Seybold's Take: Developers can benefit from Verizon iPhone

In less than 24 hours, Verizon sold more than one million iPhones to its existing customer base. Living on the West Coast, I was at an advantage since the start of the sale was advertised as being 3 a.m. EST, which is midnight my time. I went online at exactly midnight to order an iPhone for my wife who needed to upgrade her Verizon phone and had been waiting. The process was easy although the Internet connection to the Verizon site was slow as I suspect a lot of people in the Midwest and on the East Coast had set their alarms to get up early. However, it was not too bad and by 12:15 a.m. I had printed my receipt for the phone.

On Feb. 10, Verizon and Apple will start selling the iPhone in their stores and I expect the stores to be crowded with people who have been patiently (or not) waiting for Verizon to begin offering the iPhone. Traffic at the Apple Store will also see new activity starting on the 10^th and lasting for a week or so as all of the new iPhones are configured, software is downloaded, and music, video, and other forms of content are downloaded to these new devices.

Developers that have their applications at the Apple Store will see a new surge of customers, and many of those looking for applications will review comments made by people who are already iPhone customers in order to select the best of the applications. I still wish Apple developers would be allowed to provide better and more screen shots of the applications available and, in reality, I am hoping that someday I will be able to go to the Apple Store and try out any application I am interested in right on the screen of my PC or Mac without having to download it to the phone to see if it is what I am looking for and if it works the way I want it too.

My experience with the iPad has been one of frustration because many times the applications I think will suit me according to the description of what they do and a few screen shots don't live up to my expectations and I end up wasting money and simply deleting the application. Since the Apple Store has, like Apple devices, become the model of how to do things right, I would like to see it move into the 21^st Century and let us try the applications before we buy them. Even those that permit you to download a free version with most, but not all, of the application's functionality require me to try the application on the device rather than make up my mind before I download it. I don't believe it would take much in the way of changes to the Apple Store to enable customers to try out the features and functions.

Many application developers, as I have noted before, write good applications, but do not thoroughly understand the task they are trying to address. I continue to look for a good travel expense application and have tried every one I can find, spending money for many of them, only to find that the developer who wrote it, apparently, has never traveled and had to record expenses on the fly and at night in random order. Simple things such as asking customers how many nights they spent at a hotel and letting them enter the room rate on one line, taxes on several lines (there are many taxes associated with a hotel room), and other information that is then populated for every night spent at the same hotel are essential to a good travel expense application.

Random entry of expenses is also very important. When I return from a trip, no matter how good I have been about entering expenses during the trip, I have receipts stuffed in suit coat pockets, in my wallet, and perhaps in my pants pockets. I don't want to have to sort them by date and time before I enter them. Many of these programs do allow random entry, but many do not. I use the expense report application as an example, but there are many that fall short of what I want and need. It doesn't seem like it would be too difficult for those who write applications to talk to potential customers, give them a beta copy, and then listen to their input. The result would be a better application that would be in demand.

I know that many good applications are "lost" on a store as large as the Apple Store, but those of us who find an application we like tend to tell others about it, perhaps write about it, and by word of mouth it can become a bestseller on the site.

Verizon's iPhone offering will give developers another five to ten million iPhone customers in the United States, and even more of an opportunity to make money selling applications. Apple needs to help make it easier to find and try these applications and the developers need to make sure their applications are solving a problem, not causing customer frustration.

Andrew M. Seybold is an authority on technology and trends shaping the world of wireless mobility. A respected analyst, consultant, commentator, author and active participant in industry trade organizations, his views have influenced strategies and shaped initiatives for telecom, mobile computing and wireless industry leaders worldwide. Don't miss the Andrew Seybold Wireless University session March 21 at CTIA Wireless 2011.