range Rover. With the exception of a summer zooming around the London Docklands in my brother’s Ford Ka, I have always driven a Range Rover. I like the driving position, I like the road presence, I like the comfort. Although I’m a careful driver (they don’t call me safety dad for nothing) I am well aware of the legions of idiots who populate Britain’s roads.

Generally speaking, most people recognise the bulk of the Range Rover long before you need them to. Most people adjust their driving plans accordingly. For example, the Range Rover is one of the only vehicles on the road beyond large lorries and vans that London’s taxi drivers voluntarily give way to. It’s rare to be cut up by an arse in a fast car too. They won’t want to be damaged.

Anyway.

Let’s get to the crash

There was a traffic jam ahead as the M40 split to allow traffic on to the M25. I continued into London on the M40 and came to a halt behind a queue of traffic on the left lane, next to the hard shoulder.

All was good until I looked in the mirror.

I saw a smallish Citroen van approaching in the distance.

I could only see part of the shoulders of the driver. The rest of his head and shoulders was hidden because he was reaching for something on the floor.

I watched as he drew nearer.

And then I thought, shit… he’s going to hit me.

Arse.

I watched as his van sped into the back of my car. His van hit with an almighty bang. I did the involuntary whiplash dance. In my rear mirror, I saw the van driver instantly pop his head and shoulders back up in alarm. I don’t think he’d found the pen he had been looking for.

I estimate he hit me at about 25-30 miles per hour. He hadn’t been looking at the front of the road for some time so the large smack came as a shock to him.

He put his hands over his face. I silently cursed. I was obviously going to be late for this launch. Both of us pulled over to the hard shoulder. I got out to inspect the damage.

As I rounded the back of the Range Rover I saw the total devastation of the Van’s entire front area. It was completely crumpled. Hardly any radiator left. At least a foot or so had crumpled away. The number-plate was hanging on by a single screw, the engine was exposed and some parts of it were also hanging off, or pushed back, damaged.

I turned to my Range Rover.

And I had to stifle a laugh. There was a small nick on the bumper’s paintwork. This is why I drive a Range Rover. If I’d been in any other car, I’d have been seriously shaken and the damage would have been particularly acute. (By the way, loads of people have been saying that’s not a van in the picture above… I know! I didn’t want to publish the actual pictures of the crash so I found that one online!)

The Mobile Comfort Blanket

The chap apologised immediately. He explained it wasn’t his van — he was working for the guy who owned it. He wrote his contact details on a piece of paper. I gave him a business card. But whilst he was writing down his details, I walked back to the car and got my phone. Now, I typically carry the following devices:

• BlackBerry Torch/Bold
• iPhone 4
• iPad
• BlackBerry Curve

Which one did I reach for in this situation?

Well, the first thing I thought I should do was to record the scene.

I reached for the iPhone. I wanted the immediate click-click of the camera and the HD video just in case I needed evidence for the insurance. I automatically processed the fact that any photos would automatically be marked with the GPS coordinates. So I began snapping a load. His van, my bumper, the road position, the chap himself, the car’s profile and so on .

Then I reached for the BlackBerry. I called my wife, explained what had happened and assured her that I was ok. (I should point out I was stationery on the hard shoulder and the engine was off.)

And then, on the side of the M40 as I prepared to drive off — I wondered if there was an app for that. My insurer is Direct Line. I tapped open the App Store on the iPhone and searched for ‘Direct Line’, silently praying for decent mobile data connectivity. If ever I needed a boost or priority button, it was then. My iPhone is powered by 3 — whose network is amongst the best I’ve experienced. A few results appeared within a second or so. I saw the Direct Line one and my heart jumped (iTunes link, free). In the midst of the confusion, stress, worry and excitement of experiencing a car crash, I am surprised by just how dependent I became on my phone. Or phones.

The Direct Line app downloaded in 4 seconds.

I remember silently thanking Steve Jobs for the flawless point-and-click delivery architecture of the iPhone platform. Thank you Steve. Again, I was surprised by how reassured I felt seeing the Direct Line logo appear on my phone. I tapped it.

Immediately I was presented with the option to fill in my policy number and contact information. This is the sort of thing I should have done ages ago. I didn’t bother with that. I wanted to see the other options.

Delight and confidence filled my heart as I read down the options:

• Live traffic update (nice, but not relevant to me)
• Journey Planner (cool, again not relevant at the moment)
• Pinpoint My Location — find out precisely I am to help the emergency services. Great idea.
• A Torch Screen facility — in case I found myself in the dark
• Insurance Quote facility (not relevant in this case)
• Claims Incident Guide — a step-by-step guide to documenting an accident, your location, the participants, the photographic evidence — and the ability to submit the claim wirelessly to Direct Line. Love it. Absolutely phenomenal.

I stepped through the incident guide screen filling out the details and attaching the photos. The guide was hugely comprehensive but split into simple, easy steps that you could come back to. For instance, it prompted me to fill in details of any witnesses, information about any injuries, the contact details of the other party(ies) and so on.

Luckily I didn’t need to make an insurance claim on account of the other chap accepting responsibility comprehensively.

Indeed, that same day I got a phone call from his insurance firm to step through the rigmarole. They’re coming to pick up the Range Rover to fix the scratch

My Reactions

I was quite surprised by my reactions. Why did I reach for the iPhone first when my primary device is the BlackBerry? In the back of my mind, I think I calculated that it would be a few seconds quicker to easily deploy the iPhone’s camera for photos and the HD video. I also swiftly calculated (unfortunately) that there was a 99% chance that a big brand such as Direct Line has already deployed an iPhone app, but that they most definitely wouldn’t have a BlackBerry app as yet. (I had a look and couldn’t find one later on). Despite having my iPhone in my hand, I actually put it down and picked up my BlackBerry to SMS my wife. Again, that was just quicker. Much quicker than arsing around with the iPhone’s on-screen keyboard. Indeed, all I need to do is type ‘c’ for compose and ‘h’ for Henrietta and I’m then ready to start typing my text. It’s that quick on the BlackBerry. Whilst this is going on I was also wondering why there wasn’t some kind of integrated ‘so, you’ve had an accident’ app that both me and the other driver could have activated.

The whole after-accident process has been a slight arse. It’s been well managed. But there’s been a lot of ‘touch’. A lot of phone calls that I have to answer. That is hugely annoying. I’ve had to fill in an accident report form for the other guy’s insurer to explain that, no, thanks to the Range Rover, I’ve got zero whiplash and that all I’d like to see is the scratch repaired. But I have to POST the PAPER form back to them. And I have to wait for a PHONE CALL from a nearby garage who will PHONE ME when they’re able to pick up the car.

PHONE PHONE PHONE. It’s all so inefficient.

Do you think that any time soon, this kind of organising will be swapped to the mobile and desktop platforms? How soon before we can get rid of paper and postage and people PHONING me. I don’t want to have to interact with folk in a synchronous manner about this kind of stuff. It’s all low level. I want to pick a day for the garage pick-up on my mobile app (or browser). I want to be able to change the appointment without having to phone up again and have to go through 5 different people. I want to be able to follow the status of the repairs from the device and be pushed updates as they’re posted by the garage and the insurance company. Surely this stuff isn’t too far away?

Surely we don’t have to wait another decade or so before this kind of workflow can be managed entirely via our mobile handset (or desktop, with a mobile browser interface)?

Tell me about your mobile & car crash experiences?

Have you used any mobile apps to report your car crash incidents? How has mobile helped you when you’ve been in a crash? Let me know.

[NB, I got the picture courtesy of Google Maps and Kent Online News]

There’s a chap I know thatdo a lot of work with called Barnes. He’s a splendid chap, friendly, helpful, knowledgeable and although he’s a big, big Microsoft fan, he owns an iPhone 3GS.

I’ve known the guy for a few months and we talk ‘mobile’ regularly. The subject of mobile applications has come up regularly and Barnes, a true iPhone fan, has no shortage of recommendations.

Seeing me getting annoyed with the mindless M4 traffic one day, Barnes suggested I check out the UK Highways Agency’s traffic app (iTunes link). I downloaded it right-away. It’s excellent — it tells me just how screwed the traffic is on my choice of roads.

The application was free — but then again, if it was chargeable, provided I could be persuaded it offered some kind of value for £0.59, I’d have downloaded without a further thought.

It turns out that Barnes isn’t quite the true iPhone fan I thought he was.

You see, he’s never actually purchased an application.

He can’t quite bring himself to do so. I was mildly appalled to find this out, especially given the fact he’s most definitely IT-literate and that he knows how to use his iPhone.

“I just haven’t seen anything worth paying for,” he explains.

“How about the National Rail train application?” I ask, trying to think of a paid-for application that is, for many iPhone commuters, utterly critical.

“I drive to work,” he replies.

I was stumped, but decided to keep on going.

“You haven’t seen anything you’d like to buy?” I queried.

“No… just… no nothing really appeals.”

Fair enough.

I, of course, will buy a mobile application without a moment’s thought because I work in the industry, because I quantify the spend as research first, value second.

It’s always interesting looking at the marketplace from the point of view of other people, especially normobs or “normal mobile users”. I wouldn’t put Barnes in that category though — he’s certainly a super-user. Indeed, he can put a server together using just his eyebrows and some well positioned puffs of air, he’s that technically gifted.

He just doesn’t value paid-for applications.

Knowing Barnes is a keen Formula 1 racing fan, I grasped at a final straw.

“What about the Formula 1 app?” (iTunes link)

Barnes thought for a moment.

“You can get it all free on the BBC website.”

The sad reality is he’s right.

What will it take to convert Barnes to a paid-for application fan? An act of God? Or a £15 iTunes voucher to get him hooked on the paid-for-buzz? And why should it matter that he just likes free ones? Barnes doesn’t feel left out. He is entirely confident that he is missing nothing. What’s more, I tried the odd bit of gentle pressure and he wasn’t having it.

When I sit and think about it, I have to conclude that the chap is entirely right. I couldn’t think of any absolutely 100% *must have* applications that, using Barnes’ reckoning, don’t offer anything more than easy convenience. For instance, I tried to argue that the official Formula 1 app would be quicker for accessing race timings — but, as Barnes points out, he can (and does) use the iPhone’s swish browser to get the information from BBC sport. Which — through his license fee — he’s already paid for.

So fair enough.

Just how many uniques are purchasing iPhone applications? I wonder. I haven’t seen a definitive stat from Apple and I doubt I ever will (do let me know if you’ve come across some). Some estimates I’ve read around the web reckon 95% of iTunes app downloads are free.

I do wonder.

How many other iPhone users out there only use free apps?

What’s your perspective?

Update: A quick note from Stuart over at Mobile Entertainment pointed out this post: 50% of smartphone users downloaded 0 apps last month.

I saw this note from Ray at mobile payments provider, Bango on the MoMoLondon list. It may well be of interest to any application developers reading.

Bango is adding new capabilities to its “In Application” analytics service. Info is sent from the App to Bango using an “open” protocol that any developer can implement with ther own code, but we also want to provide “reference” implementations for the API/SDK to support the vast majority of developers who want to plug-and-play.

We have Android and Blackberry SDK’s that we will be publishing, but we want to speed up the availability of the iPhone version, and thought we would see if anybody externally would be interested in building it.

The Android and Blackberry code and documentation are available to “copy”. The work would be for Bango, but we intend to “open source” the resulting code to ensure transparency and allow innovation.

Based on the previous projects we expect this to be a 3-5day project.

Bango would pay for the work, and you will also have the pleasure of knowing that your code will be performing an important role on millions of iPhones by reporting app usage to their developers.

We need to do this in the next couple of weeks.

Please email james at bango.com with some evidence you can do this and indicative costs and availability if you are interested in doing this work.

We can acknowledge you as the author of this sample code ….

Some fascinating insight into the mobile applications marketplace, courtesy of the uber-productive Stuart Dredge of Mobile Entertainment. This is one of those slide decks you’ll probably want to favourite and send around the office. Excellent work Stuart!

In this week’s episode, watch Grazia Daily editor Angela Buttolph critique Deb’s new moustache and make sure you can avoid the next fashion faux-pas thanks to three very useful apps. Can you guess which ones we’ll have chosen? Have a watch:

If you’ve got an app you reckon we should include in an upcoming episode drop me a note.

It reads, “Find me on the Hamptons app for iPhone”, complete with a nice little helpful graphic. What this sign is also saying is, “Don’t find me on your Nokia phone.”

Or, if I can take that a little further, it’s saying, “You can’t afford this property if you’ve got a Nokia. Or a Samsung. Or anything else.”

The actual reality is that it’s most probably lazy mobile strategy — the head of mobile for Hamptons will have evaluated other platforms and gone with the ‘safe’ (read: Easy) option. Everything else has issues.

What really concerns me is that it’s going to be years before this viewpoint shifts. Years.

It’s great to see the market moving to embrace mobile. It’s just a shame the little ad isn’t highlighting the Hamptons mobile web site too (that all phones can see).

Posted via email from MIR Live

Another question for you, dear reader.

This time it’s about iPhones and iPads. Right now I have 5 iPhones and one iPad each syncing beautifully. I plug them into my Mac Pro and sync. Job done, all is fine.

If I buy an application on my iPhone 4, and then try and download it on my iPhone 3GS, I get to ‘re-download’ the app for free. Which makes total sense. I can either sync the app to my Mac Pro so that I can get it on all machines, or I can re-download from the app store if I’m out and about. I enjoy the fact I don’t have to pay for the app again.

But here’s my question: What happens if I buy 100 iPhones? Or 1,000 iPhones? And activate them all on my iTunes account? Does that mean that I only need to buy an application once… and then I can get it free on all my 1,000 iPhones?

Or to put it another way, if you work at a company with 1,000 employees — and you give them each an iPhone — do you, in order to save money (and manage everything through one global account), activate everyone’s iPhone using the same account? That way, for example, you’d avoid paying £20 x 1,000 for LogMeIn Ignition. You’d only have to buy it once and every other iPhone would get to download it free?

This discussion post on Apple Support points out that there is ‘no stated limit’ to the amount of iPhones and iPads I can activate. Is that still the case?

It was reader Kip Hakes who suggested I check out Endomondo, the GPS sports tracking app a few weeks ago.

Well, on Saturday it was my turn to take baby Archie out for a stroll. My instructions were to exit at 930am and not to return until 11am. He was supplied fed and sleeping.

All I had to do was leg it around Marlow keeping him quiet for a few hours. I thought it might be interesting to track my movements so when I was half way down the road, I risked a pause in the gentle rocking of the buggy to locate and download Endomondo from BlackBerry’s ever-improving App World. Endomondo is free, light-weight and entirely brilliant.

I installed it, registered an account in 5 seconds. set it to ‘walk’ and pressed ‘start’. 4.7 miles later I arrived back bang on 11am. I then sought out Endomondo.com and boom, there was my ‘workout’ (‘buggy walk’) highlighted and route perfectly documented via Google Maps. The service itself offers a heck of a lot of flexibility — including the ability to challenge your friends.

If you’ve been looking for something to use to track your walks or sports, do check out Endomondo. They’ve apps for nearly all the platforms too. Thanks for the recommendation, Kip!

I can’t believe it even qualifies as to be called a ‘client’.

Sort it out Evernote.

I’ve been patient for a long time. Developing on BlackBerry isn’t a sodding black art.

Three times I’ve gone to look something up with the piece-of-shit 1995 BlackBerry client and had to stand about while the app loads the BlackBerry browser. Yes. That’s the Evernote response to everything you want to do with their app beyond uploading.

Everything loads in the BlackBerry browser because some idiot decided that was a quick, cheap way around servicing the BlackBerry platform. You then have to wait for the sodding browser for every sodding search/edit/cut/paste/query command.

Utter bollocks.

This was a valid programming decision two years ago. Today it makes a mockery of the whole ‘Evernote’ concept. I am seriously considering putting shit BACK into my flipping address book so I can access it quickly. Fix it.

I thought it was one of Sanyu’s first events for RIM so asked her about how her ‘first experience’ was in one of the questions below.  Turns out she’s an old hand.  How embarrassing.  When you get to it, please think of me squirming when I received her replies.  I decided to leave it in as Sanyu handled the response rather well.

Ok, let’s begin…

1. Could you introduce yourself — who are you, what’s your role at RIM?
My name is Sanyu Kiruluta and I am the team lead for developer relations EMEA at RIM. We work with RIM’s Alliance Partners and BlackBerry platform developers around the world (over a quarter of a million to date) to provide technical support and ensure that the application development process is as smooth as possible.

2. Describe the BlackBerry Developer day in more detail — what was the purpose of it?
The recent developer event was one of a series of days across Europe to help encourage innovation in the BlackBerry developer community. The event series is dedicated to finding and nurturing the very best new mobile, wireless and internet-enabled applications and services and providing the tools and know-how to create and market apps for BlackBerry smartphones.

3. What kind of topics did you cover?
Sessions on the day provided insight into our vision and commitment to third-party apps on the BlackBerry platform as well as offering practical ‘how-to’ information that we hope empowered attending developers to create compelling and user friendly mobile apps. After all, our aim is to ensure that the applications available on BlackBerry App World are fully integrated into the BlackBerry platform to deliver the best possible user experience.

4. What kind of people attended the event? Did you get a feel for whether they were coders, commercial people or a bit of both?
We had a complete mix of people come down to the London event. These ranged from software developers and traditional web designers, through to marketing and new media gurus, CTOs, business development leaders, consultants and even some students.

5. What feedback did you get from the audience?
Feedback was great and this is most definitely an event we’re looking to run again. Attendees were particularly enthusiastic about the upcoming Super App Challenge.

6. Given this is your first major event for RIM, how did you find it? What surprised you?
I’ve actually been involved in running developer focused events at RIM for quite a while (you must have just missed me ). This was the second in a series of regional events we’re running in countries across the world to locally bring BlackBerry developer content to developers in-person. Something we frequently see from developers who previously haven’t created an app on the BlackBerry platform is a realization of how powerful some of our APIs translate as a ‘sticky’ feature in an app. Take for example our free push-API. Developers can use this to keep content on their app fresh at all times – from an end-user perspective, over the past few weeks I’ve loved having the latest football scores & stats sent to my device in real-time.

7. What sections of the day appeared to get the most attention?
Definitely BlackBerry Widgets and Super Apps. The BlackBerry Widget platform provides Web developers with the tools and APIs to allow them to create feature rich super apps using the technologies they already know. Understanding the principles of Super Apps and realizing that they can be created both in native Java and in HTML/JavaScript/CSS were some of the key take-aways for the day.

8. For those developers that missed today, what 3 things should they know?
Firstly, get developing for the BlackBerry platform! There is a great opportunity for developers to get their apps in front of the growing 46+ million BlackBerry subscriber base who have an appetite for really useful apps. For those who want, we offer developer training and certification as well as offering a host of information via the blog, forum, issues tracker and resource centre.

App World 2.0 brings a number new features to make it easier for developers to monetize their applications. Users will be able to purchase applications though credit cards or have the cost directly added to their carrier bill in addition to the PayPal payment option. We are also working on several initiatives around in-app payment, in-app adverts that will increase the number of business models available to developers with just a few lines of code.

We acknowledge that the average smartphone user doesn’t regularly use a large number of apps, so those that they do use regularly need to be really good. The concept of Super Apps is our way of communicating this message and arming developers with all the tools and material they need to be able to create these type of apps on the BlackBerry Platform. The Super App Developer Challenge has recently been launched to inspire the development community to keep bringing applications to life.

9. Finally — what RIM device are you using and what applications have you been enjoying recently?

I am using a BlackBerry Bold 9700! The Facebook application for BlackBerry has many ‘Super App’ qualities, but the one great thing it does for me is put my friend’s birthdays directly into my calendar and as a result, I’d never get rid of it. It’s sticky and ultimately offers me a feature I couldn’t live without. Similarly, I love the Twitter application for seeing what people are up to and BlackBerry Messenger, of course, for keeping in touch with my family, friends and people at work.

- – - – -

Thank you for taking the time Sanyu.  And sorry for question 6.  I seriously thought you were ‘new’.  I don’t know where I got that idea.

Sanyu mentioned quite a few resources like the developer blog/forums — instead of linking to each I thought it would be more helpful to point readers to the main BlackBerry Developer Zone site.   And if you’re wondering what a ‘super app’ is, check out this resource.