Apple’s iPhone has radically changed the mobile applications landscape by opening up mobile application development to any web development firm using Web 2.0 standard technology.  No longer is a specialized team who know the intricacies of proprietary cell phone software development necessary.  This allows much faster development of mobile apps and also removes the dependency on a mobile carrier to approve software on their wireless network. And with the 3G iPhone coming soon, web apps will be even faster than the current versions.

What is Web 2.0?

Web 2.0 is the term commonly used to describe a new generation of web technologies and their focus on interactivity and data collaboration.  The core technology is typically AJAX (javascript in a web browser which talks back to the web server), which provides the snazzy functionality in sites like Google maps.  This new level of interactivity in a web page also usually includes providing the user access to different types of data at the same time (merging functionality from different web sites together in a single place).

Any Web Developer Can Do It…

Using web technologies to build connected apps has proven to be more efficient than using traditional mobile technologies. Mobile applications today are typically developed in J2ME (Java for phones), Brew or .Net, depending on what the target phone(s) support.  These technologies provide a standard but often require phone specific tweaks as not all phones behave the same way.  Usually this meant that a development team built up a special library over time that handled the quirks and work arounds for various phones.

Using Web 2.0 technologies means that nearly any capable web developer with any technology skill set (Java, Open Source, Microsoft, etc.) can now create mobile applications. It also means that existing applications can have new ‘skins’ applied to them to allow already developed functionality to be rolled out in a mobile environment.

All this boils down to it being much faster to build a connected app using web technologies than with traditional mobile technologies.

For example, during a recent Lextech training session, a small team developed a web app that pulled news headlines from the Tribune, created an audio file with the converted text to speech and sent it to the iPhone. With only about 4 hours of development work, the iPhone read news headlines aloud to the user.

Power to the People

With the mobile Web 2.0 revolution, wireless carriers are no longer the gate keepers controlling what applications users can access.  The mobile user merely points their web browser to the correct place and away they go.  This also simplifies the often nightmarish aspects of rolling out and updating applications that live inside of cell phones.  Now an update to the main server updates the mobile application for everyone.

Companies Already on Board

Many leading online firms are already creating iPhone specific versions of their applications to better serve existing customers and tap into the growing market of mobile app demanding consumers. Google, Facebook and LinkedIn have already rolled out versions of their applications dedicated to iPhone users. 

The Future…

The iPhone is merely the first in what will be a wave of Web 2.0 standards capable mobile devices in the market.  This mobile revolution will rapidly accelerate new kinds of applications we’ve never seen before and allow deeper interactivity while we’re physically anywhere.

Security researchers have uncovered a massive database of web site FTP logins and passwords to web sites around the world, including many well known sites. The scary twist is that the crooks behind the database have put in place a trading and payment interface to allow less talented thieves to purchase access to these compromised sites and even automatically upload tools to help them attack site visitors.

Even the bad guys are getting into the software as a service model.

I just had the opportunity to put video conferencing to a real trial by fire in an unexpected setting - a hospital waiting room. The other challenge was making the link using only a cellular broadband card — no ethernet, no wifi.

Much to my surprise in conversations with both the Mac’s iChat doing video over AIM and Skype using video, the conversation and video were very usable. iChat compensated for the limited bandwidth by having good looking but more jerky video (fewer frames per second). Skype was smoother with a higher frame rate but was much fuzzier. It was definitely not on par with a high speed desktop connection, but the ability to have a video connection from essentially anywhere was pretty amazing.

Applying the iPhone’s capabilities to existing real world systems is going to be a large new revenue source for companies in the next 12-24 months. Adding a mobile interface to systems that traditionally required a user to be sitting at their desk will open up many new opportunities. The new touch screen interface will also change how we interact with those systems, creating all new ways to use technology.

As an example, traditional surveillance systems use a joystick or mouse to control camera positioning. With the iPhone, the user has the potential of a much more intuitive interface to drag the camera around and zoom in on things by pinching the picture.

Here’s a little sample of one of the internal projects we’re working on right now showing off the capabilities of the iPhone.

Part 1 - iPhone controlling surveillance equipment

Part 2 - zoomed in view of iPhone

Update #2: We’ve put up a survey asking about the types of features you’d like to see in an iPhone/iPod based security & surveillance app.  

Update:  Based on the feedback we’ve received so far, we’d be happy to let you know more about the application as it gets closer to release.  If you’d like to receive an email when the app is ready, please enter your contact info below.

The team here has been working diligently on a wide variety of iPhone apps for quite a while.  Having our official development keys, we’re cranking things out using the new OS.  We’ve even been holding internal training events on building iPhone apps. We are building applications to extend some of our clients’ systems as well as stand alone apps that will be available through the Apple store.

As they each get closer to being ready for distribution we’ll be posting more details here.  First up — controlling uber high end surveillance equipment using the iPhone!

Ok, I’ll preface this article mentioning that having and managing more then one computer at a time is a not typical problem for most people.

However, for the typical nerdy keyboard jockey it can become a cumbersome task. Thankfully, the guys over at http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/ have developed a cross-platform tool to effortlessly share your keyboard, mouse, and clipboard over any combination of OS X, Windows, and Linux computers. I’ve had my MacBook Pro, Windows XP, and Ubuntu 7.04 machines all lined up and controllable with a single mouse and keyboard without any extra hardware. You can even sync screen savers on most systems.

All thats required is a minimal knowledge of networking to modify a configuration file on the host machine to correctly point to client machines on the network and configure their screen positions (left of host, above host etc. etc.). I’d strongly suggest giving this a shot before you run out to the store for a hardware solution.

I’m proud to say that through the hard work of a bunch of folks on our team, Lextech has a new online image. The web site does a much better job communicating our focus on building technology based revenue streams for clients and this blog will let us get lots of content out to the world much quicker.

With 6+ writers for the blog you’ll see all kinds of useful revenue generating ideas and technology tidbits appearing.