During Steve Jobs' keynote at WWDC 2008 in San Francisco, Apple today revealed a range of third-party applications to be offered through its new App Store. Existing Apple iPhone customers will receive a free iPhone 2.0 software upgrade in early July, while iPod touch owners will get the same upgrade for $10.
Among the upcoming third-party applications based on the iPhone 2.0 software, we find productivity tools such as a document viewer supporting iWork and Microsoft Office documents, various medical apps, as well as games from leading gaming houses utilizing the Apple iPhone's OpenGL and accelerometer features. Sega demonstrated a full version of its Super Monkey Ball, consisting of more than 100 levels, to be available for $10 at the launch of the App Store.
Social networking and news applications were also demonstrated, taking advantage of location-based services to provide relevant content. Loopt, a location-aware social network, will for instance let you know where your friends are at all times, an application that will be available for free at launch. AP (Associated Press), on the other hand, will offer a free application providing news and information relevant to where the user is currently located.
The iPhone 2.0 software will also provide contact search with live searching, as well as providing extensive language support for the iPhone's software QWERTY keyboard. In September, Apple will also roll out a new push e-mail solution that will be integrated in the iPhone 2.0 software, which through a persistent IP connection, will push content to an iPhone without the actual application running in the background. This solution is claimed to preserve battery life and improve the overall performance of the iPhone.
Apple's new App Store will also provide over-the-air downloads for applications up to 10MB in size, while larger applications require Wi-Fi or iTunes. Applications can also be distributed via Intranets, a feature requested by enterprises. It's basically an ad hoc system that can provide applications to up to 100 iPhones.
Apple promises third-party developers 70% of the revenues for applications sold through the App Store, and there'll be no credit card fees or hosting fees. The App Store will use FairPlay DRM for application verification, and will be available in 62 countries.
Apple also announced new synchronization software, called mobileme. The software will work with Microsoft Outlook and Apple has also built a Web 2.0 suite for mobileme to be offered at me.com. On Mac, mobileme will work with iCal, Address Book and Mail. In short, mobileme will be promoted by Apple as "Exchange - for the rest of us", aiming to give content synchronization and e-mail management a less corporate feeling than what's currently the case with Microsoft's ActiveSync software.
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