1 Billion Downloads in 9 Months

Wired had the story today on Apple's 1 billionth app store download. 

Image how fast the world and our baseline expectations can change when you realize this was done in only 9 months.

I can tell you as an i-Phone user of 2 full weeks today, I find it hard to remember a world before I had an i-Phone full of apps. Maybe its my memory or maybe they are just that useful.

Last night I showed my i-Phone to my brother in law at about 11:45 PM. Two hours later I took it away from him so I could go to bed.

The thing really has that effect on people. It will do you no good to go to the store and see it. You have to get someone to loan you theirs for 30 to 60 minutes. Would won't put it down and you won't make a phone call. The phone is just a nice to have thing on the i-Phone. To be honest, if the i-Touch had 3-G access instead of just wi-fi, I might never get an i-Phone.

Our Service on the i-Phone

As I mentioned yesterday, I just got my first i-Phone. I intentionally do not use the blog to promote the various products I am involved with, but today I am granting myself an exception under the heading of discussing the idea more than the product. Trust me, I will promote the product in plenty of other ways.

Below I have embedded a video of me using one of our services on my i-Phone. The focus is terrible, but I hope you can get the idea.

Here is what I love about this - whether my service or some one else's.

The i-Phone is fast enough to use a full browser and let me run the same programs I run for my work on my phone. This means I get all the same information when I am out of the office I can get when I am in the office. 

I can...

• look up a customer,
  
• see their picture,
  
• see their address,
  
• use the link to Google Maps to get directions,
  
• click on the phone number to have my i-Phone call them,
  
• see all the files, pictures, videos we have,
  
• e-mail or message them through this service,
  
• send them documents, forms, etc through this service
  

I can't...

• upload new information into this service - maybe later
  

Maybe all of you are used to this level of mobile access. I have not been. the reasons have been...

• Phones did not have a full browser, just mobile browsers
  
• Connection speed was too slow for rich content
  
• Most web services were using screen design without mobile applications in mind so the user experience was poor
  

These problems are just gone as I use this service. What a great new world. And it is only going to get better.