I'm thinking I'll go with a productivity app. Have an idea for one that I have yet to see on the iPhone. But then again, if this book teaches me how to make an app, knowing me, I'll likely make an app for the other categories too.

I got two:

1) Quickly, the mischievous Lilliputians set about running up Gulliver's cell phone bill.

2) Godzilla dropped his cell phone--run! Before he comes back to get it!

Yes indeed! VR GOGGLES ARE THE FUTURE! Give them to EVERYONE and the world needs much less calories/food because they will sit around on their asses more. This requires less money spent on food, thus alleviating the economic crisis!

Economic problems solved!! YOU ARE WELCOME!

Goggles pleeeeease!

Holy cats, they should totally call it that!

However, the Rosebud will fail regardless of name since who wants to carry around something as big as their laptop, *along with* their laptop?

Hm, seems to me, the developer is using the current situation with our economy to help sell his app--better to charge less in light of the economy and seem a bit less greedy. It's like he's saying:

"Ooo, WHAT a mess in Washington!! You should contact your representatives in Washington and let your voice be heard! I've got *just* the app for you! $10 please!"

Of course, he could say:

"In light of the current economic crisis, we'll be giving away our app for free so everyone can have easy access to their representatives in Washington. Once the bailout bill is passed or is down for the count, we'll go back to the regular price."

That would make the developer look like a prince and inspire a lot of positive reviews to help sell future copies of the app.

Just my 2 yen...

Yeah, gotta chime in on the whole "pwnage not irrelevant" bandwagon. Dude, when I can record and stream live video from an unjailbroken iPhone I'll think about going back. For now, I'm staying JB'ed.

And pwnage is TOTALLY relevant. Video is just the beginning of other things you can do.

Thanks for the heads up on these, Erica! Good post.

Funny how I can take an mp3, dump it on my iPhone via Air Sharing and then listen to it. I can also access my iPhone from Firefox on my MacBook and listen to the music back--I think I can even download it back.

Why isn't the way iPhones worked with music period? Wouldn't that be nice? Of course, it doesn't support m3u so I'm guessing that if it did, the App Store would have rejected it.

I think the only other thing I'd like from Air Sharing (aside from m3u support) is the ability to connect to the iPhone *with* a wire, for not only the previously-commented reasons, but also to increase transfer speeds.

Oh, and the ability to move files and create directories on the iPhone would be great, too.

I was referring to *actual* always-on IM clients. I thought I'd made that clear. So, they're business men--that precludes them from being greedy? I think it kind of guarantees it. I believe my point was that *I* felt their price *wasn't* fair--I'm not sure what you are gaining by simply repeating what I already assumed.

Actually, if you recall, the last HALF of my comment suggests they charge $1. Thanks for paying attention.

Regarding M$ Office, they charge too much, as well. It shouldn't be free, but I think it's pretty obvious that if they charged $10 or $20 for M$ Office (or say, that much for each part of Office) they'd sell a lot more copies.

Oh and news flash, there are plenty of alternatives to M$ Office--many of them cheaper or even free. So, guess what I don't have on my machine--yep. M$ Office.

Once again, thanks for paying attention. The ultimate point of my comment was that if they charged $1, they'd sell *even more* copies. I think they *should* have money--I just know that I, for one, won't pay $3.99 or whatever higher price they want to set. They want to follow the same, predictable business plan as other "business men," fine. They'll do it without my money, and I'm sure that's fine with them--all I'm saying is that I think they look greedy charging that much and I think they will sell more by charging less. I don't think that's an unreasonable thing to suggest.

I do blame Apple for not including a decent (read: comparable to the *Sidekick*) IM client for free. I blame them for having a closed system. I can install anything I want on my MacBook out of the box, but my phone? Nope--and if that's not enough, His Steveness can shut down any apps on my iPhone at whim. I blame Apple for a lot of lameness in the iPhone. I had hoped developers would pick up the ball Jobs dropped. I had hoped they wouldn't try to take advantage--silly me--I forgot they are "business men."

For the third time, you keep insisting that I demand that the developers of MobileChat charge nothing for their app--my point was that they could make "MASSIVE bucks" if they charged $1 or did you not read that part of my comment?

As for why so many people bought iPhones--are you seriously asking me that question? Because it's the iPhone, why do you think?? It's Apple--the hype around this thing has been insane. People call it the Jesus Phone. The thing is, people are wrong. People are stupid or assume things will be there but aren't (like me).

That's pretty much what I said in my comment, as well--that I assumed Apple would have the basic stuff AND the new cool stuff. Instead, I just traded sideways. Cooler stuff, but at the cost of something as basic to computing as *multitasking* (it's not just an IM client that is missing from the iPhone basic feature-set, but the ability to have more than one app up at a time). Are you really going to defend Apple for not allowing their phone to multitask???

You can't compare SMS to IM, dude--not by a long shot. Instant messages are FREE. SMS messages cost. You need a whole extra add-on to your wireless plan to get them unlimited, so once again, you're all for people spending more for the same abilities they had before for free.

I can't decide if you're a developer or a business man. Either way, you must have a different value of money than I do. You want to spend too much on something that should be cheaper (or even free) go right ahead, but please don't criticize me for wanting to get my money's worth. I regret getting my iPhone for a lot of reasons--a lack of a decent IM client is one of them. I have a lot of other cool things with my iPhone, so I'm not running back to the Apple store-but it's sad when people decide to make money off of an intentional shortcoming. It's called "exploitation of a need" when someone charge so much.

"Is this false advertising on Apple's part, or should everyone just know that TV ads are always unrealistic?"

Yes and yes.

Both are lame and shouldn't be tolerated. But we'd rather be cynical than raise a big stink about how advertisers treat us like morons and corporations don't feel that they have to deliver on their promises.

Oh yeah and I keep my 3G off all the time and seem to get better reception (not faster, of course). I'll be standing on a subway platform here in NYC and get four bars but no service with 3G on. It really is time for NYC to install cell towers in their subway tunnels. Do that and I won't mind the price-hike they're pushing for.

$2.99? Soon to be $4.99?? Why is it that so many of us iPhone-users are willing to pay for stuff that comes *with* most other smartphones (or can be added for cheap)??? Seriously, you guys ruin it for those of us who feel a dollar is worth something.

It's amazing what the iPhone can do, but it's also amazing what it can't do. Maybe the stuff it can do is the trade off--except, the stuff it can't do is so basic and *standard* on today's phones, it's a serious shock to discover so many basics are missing or are poorly implemented. (Sorry for the bad grammar, still waiting for the caffeine to kick in.)

Come on--my old Sidekick didn't charge extra for having the ability to IM. Sure, it didn't have GPS, but that's what made me switch--*more* features. Turns out, there are fewer.

IM is so much a part of our digital lives it's absurd to not offer an always-on IM client to iPhone users for FREE--or at worst, $1. An always-on or push (or whatever lets me get IMs all the time) IM client would sell like mad--charging more than $1 for it just makes developers look greedy.

This isn't some obscure need being met here, guys--this is *IM*.

You're going to make MASSIVE bucks on this. Don't be jerkweeds about it.