12 Future Apps For Your iPhone
With the new iPhone SDK, it's just a matter of
time before we see a wave of new applications. We expect a lot of popular web 2.0 apps to offer an iPhone version.
Native Twitter, Facebook and Flickr clients for iPhone will run faster than their in-browser
versions and will take advantage of the impressive Apple UI libraries. But there is an entirely new breed of applications also coming to iPhone.
These apps simply would not be possible without a device like iPhone.
The major theme of this new wave of apps will be blending of the physical and digital worlds, using iPhone as the bridge. In this post we take a look at what's coming.
1. Reality Tagging
Tagging reality is not new, but will be much better done with iPhone. Here's how it will work. You take a picture of
a landmark, then comment and add tags. The phone will automatically geo-tag it and send the picture to a photo sharing service on the Web. Now anyone
in the world can find your picture by exact geo location, or by its tags. Reality tagging will be like a distributed Google Earth,
but for pictures.
2. People Tagging
Even better than tagging landmarks, you will be able to use iPhone to tag people. You can already take a picture
and assign it to a contact. It is just a matter of time before these pictures will available to a search engine.
Doing it on the phone will be quick and fun. In a couple of years the problem that we described in this post will go away.
3. Reality Recognition
Reality recognition will be fueled by reality tagging and advanced image recognition. Imagine going on a hike and coming
across a tree that you have not seen before. You will point iPhone at the tree and
instantly a Wikipedia page about it will load. Or imagine that it's your first time in New York City. You point an iPhone at
the Chrysler building (because you think that it is the Empire State Building) and again information about the landmark will
be paged to your iPhone.
4. Physical Social Networks
Today's social networks exist on the internet, but mobile technology is going to bring it to the physical world.
You will be able to walk into a restaurant, open up your iPhone and see a list of your friends who have been to the
place. You can flip through their comments and ratings, share comments on the menu - all from the palm of your hand.
Similarly, standing next to a painting in the Louvre, you will be able to instantly find out what your friends thought of it.
Looking at this broadly, as we discussed in this post,
advances in mobile computing enable us to overlay the digital on top of our physical world.
5. Personalized Travel Guides
Travel is one of the most fun things we do in life and one of the most innovative businesses.
People love tours and tour guides who tell them about the landmarks and history of new places.
Now imagine having personalized tours of any location of the world available.
With the touch of a button, information about your current location will appear in your hand. Even better,
the tours will be custom tailored to you, since software will know your tastes and travel preferences.
6. Digital and Physical Treasure Hunt
Travel is fun, but not as much fun as games. With the latest spike in social games, we
are sure to see interesting activity in mobile games as well. And with the iPhone, we will be able
to play games that take place in both the physical and digital worlds. The clues will be scattered over the
Internet and cities such as NYC. With your iPhone you can navigate your way through this
fun physical and mental challenge, showing off your knowledge of the web and NYC.
7. Distributed Mobile Games
Casual gaming is especially on the rise these days, fueled by social networks. Applying this model
to mobile devices is particularly interesting since it enables people to tap into, not web-based, but
fully-fledged 3D games - anywhere. The possibilities range from setting the mood of a game based on
the surroundings, to connecting players based on geo location. And even without tying the games to
the physical world, the fact that people can tap into the network at any time is game changing (pardon the pun).
8. Credit Card and Biometrics as Software
The business world is also going to benefit from mobile innovation. Soon credit cards will become software.
You will walk into a store and to pay, you simply choose a credit card button. The iPhone will communicate
securely with the cash register in the store, via Blue Tooth or Wi-Fi. The safety of the transaction will
be ensured via biometrics. For example, a clerk in the store might ask you to place a randomly selected
finger onto the screen of your iPhone to verify that the phone belongs to you (assuming that all phones
are securely initiated in the store and may not be reset).
9. Paperless Receipts & Digital Business Cards
We wrote here last week about the coming
demise of paper as a transport medium. Among the things we discussed was the end of receipts. Even today some companies are
switching to email receipts, but devices like iPhone now make it possible to manage all receipts in a digital format.
You will get a receipt of your purchase on your screen via Bluetooth or Wifi. It will also be emailed to you
and backed up to remote store. The advantage to having it on the phone is that if you want to return it, you
can simply bring it up and beam it back to the clerk's computer.
Another piece of paper that is coming to an end is the business card.
More and more people connect via LinkedIn these days, but they still exchange business cards when they meet.
Palm did a good job early on of solving this problem - the business card could be beamed between the two devices.
iPhone is likely to bring the digital business card exchange back in fashion and even make it big.
This generation of software will automatically add the cards to contacts and connect the two of you on LinkedIn.
10. Medical records as Software
The medical industry uses the most advanced software when it comes to diagnostics, but
also uses the most outdated ones when it comes to record keeping. Having your medical history available
on the mobile phone will be a great way to enable all of your doctors and pharmacies to better communicate
around your health. Because medical records are still mostly in paper, often doctors are not aware
of all the treatments and drugs that a patient is taking. Having a simple, portable way to move your medical
history around would make things much simpler.
11. Physical Browsing & Digital Shopping
The last two applications have to do with shopping. The first one is browsing things in the physical world and
instantly buying them online. The experience of browsing books on Barnes and Nobles is different; and for most
of us is superior than browsing on Amazon. But prices are better online, so we typically end up taking notes
and then buying online. With iPhone it will be possible to take a picture of a book in the store and have it
immediately appear in your Amazon shopping cart. The same can apply to many things, including clothing, houseware, etc.
12. Location/time-based deals
If you were be open to it, stores would love to compete for your business.
If you are about to buy a camera at BestBuy and there is a Circuit City near by, they would be willing
to win your business by bidding a lower price. Imagine pointing the phone to a camera and getting instant
bids from neighborhood stores. Sure you can do this now online, but a lot of people still buy the old fashioned way -
by first holding the thing in their hands.
Conclusion
The applications that we have discussed are very exciting and will change the way we do things. If you look carefully at each of the 12 apps above, you can see bigger trends among them. The first group is applications that mesh together the physical and digital worlds. The main benefit is that it enhances the physical experience by overlaying digital smarts.
The second group is games - always part of our culture and games evolve, adapt and re-invent themselves with new technologies.
Then comes the group of applications that aims to improve things we carry around. Credit and business cards, receipts and even medical records are on track to become software.
The last group of applications is focused on innovation in shopping. Interesting opportunities will arise from combining the best of both physical and digital shopping experiences.
And now please think about the applications that you would love to see on your iPhone and share your ideas with us.
Note: Special thanks to Fraser Kelton and Andy Roth for discussion and application ideas.
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Comments
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with all this new ideas and innovations, there will be enormous amount of socializing. going forward indivisual will be tagged or connected to n-1 number of people, where n will be tends to the number of people on earth. Whats going on?
webrex
www.webrexia.com
Posted by: webrex | March 12, 2008 11:17 PM
Awesome posts. The points are very intuitive, only I think point 3 is too dreamy.
Its really great how iPhone gave wings to all these wonderful things going second to ideal. Though apparently there were similar phone around like blackberry, we couldn't even imagine this, cause the difference is huge
Posted by: kuldeep | March 12, 2008 11:55 PM
There certainly are some dreamy ones, but--hey, Alex is dreamy.
Posted by: Aaron Fulkerson | March 13, 2008 12:06 AM
Sensational post. Check out the TED site (search for Sea dragon or photosynth) also you tube search for iphone+NetAccounts or Saasu) and you will see where stuff is going.
Not only can you mesh your photos from everywhere together in 3d (photosynth) but you can run a multi national one man band or one thousand woman band commpany from your iphone too.
We recently got Saasu.com working on the iphone too.
Cheers, Peter.
Posted by: Peter J Cooper | saasu.com the web finance engine | March 13, 2008 12:23 AM
Here are my ideas for the iPhone: www.iphonesuggestions.com
People, add to my list by e-mailing me! Then, I will circulate it to the developer community.
Posted by: Taylor | March 13, 2008 12:25 AM
(that was _13_ apps, there are two "8")
8, 8 and 9 already exist in Japan in some form with the most advanced Docomo portable phones.
Posted by: Jean-Christophe Helary | March 13, 2008 12:35 AM
haha, well spotted Jean-Christophe! I edited the post and read it a couple of times, but that little detail evaded me! Fixed now, back to 12.
Posted by: Richard MacManus
|
March 13, 2008 12:48 AM
Great ideas, Alex. I can see a whole new economy to blossom. The good thing is, Apple lets everyone join this bandwagon at the same time, in full democracy. No privileged partners, a fully competitive environment for entrepreneurs and software developers. I wish other platform providers, like Google and Facebook, had done the same too - although I can understand their special circumstances to a some extent.
Let me add one more idea too btw:
a location-aware dating platform ;) that would be awesome!
Posted by: Emre Sokullu | March 13, 2008 12:58 AM
The idea of #4 Physical Social Networking is awesome.
Imagine we can see profiles of people around us anywhere we go. Those profiles of course the information of school, company, age, interests, address etc etc. People can choose what information to show to everyone, and by doing so, we may be able to find the best partner while getting hair permed at a beauty parlor!
These profiles will serve the same role as that of RPG games. We don't have to spend time on introducing ourselves anymore!
Posted by: takuya514 | March 13, 2008 1:02 AM
This one got the brain buzzing for sure! An immediate application for # 4 is trade shows/conferences.
Posted by: bernard lunn | March 13, 2008 3:03 AM
Some nice ideas there but how do you expect all these wonderful physical shops that you so love to browse to stay in business if everyone's merrily purchasing all their stuff on line from Amazon from the cosy warmth of the not-Amazon bookshop??
Are you serious? If you so enjoy browsing the shops how about actually buying something from them to show your appreciation?! I'm sure you agree that your home town is a much better place for the existence of these shops so it staggers me to see you propose this as "the way things should be".
Sorry to rant but I felt this needed saying.
Posted by: Ian Kynnersley | March 13, 2008 3:42 AM
I'm creating an app + convergence list for iPhone Applications.
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_- www.iphonesuggestions.com -_-_-_-_-_-_-_-
Posted by: Taylor | March 13, 2008 3:45 AM
The first 8 apps have already been demonstrated on the N95.
Posted by: carrotmadman6 | March 13, 2008 4:25 AM
This list is great - and not as far in the future as you might think! We're about to launch a social media dashaboard for the iPhone and the next batch of services built on top are all based on the geo-positioning backend.
I would mention that I'm pretty sure you can do a lot of this stuff with a new Blackberry too...
Posted by: Raskin | March 13, 2008 4:55 AM
Interesting article, but I highly doubt that the iPhone is going to kill business cards.
No chance.
Posted by: Replete | March 13, 2008 5:06 AM
Another applciation where iPhone can be used to monitor your heartbeats...or may be your body temperature ..!! Idea of credit card seems not much secure as there will not be any verification (neither signature check, not reading the physical card info) !! Keeping health record and tracjking it will be a nice application.
Posted by: Kevin | March 13, 2008 5:28 AM
Good list, but many of these are already happening, and they're not iPhone-specific (in fact, they're not possible on the iPhone until geo-locating improves, or GPS is added).
E.G. I alredy use Yahoo's Zonetag (http://zonetag.research.yahoo.com/) on my GPS-enabled Nokia N95 for #1.
There are also already location-aware games like #6 and #7, available for the Symbian (http://navball.wordpress.com/) and for Windows Mobile devices (http://www.mscapers.com/).
Posted by: James | March 13, 2008 5:35 AM
Disclaimer: iPod Touch satisfied user here...
Why "For Your iPhone"? Why not "for your cellphone"? Right now, I see an N95 or a Blackberry as well positioned (or better in some cases) to run those apps as an iPhone...
Posted by: César | March 13, 2008 5:43 AM
#6: see geocaching.com
Posted by: Dalmet | March 13, 2008 5:57 AM
This is becoming tiresome, almost all you're describing is already possible or implemented with other phones which do sport a GPS for decent tagging, and where the phones are availabe in a lot of countries.
Look to the lukewarm reception the iPhone is having in Europe, where a lot of this has already been build.
Posted by: Robbie van der Blom | March 13, 2008 5:57 AM
Yeah, you can do it with other phones but you can do it with style on an iPhone!
Posted by: Pete | March 13, 2008 6:13 AM
Stop kidding! The iPhone is a classic failure! Wait for the ZunePhone next year!
Posted by: steveballmer | March 13, 2008 6:14 AM
If you mean with style, against an inflated price for old technology...
Posted by: Robbie van der Blom | March 13, 2008 6:46 AM
nice article!
rc
trading tennis blog
http://tradingtennis.blogspot.com
Posted by: rc | March 13, 2008 7:14 AM
I must say, we couldnt have come to more completely different conclusions. My view is that the most important aspect of mobile devices is communications, and that apple's "no background task" policy will prevent this most important category of applications from being developed. More importantly, I think most of the applications you are talking about could be developed today using java or windows mobile. I am not saying they would be as nice, but few if any of your ideas are enabled by the iPhone innovation. On the other hand if apple had done a good job with backgrounding, that is something that j2me apps cant do, and its something that windows mobile, with its crappy underpinnings can't do. But the iPhone is a real unix underpinning. It could have been done and done well. I wrote a full analysis of this issue if you'd like more detail on this.
Posted by: hank williams | March 13, 2008 7:22 AM
This was a great article. I could definitely see a lot of those things coming to pass.
I've always thought that it was ridiculous that I carry 10 credit cards. All they really are is a device that stores the vendor id and my account number. Why can't that all be stored on one device.
Posted by: VitaminCM | March 13, 2008 8:41 AM
Yes...the iPhone is the only smartphone there exists and there will ever be!! Glory to the great iPhone!!
There is a lot to admire at the wisdom of the crowd and a lot to laugh at the blindness of the crowd as well...
Posted by: Esdee | March 13, 2008 9:16 AM
Cool ideas, but the big weakness is that The iPhone does not have a GPS! It simulates it, but it is so inaccurate that it would be worthless for geotagging.
Posted by: marc zwiller | March 13, 2008 10:34 AM
Exciting possibilities and also a bit scary when you consider how such technology can be misused.
Posted by: Raj | March 13, 2008 12:47 PM
Heh, really, iPhone doesn't do location - where as the Nokia devices with S60 on them have been offering the SDK for these things since 2004.
Posted by: Kristian | March 13, 2008 1:23 PM
Many of these apps won't be possible to make, given the limitations posed by the iPhone SDK.
See:
Apple’s iPhone SDK Prohibits Real Mobile Innovation
Posted by: Kim H | March 13, 2008 6:00 PM
WTF cares about these craps, Skype, call recorder, voice dialling are needed. Wait, of course the crippled SDK won't allow them. Too bad...
Posted by: Sebhelyesfarku | March 13, 2008 6:50 PM
some of these are pretty retarded, and arevery unlikely to be made. Some are already available.
I am writing from an iTouch
Posted by: tom b | March 13, 2008 6:54 PM
Along with digital receipts, imagine never having to remember to put your insurance cards in your glove box. As long as you have your phone there, you've got your proof of insurance/registration/et all.
Posted by: Wayne | March 13, 2008 7:05 PM
call recorder, voice dialling are needed - wait I have already tried these on the iPhone.
Me thinks too many people don't have clue about the iPhone's capabilites or have bothered locating and trying all the new stuff easily found using search.
I bet they don't even know how to extend the capabilites of installer either. All you need is a jailbroken iPhone.
I think I even saw Skype as possible but that may have been some other VOIP service on the iPhone via WiFi. That was over a month ago.
Posted by: Victor Healey | March 13, 2008 7:33 PM
tom b.
wow you have an itouch..
Gosh I wish I was as cool as you.
Posted by: I wish I had an itouch | March 13, 2008 7:51 PM
Hope you don't look surprised if I call you a fanboy.
The iPhone is irrelevant to all these apps, some of them already exist, they just need to go mainstream. Then again, "12 Future Mobile Apps" doesn't attract as many eyeballs as your title.
btw, about the first one, which I find pretty amusing(the others are too given the SDK current limitations):
"The phone will automatically geo-tag it and send the picture to a photo sharing service on the Web."
No it won't, 1st: no real gps support, 2nd: only if you have a wifi connection.
Anyways, don't you think a real "Reality Tagging" app would be cool? like, I'm at 38.453, -9.345, launch the RT app and type whatever tags are adequate for the location? Oh boy, it'd be so much fun, or maybe yes.
Posted by: lmjabreu | March 13, 2008 8:01 PM
I find it interesting how people keep talking about the iPhone as some sort of prodigy. These ideas/applications are all nice, but are not restricted or even exclusive to Apple mobiles at all. ANDROID anyone?!
Posted by: Matthias | March 13, 2008 9:46 PM
http://www.wickedtube.tv
The best site for porn vids!
Posted by: nikki | March 13, 2008 10:19 PM
We had paperless business cards way back with Palm (we could beam them to each other). That went exactly no-where. Do not expect it to go anywhere for some time to come...
Posted by: Kendall | March 13, 2008 10:51 PM
pocketpc has been doing more than this for sooooooooo long. a little late to the party. i mean, even my se t610 and moto a768i can still do most of this!
Posted by: htc | March 13, 2008 11:51 PM
What does these trends have to do with iPhone? These are just general trends.. There is development going on to get these things to Symbian, WindowsMobile and Linux
Posted by: Raimo van der Klein | March 14, 2008 2:18 AM
Rats.. i was thinking bout the biz card idea awhile ago. Though you didnt mention all of the idea...
Surprising you didnt mention anything in regards to the iPhone and alarm clock innovation! There is a ton of stuff to do there ... were working on some of it right now!
"Don't wait to hear Happy Birthday; wake up to it!" - Sleep.FM
Posted by: Ryan Spahn | March 14, 2008 2:52 AM
We're already doing some of the first of these on the iPhone at GyPSii, just point Safari at:
http://gypsii.com/m
We will also be releasing a native application, are available already on Symbian S60 (Nokia phones), Blackberry and Windows Mobile Professional, plus have a big-screen web interface for PCs at http://www.gypsii.com .
Thnaks, Sam
Posted by: Sam Critchley | March 14, 2008 3:57 AM
posted your list on listdid.com -- great list
Chris
Posted by: chris larson | March 14, 2008 8:13 AM
Next2Friends has already created a couple of the above mentioned and is developing about a third of the above mentioned. We are actively working to port our Mobile Social Network to the iPhone right now! Pretty exciting times to be in the Mobile Tech biz...
Posted by: Hans Erik | March 14, 2008 8:22 AM
I can see all these apps on the Iphone -- also I envision the iPhone becoming a tool for people with chronic conditions, for management and alerts --- it would be ideal for healthcare -- and also as a tool for capturing confidential data (health-related, etc)
Posted by: Dr. Stevens | March 14, 2008 9:09 AM
#1 is already out there in several formats.
#2 is just...creepy. Also that post is the most egotistical pile of crap I've ever seen.
#3 isn't a bad idea, but has nothing to do with the iphone.
#4 also already exists in some form, and is kind of useless.
#5..just...what? You can pull up a travel guide in Safari now, that doesn't require a program, or an iphone.
#6... what
#7 I'm pretty sure this has been tried, but who knows, maybe the iphone will make it work.
#8 Wow, this has nothing to do with the iphone, and you've demonstrated an embarrassing lack of knowledge about how fingerprint readers work.
#9 That would be totally awesome, but again, has nothing to do with the iphone.
#10 You know what would be totally awesome? If I could keep all of my medical records on my iphone. Wait, no, that's a terrible idea.
#11 Not a terrible idea, but it's been done before. There was a Palm program way back when that did this.
#12 I don't know...I guess? It sounds kind of cool, but I don't really have any time/sympathy for people who buy stuff in B&M stores instead of online.
Some parts of this list were pretty cool, but man...you should've just said five things and not tried to fill in the gaps with useless crap.
Posted by: Eli | March 14, 2008 3:47 PM
iPhone Developers: iWant a "Back To My Mac"-style window into my desktop machine allowing me to see & control the desktop from my phone
Posted by: Douglas Gottlieb | March 14, 2008 7:11 PM
iPhone Contains Cyanide! Bromide! Formaldahyde! RAW SEWAGE! --Handle carefully!
Our friends at GreenPeace have once again outed Apple as a "toxic polluter of note"!
... and where is their pollution? In you pocket! That's right, right there! If you are one of the rubes who was unfortunate enough to buy one of these DeathPhones that is!
Missed call: the iPhone's hazardous chemicals
The concerned citizens at GreenPeace ask:
"When will promises of a greener Apple bear fruit?"
See the complete report here!
As a concerned citizen, a father, a member of Mankind! I implore Apple to stop the ravaging of our planet, the fish kills, the species endangering, the wanton disregard for the health and welfare of our families, Just for a phone! A stupid phone with bodily fluids smeared all over it from all that unsanitary "touching"!
..."We recomend that you wrap it in recycled paper, put it outside, then call your counties' Hazmat team!"
Join with our friends at GreenPeace, stop Steve Jobs! stop Steve Jobs! stop Steve Jobs! C'mon! stop Steve Jobs! stop Steve Jobs! stop Steve Jobs! C'mon! stop Steve Jobs! stop Steve Jobs! stop Steve Jobs! stop Steve Jobs! ....
Be Earth-Friendly, buy a Zune or the soon coming ZuP
Posted by: steveballmer | March 16, 2008 5:08 PM
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