Apple as the Gatekeeper

Yes, we all heard the arguments: On one hand, cellphones are critical devices and users can’t afford delays caused by bad code, so a gatekeeper is required. On the other hand, Apple can be as capricious as it wants - refusing applications out of whim, allowing big players access to undocumented features - and the developers can only swallow the pill and work around it.
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If Apple wants to be the gatekeeper, shouldn’t they offer something else in return? Below I write about two ideas that can only work correctly with a top-down approval system, like what Apple offers.

Gestures

The iPhone menu is broken: Moving one icon pushes all the others, hence no position is fixed and there’s no muscle memory (when you are so sure of your moves you don’t have to look to accomplish it).
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iPhone has 10K apps and growing, there’s simply no way you can create a one-size-fits-all menu off it. What to do?
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Then again, iPhone has a refined touchscreen, why be stuck in the old point-and-click method? Why not draw something on the screen, and summon the matching application? Upside-down V for Amazon, M for mail, S for safari, anywhere on the home screen, Presto!
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Yes, users need to learn each matching gesture, but application developers would be more than willing to educate them.
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But, developers can’t assign gestures willy-nilly to their apps, otherwise different apps could use the same gesture and that’s a problem. We need a top-down system to compare and approve the gesture library.

Link Redirect

This feature already exists for the default iPhone apps: I’m talking about when you receive a youtube link email, and iPhone opens the YouTube application instead of safari. The same happens with any google maps link.
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But what if I receive an Amazon link, and I have the Amazon iPhone app? Or what about a facebook profile? Or twitter? Currently iPhone disregards I have the applications installed, and points to safari.
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Link redirect allows applications to claim certain domains to itself, making sure it can display the information properly.
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Of course, this claiming stuff can be a little tricky: What if amazon doesn’t want to give access to a specific app? Someone has to be the gatekeeper huh? That’s Apple’s job.

below are my thoughts on AMP’s taxi.com.br idea…
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It can become a mix of vans (as in more than one passenger) and cabs (passenger defines point A and B), using networks to calculate the most optimal source. After all, fixed stops & fixed schedules were needed before the age of constant communication.
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Check seamlessweb.com business plan: Customers use the web to order deliveries (credit card payment, better menu list, convenience) and restaurants don’t need to lock a line and pay employees to be available to call. It sits in the middle, helps both parties and gets a cut of the action.
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Same way with your taxi.com.br… I’ll send you a paper about it if j can find it, but here’s the happy path:

• Customer goes online (minimal website interface, good but not limited to iPhones) tells point A (where he is), point B (where he wants to be) and optionally, when (defaults to as soon as possible)
• customer receives total price, pays right away
• customer receives an sms telling the 5 min before van arrives (the driver has to inform the system, more on that later)
• customer picks the van, is told when it arrives to point B
• customer receives an email asking to rate the experience.

Price fluctuates based on van availability on the area a or b, traffic, reputation.
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The van is part of a club. It needs:

• initial checkup
• app installation fee (you sell)
• monthly fee (comm costs)

The app can be a simple beep with gps.
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The higher the ratings:

• lower the monthly fee
• better offers (daily commute pool, fixed A, B points)

The driver doesn’t have to negotiate payment or service. The system deals with it and offers customers from the nearest places (route optimization). The driver gets the fare, a cut going to the system (70-30?)
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Problems:

• legislation, lobbies
• quality of service
• do we count start or end time? End time is better, but we need to take traffic into account

Opportunities:

• airports, malls, any fixed point b
• daily commutes: customer pays monthly and can make minor adjustments (free prior 24h). You’re competing with cars!!!
• if overall cost is cheaper than car, with same benefits (control of a to b), market it as the green solution, find government grants

Store Agent proposal

Definition
According to wikipedia, a darknet is “a private virtual network where users connect only to people they trust. In its most general meaning, a darknet can be any type of closed, private group of people communicating, but the name is most often used specifically for file sharing networks.”
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Tools

• a password-protected remote folder
• a locked script file that:

• automatically deletes 6th file, per date
• creates, from the files uploaded, a rss feed with enclosures (podcast)

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Usage: To publish
distribute the FTP account to members, to upload with the app of their choosing:

• music files
• QuickTime video files
• PDFs

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Usage: To view
Users subscribe to the podcast, ensuring they’ll download the files before self-cleaning.
The password reduces the chance of sending the link away to friend-of-a-friend or spydering.
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Results
Private, few-to-few multimidia channel.
Make sure to only invite friends with similar tastes.

now that the SDK rules are out, and any system improvement is out of the question, I’m thinking on partnering with an iphone developer for a jailbroken app.
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it should work this way:

1. click and hold home button opens camera app.
   • overrides password protection
   • respects current UI guidelines
2. release home button shoots picture.
   • picture viewing respects password protection
3. optional: automatic photo sync
4. optional: metadata editing (i can write, eh?)
   • add title
   • add description
   • add tags… er, keywords
   • add rating

those are the software-only mods I think of that can make iphone a badass picture-taking machine.
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original post here.

So, it’s February and iPhone’s SDK rules are soon to come. In this post I detail the apps I look forward to see.

Skype/Gizmo Project (voip)

Remember Safari’s safe browsing feature announcement? With shopping for xmas as an euphemism for surfing for porn? There you have it. When Apple’s say they want to “protect the network from malicious code”, they actually mean preventing voip from transforming network carriers into dumb pipes.
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kudos if apple can afford to get money from both ends, but that means not everything they do is for my best interests as a consumer. and if AT&T has employees planning their goals 24/7, we the grassroot community gotta think of ourselves too, otherwise noone will (everyone, clapping: dumb pipes! dumb pipes!).
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bonus points for address book/contacts integration: add a voip field under my contacts, so I can keep my list integrated.

Twitter (microblogging)

Ev Williams got it right, again. As email and google maps became sine-qua-non for smartphones, twitter will soon follow. Damn, how addictive it is, and how my twitter habits drained this blog away.
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bonus points if @username and direct messages interface emulates iPhone’s SMS, prompting me immediately. Think about it: it’s global SMS with none of the fees.

PDF reader/manager

iPhone’s built-in PDF reader is great, but there’s no way to access it if not from email attachments, which means you have to be connected and download each one individually.
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iTunes can subscribe to PDF podcasts so I thought iPhone could sync to it - as it does with video and audio - but apple’s sheer stupidity or some middle-aged-suit-on-cokeâ„¢ prevented it somehow.
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bonus points for torrents sync integration, send to a friend, and bookmarking/notes abilities.

Postcard it to a friend

Yes it’s true I can simply email pictures to my friends, but wouldn’t it be nice to have the ability to take a picture, write a note and send it as a print postcard to a chosen friend? Well, my address book has my contact’s address already… Well, someone thought of that. I can’t wait.
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bonus points for overseas delivery (I want to keep in touch with my brazilian family) and sleek - as in not-hallmark-like - templates. ah, and group contacts, good for networking and holiday events.

Sandy/Remember the milk/Basecamp App (GTD)

Hear apple’s notes/task list fiasco: mac’s notes/tasks sync to iphone - but as an email to myself, uneditable - while mac’s stickies and iphone’s notes sync with noone. at all. All the while I’m still waiting for a good GTD solution to carry around.
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Values of n, Remember the milk and 37 Signals seem to do a good job, online. I need an offline version of that to edit with my heart’s content.
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bonus points to whoever makes it faster, and easier. there’s a power law here, so the winner takes all.

Smart Camera Fix

I told about it before but I don’t mind repeating: click&hold home button, open camera. release, shoot. thank you.

Video Camera

Be it the lack of seamless experience (if you can’t edit and upload to youtube/podcast, why offer something incomplete?), lack of time or the lack of a revenue stream attached to it, Apple decided not to offer video recording on iPhone. But iPhone hackers everywhere proved you can record video, yes, with proof-of-concept projects ranging from 10 to 30fps. so why not?
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bonus points for basic editing features - I’m not talking about video editing, but basic favorites and rejected, tags and title, and iMovie integration.

AIR

I’m not talking about Macbook Air, but Adobe Integrated Runtime. bonus points for a dedicated iphone screen for the sandboxed applications.

Semacode Reader

Semacode is an open system 2D barcode that provides a link between physical objects and the Internet. You point and shoot the barcode, the system converts it into data and with iPhone’s integrated interface - maps, mail, contacts and web - there you go: from print to action.
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bonus points for link type management: maybe you want the maps links to open some other app, other than what apple provides you. and if you create new apps, you can always add a plugin to it.
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Imagine, you see a poster on the street, that invites you to talk to a representative: you point and click the semacode, that jumps to a skype call. from print to action, with no greedy middle man to spoil the fun: now that’s the future I want to live in.