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Application developers swarm to iPhone
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-06-17 14:48

LOS ANGELES -- Apple's soon-to-open online App Store has triggered a scramble among software developers to write business plans aimed at making money off Apple's iPhone, a mini-computer that doubles as a phone, a networking service said on Monday.

"I'm seeing an excitement among mobile developers that I've never seen before," said Sam Altman, chief executive and co-founder of Mountain View-based Loopt, a location-based social networking service.


Apple Corporation CEO Steve Jobs speaks about enhanced language support during his keynote speech at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, California June 9, 2008. The Chinese character on the iPhone display reads "fruit". [Agencies]

"People who said they'd never start a mobile (applications) company because they didn't want to rely on the carriers are now starting companies focused only on the iPhone," Altman said.

Apple recently provided the tools engineers need to create applications for its popular mobile device. Some 250,000 iPhone software development kits have been downloaded.

The App Store Web site, where applications will be sold or given away, is expected to launch soon, perhaps July 11 when the faster next-generation iPhone goes on sale.

Apple could be creating a billion-dollar industry built around the iPhone and App Store could create a 1 billion-dollar-plus iPhone ecosystem by the end of 2009, market analysts said.

Last week, 5,200 software developers packed San Francisco's Moscone Center for Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference. For the first time, mobile software writers were invited. Apple offered a taste of the types of services iPhone owners could experience very soon, including near real-time updates and video from Major League Baseball, sophisticated location-based social networking that allows people to find friends, and video games in which users play by tilting the iPhone.

What excites many developers are the iPhone's capabilities and its "stable" software platform, which makes writing programs for it relatively easy and quick.

The iPhone "puts the Internet in your pocket, whether it's e-mail, whether it's Web browsing, whether's it's YouTube," Apple Vice President Greg Joswiak said. "The entire Internet is in your pocket."

The iPhone's capabilities are sure to become even greater after Apple rolls out its newest version, dubbed 3G for "third generation," which company CEO Steve Jobs says will operate twice as fast as the inaugural device, released just a year ago.