Only a few hours to wait (9 AM Pacific Time) and Apple will unveil its new Mobile Me service, iPhone 3G and App Store. This last one may simply be the biggest news of all. Ever since Apple released its iPhone Developer Kit enthusiasm among independent developers has been incredibly strong, reflected by the sold out WorldWide Developer Conference, which was largely dedicated to the iPhone.
Although, typically, little information has leaked on the App Store, Steve Jobs has mentioned that already 500 different applications will be available, with a quarter of them being free while the rest should only cost a max of $9.99. Also, according to the New York Times, a third of the applications will be games. The rest will have its fair share of educational, communication, productivity and other sorts of programs. Forbes states that Apple will take a 30% cut on the sale of any iPhone application, and in the long term developers will be able to set their own prices.
We’ve already seen demos of many iPhone apps and games in the last few months, but with the imminent launch of the App Store I’ve noticed many video demos are now unavailable. A case of Apple cracking down just to make sure all eyes are on the App Store? In any case I’m anxious to see how all these applications will make use of the most exciting iPhone features like Multi-Touch and its different sensors. Apple is entering a whole new territory here, but it seems they’ve got everything well covered. One more market conquered?
