With the impending launch of the 2.0 OS for the iPhone allowing third parties to build iPhone applications, now is the ideal time to be rolling out an extension of your existing web system for iPhone users. I’m not talking about a different web version but a truly native app that links to your web system.

There is a huge amount of market hype already and many information hungry users and enthusiasts looking for that new ‘mobile’ application. It may have existed on the web for years, but putting a dedicated version in a user’s pocket takes things to a new level.

Depending on your business model you may be able to publish the application for free but then charge users a monthly usage fee similar to your current web users. This opens up your base of potential users installing the app directly from the Apple App Store.

And since the development platform allows pretty ready access to standard URL based services, you should be able to create that native effort without the huge labor it might take to reskin your whole site for a mobile device. If  you use intelligent caching, the user will never have to care if they’re on the EDGE network, WiFi or 300 feet underground — it’ll just work.

And of course if you’re doing it right, the other advantage is that it’ll force you to identify the top 10% of the features in your web system to build into the app.  iPhone users demand simple and elegant interfaces. This simplifies your development, provides a better user experience and may even help you refocus your web development efforts on important areas too.

Tags: iPhone, revenue

This entry was posted on Friday, June 6th, 2008 at 7:58 am and is filed under Making Money With Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.