iPhone jailbreaking is a fake concept; iPhone long-tail of apps biznis model is fake too; iPad might be a really good new type of device :-)

I'm talking about two subjects in this blog post.

1. Now I know: the real reason you buy an iPhone is because "it is nice, usable and it just works". Now matter what happens it just works - you don't need to configure stuff too much. Really not the case for a cheap netbook from Asus when you have two mobile network modems from the same provider inside.

People is upset because Apple is so closed and strict about rules. So I wanted to taste this unlocking and jailbreaking. Why the first one makes sense for roaming when you stay longer - the last one is just fake.

It's something like 18 months since I have my first iPhone 3G - and I just refuse to stay any longer on JailBreak. Why ? Because there are some applications (and I'm really bored to promote them here) and they f***d my iPhone's stability once installed. It started to be slow, it started to behave strangely, low on memory, etc.

I know that iPhone could have been much better to allow multi-tasking even since 3G - but also the guys who made those jailbreak applications could have been smarter to not break the stability of an existing good toy.

What's the point to create an app just to prove that a good stable hardware can be unstable - what's the business benefit for a real customer having real stuff to do in his life and no time to spent un useless configurations and tweaks ? :-)

I can provide details in private about what apps I tested in jailbreak.


2. The second subject I want to talk here is this iPhone business model of long-tail-apps. At the beginning I was so amazed that I invested some legal money into testing some applications. Please don't laugh about me - I know it's not "standard" to live in Romania and have legal licenses for all the software I use in personal life - I'm sorry about this.

At the moment I'm writing this - I have almost 9 pages of applications in my iPhone 3G. Again please don't laugh - but I want to confess. I would categorize the applications into few categories.

The first category is "applications that you use even they are on the last page - or somewhere in the middle". These are the applications that really makes sense - they provide some real value - they will live forver or be acquired by a more aggressive investor. I will name here the apps that I consider in this category: SoundHound, SMS, camera, Navigon, Clock, Maps, Settings, Skype (or Fring/Nimbuzz), Yahoo Messenger, Digg, Kindle, HomeBudget, AppStore, AccuWeather, Currency, DecibelMetter, Oxford Multilang, iTeleport, Jaadu RDP, Sygic Mobile Europe, Weather, TouchTerm, roDex, iPod, SunLight, Google, LinkedIn, DropBox.

This first category is about applications you explain to other people not having an iPhone. SoundHound (which keeps changing it's name) is the most amazing one - you hear a song you like and it's recognized immediately - it's just an example of "power of one click".

In the second category there are applications which I won't bother to mention here because they don't deserve any mention in the digital life. Some of them were retired, most of them never got updates, etc. This is quite a good indicator that an application is trying to do something: make updates ...

In the 3rd category there are applications which I'm upset to have spent some money on. On one side it's a failure of strictness from Apple sometimes (for the applications which just crash) - on the other side it's good for free speech to have them. I can mention some names because I was very upset to spend some money on them: tv guide, iGo (yes it's a disappoint versus the other 2 GPS apps I have), type of backgrounds, songs, flashlight, converters of all kind, Paris city map by lonely planet, national geographic atlas, web radios which no longer work and are not updated, thermomether, cook receipts, drink receipts, rss news reader (no good client yet), iPhone specific utilities, etc.

In my opinion only the first category will survive in time. The second category makes a good impression for the moment but you immediately forget about them. You only remind them when you think like "but why do I have so many apps which are unused" ?

It was the trend to create new apps - the gold-rush I think did cool-down or will do soon - so only the real iPhone builders will remain in business.



3. So to summarize: the reason that I still love my iPhone and will wait for the iPhone-HD is: it's fu****g tested and has a fantastic usability - it just works. Some apps were designed to fail - but also their business model is designed to fail. But the respect to quality that Apple is maintaining will survive and increase conversion to Apple-fun.


4. I see more and more buddies and friends having iPhones. Now I see this trend even for older people. I explained few days ago to a 74 years old educated woman who never used a computer before about the iPhone and especially about books related apps. She immediately told me when she could have use such a toy (and she started to describe moments when she can do nothing really useful due to external conditions).


5. iPhone is not only the toy you use while waiting for the elevator or in the bathroom - but it's also the toy use use to read some news when your significant-other sleep and you're almost to do the same but still not convinced. It's the toy which is "always available at your finger" with immediate availability (no huge setup time, just works, no configuration mess).

So given all these - I'm starting to think about an iPad which just works for consuming information and media - and drop this f*****g untested Asus netbook I'm using now to type this - because I wasted almost few mornings to configure 2 wireless providers having Huawei modems :-) This wouldn't happen on an Iphone - it just works.