Apple Briefs

According to recent reports, the 3G iPhone has been quite the success in its first month: as many as 3 million 3G iPhones sold and 60 million applications downloaded. The top sales spot went to Super Monkey Ball (to the surprise of no one who had been following the blogosphere prior to the iPhone 2.0 launch).

Erick Schonfeld at TechCrunch seems to believe that this success will be short-lived because there are no killer apps on the iPhone:

While the initial impulse is to download as many apps as possible to try them out, there is a limit to how many apps you can juggle on your iPhone. It is not much different than a PC. You have tons of apps, but how many do you actually use on a regular basis? For most people, that number is probably no more than ten apps, and on a daily basis, maybe 3 or 4 tops.

I think we’re past the point where a single application will define the market and be the reason everyone buys into a platform. On the other hand, I don’t think an application has to be used every day to make a platform compelling. It certainly helps, though. For instance, I use OmniFocus on a pretty regular basis. But it’s applications like Shazam that have given me reasons to use a phone that I never thought I would have. Is that a killer app for the iPhone? Probably not, but it’s the total package that I am buying. And right now the iPhone has a total package that no other phone can compare to.

One month later, here is what is on my iPhone:

• OmniFocus
• WeatherBug
• NetNewsWire
• 1Password
• Ebay
• Shazam
• HoldEm
• Trism
• Morocco
• Labyrinth LE
• Koi Pond
• More Cowbell
• Remote

Whats on your iPhone?

Emerging from a long beta today is Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 (my fingers just seem to want to skip over the “Photoshop” in the name). It is a pretty solid update, boasting many new and improved features. NAPP also has a nice rundown of the new features. They covered the territory much better than I ever could, so I’ll leave you in their capable hands. Lightroom 2.0 retails for $299 with a $99 upgrade option for owners of Lightroom 1.x (like me!).

Lightroom is just too cool to not find a use for it. So go out there and be creative!

Agile Web Solutions has given us a sneak preview of 1Password for the iPhone (with lots of screen shots!). I have to admit that I am pretty nervous about taking all of my passwords with me. The cost-benefit analysis just seems to weigh against it (the benefit seems pretty low because I seldom need passwords on the run). But Agile seems to have thought pretty hard about the security aspect and has come up with some pretty interesting solutions. The good news is that 1Password for the iPhone will be free (at least for a limited time). Maybe I’ll decide I need it all the time once I have it! Look for it soon in the App Store.

Update: It’s arrived.

… but only if you stay up late. The .Mac homepage has the following service announcement from Apple:

MobileMe Launch 7/9/2008, 6pm-12am PT

As part of the MobileMe launch, www.mac.com will be taken offline at 6pm PT on Wednesday, July 9th.

Members will be unable to access www.mac.com or any .Mac services during this time with the exception of .Mac Mail accessed via a desktop application, iPhone, or iPod touch.

MobileMe will be available as soon as possible during this maintenance window.

So, if you’re prone to staying up until the wee hours of the morning (Pacific Time, which pretty much rules it out here at Apple Briefs), you might get to see it on July 9th ¹. The rest of us can expect to see it the morning of the 10th. The MobileMe iPhone features should be activated the following day (July 11th) with the release of the iPhone 2.0 software update. I’ll try to find some time in between games of Super Monkey Ball to test out the MobileMe push email features.

¹ Yes, technically after midnight it becomes the 10th. But I have always maintained that the day doesn’t change until you’ve decided to pull an all-nighter (n/a on holidays).

Today Macworld is reporting that Marketcircle is bringing Daylite to the iPhone. Daylite’s iCal integration is nice, but a lot of the useful information (e.g. the connections to contacts) doesn’t carry over to iCal. Daylite on the iPhone would be a welcome addition.

A couple of weeks ago Marketcircle posted an article on their site called Getting Things Done with Daylite. It’s a nice tutorial on how to use the various tools Daylite provides as part of your workflow.