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The big news Monday at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco was of course CEO Steve Jobs’ announcement of a 3G version of the iPhone. But the company also made several software announcements that could set a new standard for getting new and innovative applications to market quickly.

There’s no question that Apple’s launch of the iPhone last year changed the handset market. The touchscreen device loaded with a full Web browser that allows people to shrink and enlarge Web pages set a new standard for what people can expect when surfing the Net on their phones.

But with the SDK and the soon-to-be-launched application store, Apple has shown the true power and vision of the iPhone, which goes well beyond simple Web browsing on the go. The company has created a powerful platform for developing new applications, plus a set of simple tools that can be used to quickly and easily bring new mobile applications to market. And it’s created an App Store, linked with its popular iTunes music and video store, where these applications can be easily searched for and downloaded.

“A device is nothing without applications,” said Ken Dulaney, an analyst with Gartner. “The one lesson you can take away from Microsoft is that once you attract the developers the rest is an easy coast downhill. And I’m incredibly impressed at the speed in which Apple’s application development platform has matured.”

For many application developers, creating applications for the mobile environment can be a time-consuming process. There are hundreds of different handset models with different processing capabilities and screen sizes. And there are dozens of operating systems. Mobile developers often find themselves developing various versions of their product so they can fit on a wide range of devices. As a result, it can take several months just to launch a single application.

Apple has tried to alleviate this problem with a simple-to-use tool that allows developers to create applications by simply dragging and dropping icons, slashing the time for development into a matter of weeks. During the keynote Monday, Scott Forstall, senior vice president of iPhone software at Apple, took the audience through the actual developer experience, demonstrating how quickly and easily a complex service can be created.

Specifically he showed how he could merge contacts databases and location-aware services. He also showed how easily the completed application could be tested right on the Mac for bugs or to make different aesthetic choices, such as whether to put things in the toolbar or within the regular fields.

“The tool is amazing,” said Sam Altman, CEO of Loopt, one of several companies that has used the iPhone SDK to develop an iPhone application. “In two months, we were able to make the best version of Loopt we’ve ever created. It’s taken us nearly a year to create other versions of our software.”

Loopt already has its application on phones that use the Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless networks. These service providers offer Loopt’s friend-tracking application for a monthly fee. iPhone Loopt users will be able to get it for free.

But it’s not just the ability to create applications more quickly and more easily that excites application developers; Apple has also created a rich environment in which to develop the applications. The APIs used in the SDK are the same ones Apple uses to develop applications internally. And there are many similarities between the iPhone’s operating system and the Mac OS X, making it easier for Mac developers to create rich applications.

“The underlying software platform for the iPhone is much more powerful than any other mobile device we’ve seen,” said Jeffrey Litvack, global product development director for the Associated Press. “It just makes it much easier for us to show off all our multimedia content, like videos and pictures. It’s more challenging on other platforms.”

Loopt’s Altman agreed.

“The quality of mobile applications for the iPhone is just so much better,” he said.

Apple invited several developers to show off their applications. In addition to the friend finder Loopt application, Sega demonstrated a new version of Super Monkey Ball. eBay showed off a new application for keeping track of auctions. And others such as Modality showed an application that gives medical students up-close views of human body parts to help them study anatomy. Major League Baseball demonstrated an application that gives near real-time updates on games. And the Associated Press showed off an application that sends out local news based on a user’s location. (Demonstrations of these applications can be found here.

There are other problems that application developers face that Apple promises to help solve, namely distribution. In a traditional model, application developers can either distribute their applications independently or they can work directly with mobile operators.

Companies such as Handango have created application stores for devices like Research In Motion’s BlackBerry that developers can use to distribute their applications. There are also stores for Windows Mobile devices and ones created for the Symbian operating system, which is used by Nokia. But consumers are often unfamiliar with these stores making it difficult for developers to count on a reliable distribution chain.

The other option for application developers is to work directly with mobile operators so that their applications are either embedded in specific handsets or can be found on the carrier’s “deck.”

Getting “on deck” or embedded in a specific phone is often a long, arduous process. And once an application has made it this far, it’s no guarantee that it will be easily discovered by users. Embedded applications usually have an icon that may be prominently displayed. And applications in carrier decks can be buried beneath several layers of menu. Application developers are constantly fighting for a top spot in these menus.

“Discoverability is a challenge for all application developers,” said Tom Frencel, president of Cabybara Games, a mobile games company. “Some of these menus are pretty deep and they’re difficult to navigate. “

During his keynote Monday, Jobs officially announced the upcoming iPhone App Store, which was first talked about in March when he announced the release of the iPhone software development kit.

The App Store isn’t yet available so it’s difficult to say for sure how it will work, but it’s likely that the interface will look very similar to the popular iTunes music and video store. iPhone users will be able to browse the store directly on their phones and download applications either over the cellular network or over a Wi-Fi connection. And for iPhone users who want to look for applications on their PC, they can use the PC-based iTunes to search, download, and purchase applications just like if they were looking for songs, videos, or podcasts.

“Millions of people are already using iTunes,” Frencel added. “I think the PC is the most powerful interface to browse content anyway, so it makes sense to use it.”

Today, Apple’s iPhone makes up only a small percentage of the overall cell phone market. But it’s quickly gaining ground on smartphone competitors such as Research In Motion, Nokia, and Palm. The basic design and functionality of the iPhone has set the bar for a phone of this class. And if Apple can broaden the device’s appeal with thousands of cool third-party applications that are easy to find and just as easy to access, then it just might set the bar yet again in the mobile market.

Granted, these aren’t real video games, but two Web sites are pushing what can be done with interactive interfaces to Google Maps and Google Earth.

This rudimentary game lets people drive various vehicles around Google Maps. Here I’m taking a semi through Tokyo traffic.

(Credit: Geoquake)

The first, taking advantage of Google Maps’ new ability to work with Flash applications, lets you drive a car, bus, or truck around Google Maps. It won’t bat an eye if you drive through a building or into the ocean, but Katsuomi Kobayashi, the programmer from Osaka, Japan, who wrote it, was happy to note that the software can display images at 40 frames per second vs. 20 at best for JavaScript. And it uses less CPU power, too.

This basic flight simulator works with the Google Earth browser plug-in.

(Credit: Barnabu.co.uk)

Another novelty is a flight simulator for the browser plug-in version of Google Earth announced at Google I/O a week and a half ago. (This is different from the flight sim that works with the Google Earth standalone software.) It works with recent versions of Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Flock, but on Windows only.

Again, the software is crude by gaming standards, but it does illustrate what can be done these days inside a browser. I’m among those who’s interested to watch Google Earth abilities gradually pop up in Google Maps and in the browser, and it’s easily conceivable to me that we’ll soon be seeing all manner of games that run on the 3D models of the real world that Google and Microsoft are building. Lower network latencies, faster server responses, and higher network data capacity all point in that direction.

(Via Google Geo Developers Blog and Google Maps Mania.)

Bertrand Serlet, Apple’s senior VP of software engineering, told WWDC 2008 attendees about Snow Leopard Monday afternoon.

(Credit: Apple)

Scores of sites picked up on a press release that went out from Apple Canada and was pulled at some point after it went live. According to the release, Snow Leopard–which Apple CEO Steve Jobs confirmed is the code name for 10.6–will focus more on improving the basic plumbing of the operating system than adding any catchy new features, as The Unofficial Apple Weblog reported last week.

Apple’s Bertrand Serlet was scheduled to address Apple’s developers in a session closed to the press Monday afternoon to go over 10.6, and now we have some idea of what he’s telling them; much to the chagrin of Apple PR, I suspect. Snow Leopard will improve support for multicore processors and allow developers to exploit powerful graphics processors, as we reported last week.

The release will also come with a new version of Quicktime that improves video playback, and a faster version of Safari. According to the reports, Apple expects to ship 10.6 “in about a year

“I’m not trembling,” Anu Kirk, Rhapsody’s director of product management, said Monday at the iHollywood conference. “I’m sure they are going to sell a lot of second-generation iPhones. It’s a fantastic product but they can’t take over the United States with just one carrier.”

Kirk was speaking on a panel discussing the mobile music category and specifically about cell phones as music players. The discussion took place as Apple CEO Steve Jobs was introducing the new iPhone 3G at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.

Kirk doesn’t think the iPhone 3G can duplicate iPod’s success, at least not with just AT&T as the phone’s only carrier. Any debate about the iPhone’s dominance over music apparently has to wait.

The mobile version of the iTunes music store will remain accessible only over the phone’s Wi-Fi connection, according to CNET’s Donald Bell, who wrote cited Apple’s iPhone 3G product page. Bell wrote that “it does seem like Apple has missed an obvious opportunity to allow users more ways to purchase music.”

Rhapsody and Napster already enable many iPhone competitors to download music over 3G. This had to come as welcome news to those companies as rumors swirl in the music industry that Apple is considering whether to launch a subscription service.

In March, the Financial Times reported that Apple is considering an all-you-can-eat plan in which users would receive free access to iTunes “in exchange for paying a premium for its iPod and iPhone devices. Sources told CNET News.com that the music labels would agree if Apple shared revenue on device sales. So far, nothing has come of it.

And nothing will–or at least that’s what Kirk thinks anyway. His suspicion is that Apple won’t enter the subscription business because it conflicts with the company’s prime goal of selling hardware.

“Apple’s model is to get you to buy a bigger device every 18 months or two years,” Kirk said. “You fill up your iPod, you go, ‘Oh, I’m going to buy the new iPod with twice as much memory.’ In a subscription world, the size of your device matters a lot less cause you can swap out the content. In a world like that the consumer has a lot less incentive to buy a bigger device.”

Subscriptions aside, is Apple choosing to ignore cell phones as music players at this point? It wouldn’t be missing out on much.

The U.S. consumer has largely ignored their phones as music machines. Kirk noted that the sector is hobbled by the lack of memory in most phones to store music and the high costs. These often include paying for cell phone and data-service plans on top of the music.

Not what you would call a good deal.

The new version of Acrobat, Acrobat 9, includes the ability to deeply integrate Flash. It’s the fruit of the combination of Macromedia and Adobe finally coming together in each companies core products. With the new embed-ability you can incorporate movies as well as use Flex/Flash as a front end to your PDF content.

The more significant announcement in my mind is the roll out of Acrobat.com. As Scoble notes, we’re trying to change the way people work. Flash has been associated with video, animation, and annoying ads, but underneath all that is a platform that’s perfect for real time communication and a more engaging collaboration toolset. We’re finally bringing all of the pieces of the platform together to provide that.

It starts with Buzzword, which hopefully will become a hub for anyone working with documents on the web. You get a great UI and the ability to quickly add multiple users to a document and then see where changes have been made. But it also spans regular document management. We’ve had a beta of Share up for a while but now Share is integrated with Buzzword and with Acrobat 9 so you can share any document or any piece of information and then embed it on a page ala Scribd or Docstoc. As part of the service we’re also allowing you to convert your documents to PDF. The final piece is ConnectNow. Connect is a online meeting application similar to WebEx. But Connect uses the Flash Player so it works cross-platform on Mac, Windows, and Linux (the add-in which enables screen sharing isn’t available on Linux however).

I think that’s the main appeal of something like Acrobat.com. It’s built on Flash so you get the same experience on Mac, Windows, and Linux. The team has also released an AIR application so you can access some of the services by dragging and dropping your files. The integration with Acrobat 9 further closes the web/desktop gap. We’ve also exposed a set of APIs that developers can use to take advantage of some of these services. We’ll be rolling out more of these soon.

As an employee, I think this is a big step for the company. It’s a good use of the platform, it shows that we have a life beyond shrink-wrapped software, and it plays to our strengths – PDF, rich media, collaboration, and Flash. I think it’ a good example of RIA technologies being more than just fluff and fancy user interfaces.

Adobe launched Monday a beta version of Acrobat.com an online office suite that allows you to create word processing documents, share files, convert PDFs and hold Web conferences. For more information, read Larry Dignan’s blog.

Here’s the online home page for the tools. You can also download a copy for your desktop to work offline.

Click on any image in this gallery to enlarge.

Warning, remember this is a brand new, free beta. The problem only lasted a few minutes.

Opening a document.

Add images by choosing the “Insert Image” icon, choose an image off your hard drive, drag and drop the image to the position you choose, and resize by clicking on the corner of your image.

When sharing a Buzzword document you can add a comment by clicking on the comment icon.

To create a table, hit the table icon and a box that you can click on to create a table will appear next to it. Then you can fill it out.

Click here to read more Screenshots: Adobe’s Acrobat.com office suite

On Monday, Adobe unveiled Acrobat.com, a suite that allows you to create word processing documents, share files, convert PDFs and hold Web conferences.

Simply put, Acrobat.com is the best looking online office suite on the block (Techmeme). Google Docs, Zoho and other entrants look fine, but don’t exactly stretch the imagination with the interface. Using Flash, Adobe’s suite, which includes Buzzword word processor, PDF converter and Web conferencing applications, is slick. Adobe’s online applications easily pass–and often top–what you’d find on the desktop. In fact, Adobe’s ConnectNow seems to be the killer app in the suite and could be a threat to WebEx.

Here’s Buzzword:

And the collaboration tool:

And PDF converter:

The big question: How much will the interface matter? Adobe’s online office suite would clearly win a beauty contest, but it’s unclear whether users care. There’s something about Google Docs that just works. Ditto for Zoho. What’s the lock-in factor here? If I’m using one online office suite I may not try another just because swapping platforms can get confusing if you create a bunch of documents.

We’ll see how the answers to those questions turn out, but Adobe has another clear motive here. The online suite is a nice way to show off Flash. In addition, Adobe Acrobat 9, which was announced Monday, includes support for Flash. The goal: Create a defensible software and services strategy that will lead to a virtuous sales cycle among various Adobe products.

Acrobat.com is designed to give Acrobat 9 customers a “personal workspace in the clouds,” according to Adobe’s statement. You can see where this is headed: For Acrobat 9 customers Acrobat.com (statement) is a hybrid software model to keep them in the fold. Meanwhile, Adobe hopes that Acrobat.com will get a few folks to buy its software.

Acrobat 9 offers native support for Flash, touts document sharing and allows users to manage portfolios of PDFs. All of these features work with Acrobat.com in what Adobe hopes will be a nice sales cycle.

Adobe’s Acrobat 9 combined with Acrobat.com seems to hit on multiple goals for the company. All it needs now is the user traction. Adobe’s suite certainly has the looks.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=8969