Download it here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pill-finder/id454149950?mt=8#

Those numbers might be a bit deceptive, but they do point to an important increase in smartphone sales. That 96% quarterly increase in smartphone sales might only amount to 19% of overall mobile phone sales in Q3 2010, though that translates to nearly 80M new units of smartphones worldwide — a huge new market for your mobile apps. According to the Gartner Group report, Apple especially benefited in Q3 2010, moving into the top five manufacturers, surpassing RIM. (Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android are still battling in the top two places for Mobile OS, though Apple’s iPhone 4 is dominating in smartphone sales in the U.S.)

Now pair this smartphone sales information with the MMA (Mobile Marketing Association) report, “October 2010 U.S. Mobile Consumer Briefing,” whose survey results suggest that nearly 60% of mobile consumers will use their phone for holiday shopping and planning. This includes using their phone for planning holiday celebrations, finding holiday gifts, comparing their spending expectations between 2009 and 2010, making purchases and more. In fact, at least 13% of consumers surveyed also expect to use their phone for gift purchases.

Positive Impact on Your Business
It’s true that countries in Europe and Asia have been using their mobile phones for product/ service payments for years, though this is a newer use for N. Americans. Consumers are obviously feeling increasingly comfortable in using mobile phones for shopping-related tasks in general, and with the ability of apps running on smartphones, the consumer shopping experience will continue to improve. As more consumers grow comfortable using smartphone apps for shopping, such apps will be commonplace for more than just holiday use — especially as the use by retailers of barcode/ QR code-based mobile coupon offers grows.

Mobile apps allow shoppers the convenience of checking for both local and online bargains, comparing, saving details, receiving alerts about deals, and much more. If this convenience is something that you want to offer your mobilized customers, start planning a mobile strategy now, for 2011. Especially consider how your target market could benefit from a mobile app. Start with a fairly simple mobile app and be first in your niche or industry, to gain an advantage over competitors in coming years. Add new features to your app regularly, as its usage grows.

Want to learn more about how a mobile app can help your business? Feel free to contact us to discuss a strategy.

For those of you who enjoy marathon races, the Marine Corps Marathon (MCM) is one of the largest in the world. It is the eighth-largest in the world, fourth-largest in the U.S., and the largest such race with no prize money — hence it’s nickname, The People’s Marathon. Past races have had participants from as many as 50 countries. At a course length of just over 26 miles, there’s a lot for runners to prepare for and onlookers to track. Mobomo’s new, first of its kind RaceMate(tm) mobile app is exactly what you need to enhance the MCM race-day experience. The app is available for the iPhone, iPod Touch,  iPad, and Android Phone.

RaceMate is packed with features, including a countdown timer, a course map, pre-viz animation, a pace calculator and more. The embedded marathon map not only shows landmarks such as aid stations, water & food spots and mile markers but actual GPS-based locations of race participants. Track your favorite runner in real-time.

Can’t make it to the race? With an expected 30K runners and many more spectators, not everyone can or wants to be present. The Location-Based Services (LBS) mobile technology used in the RaceMate app means that you can cheer on and track your favorite runner on race day without being present. Both runners and spectators will need their smartphones; however, market research suggests nearly 85% of runners own a smart phone and that almost half of race participants will carry a smartphone will carry a smartphone during the marathon (MCM press release).

More info: The 35th Annual MCM takes place on Oct 31st, 2010, in Arlington, VA. The Marathon Tour starts Oct 20th and passes through several American cities on the way to Arlington. An associated free two-day Health and Fitness Expo starts Oct 29th and includes a Speaker Series as well as over 200 exhibitors. The marathon race itself is open to runners aged 14 and up. For more details, visit the following links:

• Marine Corps Marathon — Official site. Will provide race split times and finisher data.
• Wikipedia — MCM profile.
• Mobomo RaceMate mobile app for the iPhone. Only $1.99, available now through iTunes.
• RaceMate iPhone App Facebook Fan Page.

The Android edition of RaceMate is now available at your favorite Android app marketplace.

Upcoming, Spring 2011: editions for other races in Los Angeles, London and Boston.

Need advice on how your business can leverage the mobile platform? Feel free to contact us to discuss your app idea or mobile campaign needs.

Leadership and Values offers a fun game-style interface as well as visual help screens to help you navigate your way through the app. Choose from the stack of 52 cards listing possible core values and drag each card into one of three columns: “Definite core value”, “Maybe core value”, and “Not core value.” After you’ve grouped all 52 cards into the three columns, you can browse each stack to verify your choices or move them to another stack.

The next step is to select your top 5 core values. Edit your Top 5 stack until your satisfied. The Leadership and Values app then displays a beautiful screen quoting one famous or semi-famous person for each of the five core values that you selected.

This iPhone app is designed to promote core leadership values and enable students, teachers, and alumni to interactively discover their top leadership values. Using a fun step-by-step process, the user is educated on Concordia’s core leadership values, and is ultimately presented with a personalized result. This project demonstrates how Mobomo can create engaging mobile applications to educate individuals. Similar interfaces can be developed, for example, for FTC consumers to learn “how to” file a complaint or order a truly free credit report.

Get the Leadership and Values iPhone app free from iTunes or the Apple App Store now.

Need advice on a mobile app for your business? Just want to know how you can leverage the mobile platform in general? Feel free to contact us to discuss your app idea or mobile campaign needs.

QuickQ’s unique selling proposition? Temporary music lists for those times you’re waiting in airports, in line somewhere, impromptu parties or a quick playlist to help you get to sleep. QuickQ achieves this by letting music items disappear from your playlist as they finish playing.

Get QuickQ now from iTunes for only $0.99, and use the attractive help screen, with overlaid notations, to get up to speed with on your temporary playlists.

Need advice on a mobile app for your business? Just want to know how you can leverage the mobile platform in general? Feel free to contact us to discuss your app idea or mobile campaign needs.

Search

Search for a domain name and automatically see availability for various popular TLDs (Top Level Domains) including .com, .net, .org and more. (Search results appear after every character typed, provided you stop typing.) If a domain is free, Network Solutions’ registration price is listed beside it. Otherwise, it’ll be marked as “Taken.”

Whois

If a domain you’re searching for is already registered, use the built-in “whois” feature to get information on the registrant, in case you want to dig further on the listed registry and make the owner an offer.

Brainstorm

Is your first choice of domain name taken? Why not get creative and use the Brainstorm feature?  Enter a keyword or two, spin the wheel or shake your phone, and you’ll get a random combination of related domain names. Want more flexibility? Specify advanced options including hyphenation, geography, digits, misspellings and more. From the results list, you can also retrieve a list of expired domains, premium domains, and more.

Shopping Cart

Found the domain you want? Pop it in the shopping cart and keep looking. When you’re ready, make your domain purchases directly from your iPhone. The sliding scale lets you specify registration durations of 1, 2, 3 and 5 years. Pay by credit card by logging in to your Network Solutions account, or create an account. Not comfortable with paying from the app? Use the “call” feature to call Network Solutions on your phone and make your purchase that way.

Other Features

Want to check on a previous domain search? Use the Search History feature. Need some help? Use the help screen or email, send feedback or call Network Solutions directly from your iPhone.

Get Network Solutions’ DomainStorm app free from iTunes or the Apple App Store now.

Need advice on a mobile app for your business? Just want to know how you can leverage the mobile platform in general? Feel free to contact us to discuss your app idea or mobile campaign needs.

If you hadn’t heard, Apple, Inc’s official iPhone 4 launch day was today, Thur Jun 24th, and there were lineups everywhere in many of the 9 countries that were part of the first round release. From all accounts, it was a madhouse, and there’ll likely be lineups for the next few days — maybe even weeks in some areas.

Save yourself some time by finding out how line conditions are with the Line Snob app running on your existing iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch. Or let everyone else know by posting line conditions wherever you are (within the 25 cities that are covered by the app).

Of course, Line Snob isn’t just for reporting/ viewing iPhone 4 sales lines, but in fact any live events or venues in your city. It’s the social way to wait in line.

Line Snob, which was built for Line Snob, LLC, by Mobomo, nearly melted our servers, thanks to the huge surge from today’s iPhone 4 line updates after being headlined in Gizmodo and covered by CNN. As a result, it made it to the Apple App Store’s Top 25 Apps list for the Social Networking category.

Line Snob is free; get it now from the Apple App Store!

Current Usage Situation

When the 4th-generation iPhone becomes available in the first round of countries on Jun 24th (preorders online in those countries starting Jun 15th), FaceTime will work only over WiFi, between two 4th-gen iPhones, only. There are consumers who will get the iPhone 4 for that reason alone. That’s a very limited usage scenario and not necessarily enough to win over sales of iPhone 4.

What’s Coming

However, there are some other parameters to the usage equation that are not yet taken into account.

1. Cellular networks: Availability over 3G or higher cellular networks. FaceTime over 3G has already been promised by Apple. I honestly don’t care about this given AT&T’s change in data plan pricing. So unless Apple gives AT&T a stern talking to about the data plans, or gives other U.S. carriers the iPhone, I don’t see this as a big deal.
2. Other phones: Usage over any other handset makers’ smartphones that are capable of replicating a similar experience.
3. Other mobile devices: Usage over any other mobile device with a front-facing camera, such as an iPad of the future, say in early 2011.

Apple is great a creating market demand where it didn’t even exist. Look at the iPod. Did we need iPods, given there were other mobile audio players? Of course we didn’t. But they created what became a classic consumer electronics device, and the technology behind the iPod seems to have helped fuel the development on the iPhone/ iPod Touch and iPad mobile devices.

History of Video Calling

FaceTime is not hardware, of course, but video calling has been something that at least North Americans have been promised for decades, and which seems to have stayed in the realm of science fiction, at least for the masses. Until now. We really do need one calling protocol to make it work, with the least technical difficulties, and by being first, Apple has the advantage.

Okay, Apple’s not first with video calling. A number of VoIP desktop applications — e.g., Skype — have had it for several years now. Also, video calling has been available for conferencing systems — but such systems are costly and definitely not for the mass market. Apple’s not even first with video on calling on smartphones, since a couple of devices were announced within the past few weeks. However, Apple will be perceived as first because of the open standard offering.

Mass Market Video Calling

I have no doubt that Apple can get most or all of the big players such as Microsoft and Google on board to support the FaceTime standard, and in doing so, they stand to further the company’s brand. Even if they don’t immediately convert non-Apple device FaceTime users to hardware purchasers. How could they get them to convert? By offering additional FaceTime features available only on the iPhone. By offering enterprise integration for FaceTime on the iPad (a future model, with a front-facing camera). By constantly reminding non-Apple app developers and users that 3rd-party apps get access to FaceTime features only with the Apple iPhone SDK.

However, Apple creates the market demand for FaceTime, I’m very certain they’ll do it, and video calling will likely be integrated into iPhone OS apps very quickly. Imagine gaming, social network, healthcare, distance education, tech support, service calls and many other niches having next-generation mobile apps with video calling integrated. Even social interaction will be forever changed. (For example, imagine families spread across the globe who will now be able to see each other during those long periods when they cannot meet in person.)

If Apple can convince the right players to join in, FaceTime is going to have a huge impact on mobile application usage and on the way humans interact.

Want to discuss a mobile app with video calling features for your business or projects? Feel free to contact us to discuss your app or mobile campaign needs.

The app gets installed on the driver’s 3G or 3GS iPhone. Parents can use this to monitor teens, or companies can monitor employees who drive regularly as part of their job. Visual and audio indicators can warn a driver if they’re getting close to some set limit such as speed. If the driver violates some limit, the trip log plots the location on a Google map. Text message and email notifications, if configured, are received in real-time by the person doing the monitoring. The

Cost: free for the basic app [iTunes] and US$24.99 for the pro version. [Via Mobile Weblog]

What’s not clear is how you get someone to run the Safe Driver app, since it’s on their phone, but it sounds like a great concept. (I suppose you could make running the app on every trip mandatory.)

Want to discuss a mobile Web or native mobile app for your business or projects? Feel free to contact us to discuss your app or mobile campaign needs.