iPhone Apps - Where Are Things Headed?

The iPhone, brought to you by Apple, is home to many different applications all of which complete a task everyone needs to achieve at some point in the day. With all of the applications available out there, who is making all of the profit out of them? Is it Apple?

Lance Stewart – a creator of the Tube Exits application you can purchase for your iPhone. Have it? Want to know the history behind it? Well it all started on the train, while he was waiting to get off and out of the platform, he found himself waiting to exit. He says that he, “got off the train and suddenly found myself behind a huge crowd of people blocking my way to the exit. I was just an average Joe in the rat race getting frustrated by being stuck behind the crowds.”

After this, he had a brainwave. He wondered if there was such a way that he could find out in advance, which carriage to board on departure so that once he arrived at his destination he could get to the platform exit first, therefore meaning that he wasn’t left lagging behind all of the tourists.

Stewart admitted that he hadn’t the slightest idea what to do when it came to the early stages of developing an application, and also adds that he didn’t even own an iPhone at the time. He also confessed that at first, he thought that finding all of the exits and carriages locations would have been easy. All it entailed was a simple train journey, a few notes followed by a little research. However, this was not as simple as it all seemed to be, as this task of finding which carriage led to the quickest exit was that of a daunting nature as there are over 700 platforms.

Due to this, Stewart had no other option but to hire someone to do this for him as he was holding down a job at the same time as all of these ideas were rapidly developing in his mind. Unfortunately, this straightforward job was not carried out to the standard of which Stewart was hoping for. This led to him doing it himself, as he says – “At first I hired somebody to go round the stations compiling the data, but they didn’t do a very good job, so I did it myself.”

Since its launch date on June 16th, Tube Exits has been an extremely popular app amongst the iPhone users and commuters.

Already it comes in two different, yet similar versions. One of these is free but only covers 12 of the busiest stations in London. The other version comes complete with coverage from all 268 stations spread across the London Underground; however, a small price tag is attached with the value of £1.79. Unlike a one-way ticket, this could be re-used time and time again at the touch of a button.

Tube Exits is merely just one of the 100,000 applications that you will be able to get on your iPhone before the year is out.

So what is an app? Well, an app is a mobile application of which is designed to be used on smartphones such as iPhones and Blackberry’s or gadgets such as the iPod Touch.

Is it a money making business? Well…yes. Already, there is something in the region of 65,000 apps available from the App Store, which has just recently celebrated its first birthday. In that year alone, the number of Apple’s App Store downloads has passed the 1.5 billion mark.

It is already been estimated by the Chief Executive of GetJar, one of the main and leading independent application stores that by the year 2020, apps, the technology and business behind it, could be bigger than that of the Internet. That is a scary thought - especially when the Internet is an infinite source of information.

When it comes to downloading, many of the apps are free. However, there is the odd one or two that cost the average consumer a low fee. Even better, you can usually get a free limited version of the apps you have to pay for so you can see what you can expect before you make a purchase.

Although large sectors of the applications available are classed as for recreational use, there are some apps that have other uses, such as iBreviary, brought to you by the Catholic Church. This is aimed at believers of the Catholic faith and aids them as it “allows the believer to pray simply via an intuitive interface”. It is also updated on a daily basis with prayers.

Fortunately, for the users of this specific application, iBreviary is one of downloads that is of free.

Like the advertisement from Apple said: ‘there is an app for pretty much everything’. Now, the innovation of apps is beginning to turn the mobile phone world on its head with a variety of brand new and exciting ideas coming out from around the world.

Many mobile phone manufacturers have begun to introduce their app stores to the mass market, with Nokia, Samsung and LG just some of the companies that have brought their offerings to the table. Even though the Apple Store has enjoyed a significant amount of success with their dominating store, it can be said that they only serve a small percentage of the mobile phone users that are out there. After all, Apple only has a couple of models retailing to consumers, where Nokia have dozens.

So overall, with the technological world becoming more and more advanced with each and every second, what other crazy and wacky ideas are we going to get next?

The future will tell, as up and coming mobile phone conventions in the next few months introduce brand-new concepts to the industry and to the public. These are exciting times for the mobile phone as the phenomena has gone beyond texting, shooting videos and taking photos. Now, the emphasis is on the funky apps that you can download to your phone and of the refreshing and innovative new ideas they have brought with them.