stephen sullivan .com

My first iPhone application, A Deck of Cards, is now available for sale at the iPhone application store.  I am selling it for free so go get it now…………Link

…… OK you got it?  I can wait if you don’t…….

The point of this app is to demonstrate some of the iPhone’s capabilities.  I am planning on using it to promote some other apps I will charge for later.  One interesting thing about the iPhone is that it is essentially a computer in your pocket.  I like to think about iPhone application business ideas that leverage this and the fact that the device has such a great set of sensors (camera, accelerometer, touch screen, microphone).

Applications that really intrigue me are ones that have the phone represent a physical object.  See the light saber and whip apps for examples of this.  This is the reason I made A Deck of Cards.  The app is meant to simulate something you would do with a physical deck; turn over a face down card. So check it out and tell me what you think.

Eye institute or secret Death Star battle station contractor?  You make the call.

At mobile forums like this one, there is a lot of talk about the iPhone market size.  The traditional wisdom is: if you want to make money selling mobile apps you have to develop for multiple platforms.

This is because of the fragmented mobile device market of which currently includes 10M iPhones or so.

Looking at only iPhones underestimates the Apple application market

Sure Apple sold 10M iphones in the last year, but what about the iPod Touch?  It also runs apps.  The iPod touch addresses a whole other market outside the cell phone market.  I haven’t seen many sales estimates that include touch numbers however.

The richly featured iPod touch may be only be the start. The cost of materials for the iPhone has been reduced to only $174.33.  With much lower component costs, Apple can now move features such as an accelerometer into lower end iPod models.

Mobile Platform Endgame

Apple will eventually extend the iPhone/touch OS platform backward into their entire product line.  Apple has already sold 200M iPods and their batteries are slowly losing their ability to hold a charge.  As consumers refresh their aging MP3 players, they will be phased on to apples new mobile version of OS X and apps such as more cowbell will gain whole new audiences to entertain.

In a previous life, I designed software systems for the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). Among the things I learned was that at mach 2 your UI better be pretty darn responsive. Fighter pilots do not have time to wait for things to load or animate or whatever. In some ways this is true for mobile users as well.

Overall iPhone interface responsiveness takes a step back

One thing I instantly noticed with the iPhone 3G is that is just isn’t as responsive as the first version. It is hard to say whether this is because of overall system instability or merely my impression being skewed because of immature 3rd party apps. These apps often crash and have their share of bugs, which I understand. What I worry about is the ability of 3rd party developers to deliver apps as smooth and responsive as the Apple ones. Mobile applications have a different set of constraints than those on the web or desktop. With less speed, limited power, and a user on the go, mobile apps have to be developed to use minimal resources and provide information quickly.  Fancy animations and splash screens (yes I mean you twitterific) need not apply.  Thankfully, to keep developers on the right path, Apple provides a performance monitor and a great SDK.  Most importantly, developers only have to write for one set of hardware (iPod touch being very similar to iPhone)

Android opens a can a worms

The challenge for android is that application developers have to write code that runs multiple hardware platforms. Small shops simply will not be able to do performance testing on every phone if the OS takes off. Will the android emulator be able to solve this issue?  Will the SDK allow testing by USB like Apple’s iPhone? If not, the result will be some applications that run very poorly on certain android phones.

The first android phone released will set the tone for the platform. It will hopefully be a high powered smart phone.  Underpowered hardware platforms may give android an unfair black eye if Google is not careful.  We will see how they manage expectations.

Conclusion

It is exciting to see mobile computing become a reality with the new OS’s by Apple and Google. As they get more stable, the user experience will depend less on their OS’s stability and more on the capability of 3rd party developers. Both companies need to make sure software development is as easy as possible and the power of their SDKs will be the key.

I want one contact list to reference everyone in my social graph.  Is that too much to ask?

Enterprises realize benefits from unified contacts

One of the biggest new areas in enterprise these days is unified communications. These UC systems integrate IM, Mail, Voice, and Video into one unified client.  My current company, Cisco, is a leader in this area and you can see an example of their UC client here

The main point here is, rather than have an IM contact id, e-mail contact id, and phone number, your contact can be represented by exactly what he/she is, ONE person.  With UC, you can now select how you want to communicate with this person.  This in turn eases collaboration within an organization.

Internet service aggregation clients bridge part of the gap

Since IM clients and social networks cannot speak with each other, users are forced to log in to each service individually.  This can be a pain if you and your friends belong to a bunch of different services.

Several products are now aggregating your online identity.  Adium is an IM client on the Mac that has been doing this for years.  It allows you to see contact from AOL, Gmail, Yahoo Chat, etc.. all in one client.  FriendFeed is a newcomer that lets you get output from feeds for all you favorite internet services (Facebook, Google Reader, LinkedIn, Pandora).

With these services, users no longer have to log into a bunch of different services to access their distributed contacts.

Digsby takes things a step forward

The new client Disby allows a user to login to E-mail, IM Clients, and Social Networks at the same time.  It provides mail notification, IM chats, and status updates in a unified interface.  One feature I am most impressed with is the ability to combine contacts (Trillian also allows this) from the same person.  For instance, if I have a contact Annie, who is my friend on both AOL and Gchat, I can combine them so Annie’s name only shows up once in my contact list.

Why not Find, Combine, and Sync all my Contacts?

Why should I have to tell these services what contacts are the same person?  Since, they have access to my services and social graphs, they should be able to mine data from them.  With this data, most of the possible merges can be inferred.  In fact, most of my friends’ screen names are similar enough that screen name data alone should be enough. A CEO of a popular Silicon Valley web 2.0 start-up informed me Tuesday that several new companies are trying crack this problem using existing graphs from services such as FriendFeed.

Does anyone know of any promising entrants in this area?

I’ve recently been attending iPhone developer meetups in Silicon Valley.  Everyone there is pretty psyched about the app store and is furiously trying to finish up their apps.  The group is a mix of develops and entrepreneurs from around the area.  Some are hobbyists, some fully time developers. We even have a “retired” googler in the mix.

Over the course of the meetups, a lot of questions were thrown around.  One that kept coming up, is how people are going to make money with the iPhone.  The model everyone talked about is advertising but there are plenty of others.

Here are a few:

Charge for applications:

This is the standard and most straightforward way to make money from the iPhone store.  The BREW platform was rather successful at motivating developers by giving them a cut of sales.  Apple is betting big on this one.  1 Billion in revenue?  Some think not.  I’m hoping the platform takes off.

There is debate over how much an application should cost.  Read some analysis here.

Directory Services:

Picture this.  You are walking down the street in San Jose looking for food.  You type pizza into your phone, and 5 shops come up on the screen.  How much do you think a company will pay to be the top listing.  With limited screen real-estate, top placement will be more important than ever.  See how it affects click through rates on the desktop here.

Charge to build custom enterprise apps:

All sorts of companies will want to integrate the iPhone into their operations. Restaurants could use it to enter orders. (Customers could download an app and even submit orders themsleves!)  Think of all those visual basic and java homegrown apps your company as.  As mobile become more and more important in the workplace, someone is going to have to provide the custom apps FAST.

Premium Content:

Give away your app free but then charge users to access premium, text, audio, and video content.  Here the iPhone just becomes an extension of a web portal.

Transactions:

Think about the eBay application.  How can you enable buyers and sellers to connect?  Then how can you take a cut?

Conclusion:

There are lots ways to make money in mobile other than ads.  Think about where you are in the value chain and consider all the options.

Here is an article about my sustainability class this quarter.  It provides photographic evidence that I actually do attend class at business school.

Link

Here is a link to news coverage of my group’s entry in the MIT 100k business plan competition.  Gemini was featured in the Mass High Tech Journal.

Link

Spring Break in Japan.

Gemini – An Internet service that facilitates the transportation of community members to the places they want to go. The service uses mobile communications and the Internet to give members access to the best transportation options available. Gemini’s software reduces transportation costs, environmental impact, and makes transportation faster, more comfortable and more efficient.

Team Members:
Alejandro Rogers (1st year MBA, Team Leader)
Stephen Sullivan (1st year MBA, Product Development)
Shintaro Okuno (1st year MBA, Consultant)
Advising Partners: GIS Lab (Geographic Information System Lab), Media Lab.

For more information about the MIT 100k competition see link.