As the number of apps in the iPhone's AppStore tops 38,000, JOHN HARRIS discovers that rivals including Google, Blackberry, Palm and Microsoft are muscling in on the App act.

If imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, then the iPhone’s AppStore has won great praise indeed.

When Apple launched its iPhone in 2007, most attention focused on features such as its great touchscreen, the convenient integration of its programs and a “visual voicemail” feature that has not yet made its way to Australian mobile networks.

Although many reports mentioned the iPhone’s AppStore almost as an afterthought, it has become one of the phone’s greatest assets.

The AppStore is a software catalogue on the iPhone that lets you select, download and install small programs to run on the handset.

Apps (shorts for applications) range from iPhone-friendly versions of popular web services such as Facebook and Skype to specialist programs that allow you to record messages or find where you left your car. While many apps are free, some are purchased by credit card through an iTunes account.

According to iPhone applications fan site http://148apps.biz/, more than 38,000 apps are available from the AppStore.

That fact has not escaped the attention of rival mobile phone software developers.
Google followed suit with its Android Market at http://www.android.com/market/ for its Linux-powered Android mobile phone.

BlackBerry manufacturer Research In Motion has launched the BlackBerry App World program at http://blackberry.com/appworld (although you must first download and install its appworld program).

Smartphone pioneer Palm, seeking too regain ground ceded in recent years, is about launch its new Pre handset, backed by a Palm Software Store with more than 5000 apps at http://www.palm.com/au/software/.

Likewise, Microsoft, which hates to miss out on any party where money is being made, has announced plans for a Windows Marketplace for Mobile in Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system, due later this year.

These diverse mobile phone program catalogues greatly simplify the process of extending a phone’s functionality.

Examples from my iPhone include a Facebook app that lets me monitor and adding photos to my Facebook page while I’m on the road, a kitchen app to simplify ingredient conversions and, my favourite, a Dictionary app to for anytime anywhere access to www.dictionary.com. All of these are free.

In the case of the iPhone, this enriched functionality is important because, on the Optus network, it still makes a hash of some phone calls - by regularly garbling calls with “underwater” distortion, as reported in my iPhone review last year (Independent Weekly, August 8, 2008).

John Harris is the managing director of Impress Media Australia. You can view his website at www.johnharis.net.au .

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