You can't be sirious!

When Siri was launched at the iPhone 4S product launch it was dismissed by both Andy Rubin of Google and Craig Mundie of Microsoft. The initial dismissal was along the lines of "people don't like talking to phones" which seams a bizarre statement when you think about it.

Now Microsoft seems to have rethought its objections and is now running a series of TV commercials about the voice integration that currently is in place in the Xbox 360.

I'm not going to get into the semantics of Voice Control versus quasi artificial intelligence but Micrsoft's lame TV commercials really don't do anything to help their case.

Size Matters 2

In a tech interview the late Steve Jobs indicated that Apple had done a whole lot of research on optimal screen sizes before launching the iPhone and iPad devices. As per my previous post I don't think that there is much debate that 3.5" - 4" appears to be the optimal size for a mobile screen.

The debate for tablets, however, seems unresolved with devices between 5" and 10" being launched at various times over the last two years. To anyone following the tablet market it comes as no surpirse to realise that Archos, Dell, Blackberry and others have had no luck with the smaller form factors between 5" - 7". Indeed Amazon's much lauded 7" Kindle Fire has recently come in for some poor reviews to do with poor browsing experience among other complaints. So does this mean that anything short of Apple's 9.7" is inadequate? Well I don't think so and it wouldn't surprise me to see a 7.8" iPad3 - Apple has allegedly order a large number of these screens - released next year complimenting the existing form factor.

Why? Well rumours are that the 7.8" screen was a very close second to the 9.7" screen that Apple launched the iPad with. Also if you think back to the days when a lot of pressure was brought to bear upon Apple to enter the netbook market Apple actually responded with an 11" Macbook Air despite Job's earlier statements that anyting under their existing Macbook range of 13" screens was sub optimal. Anyone like me who previouly owned a late, great 12" iBook or PowerBook would realise the flaw in that statement.

Size Matters

There was a time when manufacturers were pulling their hair out trying to make mobile phones smaller. Handsets like the Ericsson GH 337, Nokia 8210 were noteble for being the smallest handsets on the market when they were released.

With a new smartphone form factor established by the iPhone and followed by a horde of iClones that trend appears to be somewhat in reverse. Indeed many Android handsets are now being launched with screen sizes between 4" and 5", trumping the iPhone's screen which has remained unchanged at 3.5" since launch.

Recent reports that Apple has secured the supply of a large number of 4" screens has led to speculation that the iPhone 5, when it arrives next year will be bigger than it's predecessors. Will that be the case? Well I believe the answer is yes and no and here's my rationale.

Take a ruler to you current iPhone and measure the 3.5" screen diagonally. Now stretch that screen size by an extra half inch and its easy to see that a 4" screen could easily be fitted into the current form factor of the iPhone without compromising much. Effectively we'd lose some of the banner at the top (which houses the speaker) and/or the bottom (which houses the home button). Whatever happens I'm pretty sure that the mechanical home button - a component of questionable durability - will not find a place on the iPhone 5. Indeed there has even been speculation that the button will disappear totally. I'll leave Jony Ives and his team to do the rest.

And my new phone is ....

Some time ago I speculated that when the time came to replace my trusty old iPhone 3GS I might well consider an Android handset. I like iOS but the allure of a new toy that does everything the same as my iPhone at a premium price might just tempt me away from Cupertino's finest. Lo and behold I have now chosen my new handset for the next couple of years of mobile service and it is ... my trusty old iPhone 3GS running iOS 5. So what gives?

Well after two years of reliable service my phone is still pretty much like new. I've upgraded two major iterations of the operating system and everything still runs and performs fine. Best of all since Apple are still selling the 3GS new it's going to be supported for at least another year or two. So go figure droidheads, do you think that you'll get 3+ years of service from your latest IceCream Sandwich munching device? No, I thought not

iPhone 5

Earlier in the year I speculated as to whether we would see an iPhone 5 or a 4S. That question has now been answered and my hunch that we'd see the former was wrong. I also speculated that we might see an iPhone Nano or cheap iPhone. Again I was wrong. But the most interesting thing is that the iPhone 3GS which is now occupying the low end of the iPhone market is selling like hotcakes in the us *(if AT&T's figures are to be believed).

So droidheads ... I dare you to name a 2 year old Android hansdet that is comfortably running the latest OS and will be supported for at least another 2 years (the lifespan of contracts currently being sold). My 3GS is still going strong and second hand values are still good. As I've previously stated in posts about Mac ownserhip - the upfront costs may seem higher but as a total cost of ownership Apple gadgets are heard to beat.

When September Comes

It’s no secret, if you've read this blog, that I am a fan of the Cupertino based company, together with their inspirational CEO. I love the design of their products and the simplicity of their product range. At home I choose to use a Mac and I also own an iPhone and an iPad.

Does this make me an Apple fanboi. Probably. Am I embarrassed about that fact. Definitely as I'm wasy too uncool. Fanboi for life though? Well no I don’t think so.

My current phone, a 3GS, is getting a bit long in the tooth. Time will tell whether iOS 5 cripples it but even so it is two years old. Therefore I will watch to see what Septembers iPhone announcement brings but just in case Apple disappoints there are certainly plenty of alternatives out there.

One friend, who I still think secretly harbours a grudge about the iPod killing off the MiniDisc, has recently got a Nexus S. Whilst it may not be superior to an iPhone 4 it is certainly close enough and came on a very attractive plan. Another friend has ditched his iPhone 4 and is raving about his new Samsung Galaxy S 2. I must admit it looks good and he is really enjoying the ‘freedom’ offered by Android over the closed shop that is iOS. Another friend is even raving about his Windows Phone 7 device so maybe when Nokia bring out some new hardware that may be worth a look.

I must admit that there are times when I’ve even been tempted by low end smaller 3.2” screen Android handsets like the HTC Legend and Wildfire or even the HP/Palm Pre. The long and the short of it is that there is a lot riding for Apple when September comes.

iPhone 5 & iPhone Nano

The iPhone 5/4GS rumour mill is well and truly alive and most of the debate centres on whether this year update will be an iPhone 4S (i.e. a speed bumped iPhone 4) or whether we will see an entirely new model (i.e. the iPhone 5). There is also some speculation that we might see two new models – an iPhone 5 and an iPhone 5 Nano.

I don’t think it will be the first option. The Android market changes so quickly with new and better phones being released by the week and deals that undercut the iPhone. Apple cannot rest on their laurels and it is not in there nature to do so. The iPhone 3 to 3GS upgrade happened whilst there was a lot of activity in the original iPad. There are no such excuses this last year. Besides what have the iPhone hardware designers/engineers been doing for the last 12 months? The software guys have been busy with iOS5.

So will it be the second option or the third options? Who can say but what is clear is that Cupertino must offer a mobile device at a price point to be competitive with reasonably specified Android devices. Failure to do this will see them lose the battle like the original mac did to the PC.

Travel Happy

In today’s Sydney Morning Herald there is an article discussing the relative merits of the iPad as a travel gadget. Of course the iPad was used as a hook and the comments descended into the usual pro/anti Apple rant.

I have previously discussed the merits of the iPhone as a convergence device but many of the same points apply to the iPad. After all it is just a big iPhone without the phone, isn’t it?

To recap my previous post: A few years ago I was used to lug away on holiday a mobile phone, iPod, PSP, DSLR, camcorder, point and shoot digital camera and occasionally a laptop with all the respective cables and power supplies. I resisted from adding a portable dvd player to this collection. After I got an iPhone I decided to gradually phase out all these devices with the exception of my DSLR.

I now travel on holiday with a combination of iPhone, iPad and DSLR. My phone generally stays switched off. There are obvious advantages of this approach in reduced weight and cost. Also I only need to carry a single charger (my SLR is AAA battery powered) and I invested in an Apple video display cable to which displays the iPhone/iPad video onto hotel TV’s.

As always with convergence devices there are compromises to be made. The pros - iPad battery life, screen quality and build are excellent. The cons - the keyboard is adequate for most tasks but surfing the internet I find inferior compared to the precision of a mouse. Maybe website design just needs to evolve to better satisfy mobile touch screen devices. I also refuse to pay for an SD-card reader that really should be built in as standard.

Am I an Apple fan. I suppose the answer is qualified yes but I’d happily consider the respective Android alternatives out there when the time comes to replace my iPhone and iPad. To avoid vendor lock-in I have so far resisted purchasing content from iTunes and have only paid for a small number of iPhone/iPad apps.

The only device of genuine interest to me remains the Kindle. The iPad is NOT a great eReader. Now only if Amazon would start selling eBooks as cheaply as paper ones.

Is that a computer in your pocket or are you .....

One of my New Years Resolutions was to use Facebook a bit more. My wife is a facebook junkie and whiles hours away on it sat in front of the TV. I just don't get it but each to their own. Having started to use Facebook a bit more my question for today is where is facebook's strategy for tablet computers. The mobile app is fine but is a cut down version of the browser experience so why no app for the iPad for example.

I was intrigued at Mark Zuckerberg's definition of mobile technology at their recent Mobile press event which simply failed in any way to acknowledge the tablet computer as a mobile device. So according to him PC's and smartphones are important but tablets are not.

Link that back to Steve Ballmer's quotes recently about everything being a PC (including tablets and smartphones) thereby all being candidates for Windows (God forbid) and also the recently cleared up confusion from Google about where Chrome and Android sit and we can see that the Cupertino tablet has really caught the competition on the back foot. It seems to me that Job's vision and strategy is the only complete one on the market today.

So back to Facebook. Not only should people be asking why there's no app for the iPad but more importantly is where is the Facephone or FacePad.

Stuff I'd like to see in iPhone OS 4

There's lots of speculation about what's coming down the pipe in iPhone OS 4. Most of this is related to multitasking, which the current lack of I've never had a problem with.

Some minor features I'd like to see though are:

1) Location aware wi-fi setting. Unlike many world cities the wifi coverage here in Sydney, Australia is poor. For that reason I tend to have wifi enabled enabled at home and off when out or at work to improve battery life. This means that every day I toggle wifi on and off on my iPhone. Often I forget and am reminded when wifi asks me to join a new network when I'm using Safari. This is a minor annoyance. It would be great if I could make the toggling on/off of wifi automatic based upon a configurable location setting (using AGPS) to say my home or office locations for trusted networks only. When outside of those locations by say 500 metres it would be nice if wifi automatically switched off.

2) I'd like to see some integration between the Calendar and the Contacts in iPhone OS. For example, if I'm setting up an appointmemnt with my dentist currently I either have to enter a title or location but in reality that information I need for this appointment is already stored in my Contacts. If I could make a new appointment and just select a contact (or multiple contacts) rather than having to type in a title or location this would be great.

I don't pretend that either of these suggestions is radical but it is small eveloutionary steps like them that will keep iPhone OS ahead of the rest of the pack.

As previously stated longer term I'm obviously expecting the smartphone to morph into an identity based device that will integrate with my house and car security. I also fully expect it to morph into a credit/payment device. Long term I'd love for my phone to replace the wallet in my pocket (say within 10 years) but for now I'd be happy with the above.

Check, check, check and check!

Part 3 of a 3 part post on the role of the modern smartphone

In the previous two posts I've explored the impact of the smartphone on our lives. The first post explored my hopes and aspirations for a convergence device ten years ago and how the current smartphone vastly exceeds them. The second post explored what devices it has definitely replaced or is likely to replace in the near future. In the final post I wanted to explore what's left for the smartphone to achieve. Now I'm not pretending to be a futurologist and the potential applications for the smartphone are almost limitless. Why else have Google and Apple branded themselves as mobile devices companies when neither was their core competency less than a decade ago?

The focus of my smartphone predictions won't be around the likes of location services, enhanced reality, advertising and mobile TV as many are predicting, it's something far more mundane but essential to our daily lives.

Before I do this lets explore something that I do, and I'm guessing I'm not alone here, every day before I leave the house and go to work:

Check, check, check and check!

- Have I got my wallet? Check.
- Have I got my house keys? Check.
- Have I picked up my loose change? Check.
- Have I got my mobile phone? Check.

(Note that in my case I don't drive to work but if I did I'd obviously check for my car keys too).

So could the smartphone change things here? Well when you examine all these things they resolve down to two fundamentals of life: identity and money.

In my wallet is my drivers licence (a defacto identity card), my prepaid bus ticket (currently anonymous, but in other cases not so like the London Oyster Card), my work entry card (identity), some cash (money), credit and debit cards (money) and a lottery ticket (potential money). The other items in my pockets: loose change (money) and house keys (identity) and car keys (identity). Yes I know the keys don't strictly identify me but there is an implicit assumption that because I have the key I'm authorised to use it.

So can the smartphone morph and replace the above devices. Well technically yes. There's nothing revolutionary about the concept of using a smartphone for a payment device. Nokia were talking about this sort of stuff 10 years ago and I believe that many others are working on this technology right now. Lets also not forget that I can access our bank accounts never mind ebay and paypal on my phone and that we also already access our mobile phone accounts (either pre or postpay) every time we make a call or send a text. In short it doesn't take a huge leap of faith to believe that smartphones will become payment channels in the near future.

Looking at cars we are already starting to see keys be replaced by 'dongle-based' access devices. Is it such a stretch to see your car iPod/iPhone integration extending to cover car security too? The same could be said for home security too.

This leaves us with the rest of identity. For example can you imagine your driving licence being stored on your smartphone (or a cloud server accessed by your phone) If so what about your passport or even some future DNA based identity scheme? This is where I'm probably stretching the limits of how we will use smartphones in the future but not because of some inherent technical limitations, but bureaucratic ones. Could you imagine government departments accepting smartphones for ID. And I can already hear the din from the civil libertarians.

However, if the smartphone is going to evolve in these directions then we're going to need a pretty secure way for the device to identify us. Biometrics would definitely be required in the handset for this. We're also going to need some pretty secure encryption technology to ensure that nobody is hacking our accounts through the ether.

But the important concept here is that nothing mentioned in this post is beyond the bounds to reasonable technological advances in the next few years. Considering how far the smartphone has come in such a short space of time I'm beginning to see why Apple and Google are so interested in them.

How many devices does your iPhone replace?

Part 2 of a 3 part post on the role of the modern smartphone

In the previous post I reflected on how far the smartphone, in my case the ubiquitous iPhone but in reality it could be any smartphone, had come and how it had not only superceeded the mobile phone and the pda but also a plethora of other functions/devices. So lets look at personally what it's replaced or is likely to replace in the next few years in my scenario:

- PDA - will I ever buy another decicated PDA. Don't think so. Sorry Palm.
- iPod - again, I'm not sure I'll ever buy another dedicated music player nor an MP4 player. Bye Apple.
Sat Nav - Would I ever buy another dedicated Sat Nav device - probably not, although for true replacement technology I'd likely buy Tom Tom for iPhone. If I had a Google or Nokia smartphone this wouldn't be the case. Sorry Tom Tom.
- digital camera/camcorder - I'm not sure we'll replace our compact digicam when it dies. Maybe not the camcorder either. Sorry Sony and Canon. The digital SLR is, however, safe for now.
- Portable games console - The PSP barely get's any use and could well end up on ebay before the month is out. Sorry Sony.
- Portable DVD player - My better half wanted a portable DVD player so we could take the kiddie dvds with us when we travel. I've ripped and encoded this stuff onto my - iPhone and got a iPhone Composite cable for Christmas so we're pretty set on that front now too.
- Watch and Alarm Clock - this is probably not typical but for a few years I've stopped wearing a wristwatch and have relied on my phone for timekeeping.

It's amazing really that all this stuff has been or is likely to be replaced by the phone in my pocket. I'm not saying that the iPhone is better than any of these devices but in most cases its certainly good enough to replace many of the dedicated devices.

The other advantages are that it's always to hand and charged, unlike most of the other stuff which is in the cupboard most of the time out of battery.

Lets see how far we've come

Part 1 of a 3 part post on the role of the modern smartphone.

Back in the late 1990's I really wanted a mobile phone that was a true convergence device, something that meant I didn't have to carry around a mobile and a pda. At the time I had an Ericsson GF768 flip phone and Palm Pilot 3. Ultimately the single device that I wanted would be able to make calls, manage a consolidated contact list, scribble a few notes and maybe just maybe write an e-mail. WAP was the next big thing then so maybe access to the WAP web would be a nice to have.

These days any half decent smartphone will more than meet these needs and more but lets just consider how much more they can do. Today my iPhone gives me all of these incredible devices and applications in my pocket: phone, calendar, web browser, contacts, camera, video camera, audio recorder, texting, messaging & skype, IM & chat, access to social networking, email, music, movies, photo album, books, gps & maps and games. Oh and access to an almost unlimited suppy of applications too.

I may have had to wait ten years to get it but when it arrived my convergence device really did exceed my expectations. As Ferris Bueller says 'Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it'.

Dark Days at 1 Infinite Loop?

According to some recent techpress articles it's been a week to forget for Apple. Firstly, Redmond launched what appears to be their first viable alternative in the mobile devices space with Windows Phone Series 7 (catchy title, eh?) and then the rest of the also rans (excluding Google, RIM, Microsoft and Nokia) in the mobile phone industry announce the WAC as an alternative to the App Store.

Take this into account with some lacklustre reviews on the iPad and should we be calling an end to the Apple Renaissance?

Well, time will tell whether the Microsoft gamble will succeed but many pundits are already writing it off just like the Zune. Steve Jobs has used the Wayne Gretzky quote 'I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.' and I think Microsoft as skating at where the iPhone has been.

And as to the WAC check out http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/16/app_stores_szzz/ for some thoughts. Also if the OviStore has to resort to giving away the Nokia Maps Application for free to get some traction then how will the WAC fare any better? Nokia reported that there were 3m dowloads of its Maps application last week. This compares to Apple's overall 3bn App Store downloads and 10bn iTunes downloads to put some context around these numbers.

The much more serious threat to Apple in the mobile space comes from Google with its Android platform, despite Eric Schmidt's low key address today at MWC. Android, and a plethora of mobile phone makers, could challenge the all-in-one hardware/software philisophy that Apple has today, just like like Windows and a plethora of PC makers did for the original Macintosh computer. However, there are real differences between the early PC days and the current smartphone wars. Namely:

- different pricing models are at play - Back in the 80's everyone agreed that the Mac was superior to the PC but cost twice as much. Most mobiles are bought on the back of network contracts so unless Android sets start significantly undercutting the iPhone then that doesn't apply here. Indeed given that the mobile phone is something of a status symbol a market awash with cheap Android clones may even be counterproductive.
- Smartphones are as much fashion statements as a utilitarian devices meaning that design of the handset, operating system and application softeware is crucial. Here is where I think Apple have the edge. The key principles at the core of Apple are superior design and controlling the entire end to end user experience.

Will Android overtake the iPhone - almost certainly, but will that be at the expense of Apple. I don't think so. I suspect that it will be Nokia, Microsoft and RIM have more to fear from this weeks announcements.

I think I need an App for that

You may not know it but we are now in the middle of a new tech land grab as established iPhone developers desperately scramble to get native iPad versions of their apps ready for the new platform. This land grab has been measured by the incredible uptake of the iPad SDK.

And before you say it - yes I know that the vast majority of the existing 150,000 iPhone Apps will upscale and run on the iPad but that's a stopgap at best. No doubt new iPad owners will want shiny new iPad apps.

The land grab is underway because the smart developers know that there's a narrow window of opportunity before the AppStore becomes awash with tens of thousands of iPad apps.

No here's the thing I find most interesting. Viewing the AppStore today on my iPhone I can basically flick through 20 categories and about 300 apps per category - give or take, assuming I have an hour or so spare, that is. That's 6,000 apps I can access before I have to resort to a search strings or the genius recommendation.

This is tip of the iceberg stuff. There are another 144,000 apps out there that it's highly unlikely that I'll every find, unless they're featured in some way. Hence my problem how do I know that these apps exist if they're not featured and I can't easliy access them?

Maybe I need a better way of searching for the apps. You know what - I think I need an App for that!

Benson - 9th Generation PC

I was a huge fan of Paul Woakes' groundbreaking 'Mercenary' computer game, which is probably best remembered for its smooth 3D vector and polygonal graphics. What is perhaps less memorable about the game was that your character was guided through the game by a wiseass sidekick called Benson, a so called 9th generation PC. Benson would alert you when you were under attack, communicate with the locals (the Paylars and Mechanoids), etc. At the time I imagined that Benson was some sort of wearable PDA like device - maybe strapped to your arm, for example. I certainly didn't believe that a 9th generation PC was some beige box, screen and keyboard that you lugged around an alien landscape.

So this has got me thinking - what would the ninth generations of PC look like?

1st - Well a first generation PC is easy - your probably still using one on your desk today
2nd - That would have to be the laptop
3rd - I'm figuring that would be a PDA (Palm Pilots, Psions, Windows CE) or smartphone (iPhone, Blackberry, etc.) - If I'm honest these are pretty close to what I imagined Benson would be twenty years ago - only perhaps wearable.
4th - Is it the tablet? Time will tell.

What the 5th - 9th generations are still open for the likes of futurologists and sci-fi fans to debate, but here are some candidates:

I'm thinking that 5th generation PC's will be devices like an augmented reality e-paper displays as seen in the movie Red Planet. Alternatively they could be wearable PC's that display augmented reality information onto a HUD style goggles/spectacles, or as some have proposed, contact lenses.

Further afield is impossible to predict but if I had to have a stab at it then genrations 6-9 would adopt technologies proposed in many sci-fi movies (Firefox, Strange Days, Existenz, The Lawnmover Man, The Matrix, Johnny Mnemonic, etc.) which interact directly with our brains via some digital thought bridge, as scary as that might seem.

The one thing I can be certain of - that the existing first gen PC won't be around forever.

The next iPhone Killer please stand up

In the movie 'The Right Stuff' there's a scene where the wannabe test pilots enviously discuss Chuck Yeager and how every time a challenger comes along he just suits up and pushes the flight envelope a little bit further.

I think the following list of phones must feel a little bit like those wannabes as, at product launch, each one has been dubbed as a potential iPhone killer:

- Nokia N95
- T-mobile G1
- Blackberry Storm
- HTC Magic
- Palm Pre
- HTC Hero
- Nokia N97
- Motorola Driod
- Google Nexus One

The important thing to understand in their own way each of these phones has had something to offer that was better than the equivalent iPhone it was pitched against, whether that be a improved camera, physical keypad, multitasking, push email, etc. All have tried yet so far none have even come close to usurping Cupertinos touchscreen miracle. You can speculate yourself as to the reasons why.

What must be particularly exasperating for their competitors is how little Apple has actually had to do to stay at the top of the pyramid. In the 3 years since its launch we've seen one case redesign, a couple of processor speed bumps, extra storage, a slight camera improvement and evolutionary software improvements. That's it.

They always say that true greats make everything look simple. I guess you could say the same for Apple and the iPhone.

ROLAP smolap

One of the first ROLAP tools that I came across was Oracle's Discoverer product. As one of Larry's consultants I lead a Data Warehouse Team that delivered our reports using it when it was a brand new product. So new in fact that the client didn't realise that the paint hadn't dried on it and it was actually pre production software. They assumed that Discoverer 3.0 had been preceeded by versions 1.0 and 2.0. and there's another story in there about trusting Oracle Sales and Marketing, but I digress.

Some 12 years later I came across Oracle Discoverer again. To my suprise very little appears to have changed. The EUL and full client looked almost identical. I'm sure that under the hood there have been some changes for intranet, pdf's and web delivery but I'm still a bit amazed about the lack of innovation in the ROLAP world.

Business Objects finally seem to be getting things together with BOXI R3 and I have to admit that I haven't seen Cognos's stuff for a while so for them I can't comment.

The only real innovation I've seen in the last few years was ProClarity, before they were swallowed up by Microsoft, but that's OLAP and not ROLAP offering.

A few years ago I started to believe that the Reporting tools were stagnating and that cubes - whether OLAP or ROLAP weren't the answer. I hoped that the move into RIA (Rich Internet Applications) and tools like Curl would fill that gap but as yet nothing seems to have developed there.

Maybe new platforms like the iPhone and more importantly the iPad will spur the sleeping Reporting giants into a new series of innovation. I hope so.

Apple's BusinessAppStore

With the launch of the iPad, Apple will have three content based online stores. These are:

- iTunes
- AppStore
- iBookstore

What I'm wondering today is whether they need a fourth store dedicated for Business? What I mean by that is that could be potentially hundreds of thousands of business apps that companies might want to deliver internally but not make available to the world at large.

For example, what if I wanted to develop a front end dashboard application for my EIS? As I've already stated in a previous post we are being pressured to deliver pdf reports to our CFO's iPhone which breaks our Warehouse Security model. The potential could be enormous but then so would be the challenges.

For a start - how would Apple charge for a BusinessAppStore. Currently they take 30% of the revenue from all paid iPhone Apps. Security would also be an issue to, of course. But I think the idea has legs.

Just out of interest I noted the other day that there was a SAP Business Objects App for the iPhone so it's obvious that not only Game Developers see interest in Apples devices in a business context.

Expand this concept wider and hook it into Apple's cloud platform, MobileMe, and we really could see something of interest.