last week around this time I installed the 2.0 software upgrade on my iPhone. I have been an iPhone owner since it was first made available about this time last year and since then I have been extremely satisfied with the experience. Installing the iPhone 2.0 upgrade and adding some free applications have taken the experience to the next level. Before now I have been pretty forgiving of some shortcomings because the fact that I could do so much with with a device I can carry in my pocket from making phone calls, listening to music and podcasts, looking up information on the Internet, getting driving directions, sharing photos with friends and family and keeping track of my schedule. Great stuff and the thing that makes the iPhone and as well as the “phoneless” iPod Touch is the easy to use interface.

Even before upgrading the iPhone software I mentioned in a previous post of how easy it was for me to log into Amazon.com and comparison shop and save money on I book I needed. Now I have been able to do things that to put it bluntly, make more sense when one is mobile and not tied down to desktop or laptop computer.

What has really gotten me excited beyond what I already enjoy are the following applications;

• Facebook iPhone app - Great and unclutter way to keep up with your facebook friends
• Bible by YouVersion - Many versions and easy to navigate - needs an Internet connection to use
• NetNewsWire - An RSS reader that can sync with an online site
• Exposure - a great way to connect with your flickr photo sharing account
• Evernote - love the concept - still has a few bugs that need to be addressed but great for text, photo and voice note taking
• AIM - iPhone version of the AOL Instant Messaging program
• YPmobile - More than a “yellow pages” for your phone. Also shows locations of business based on your current location and upcoming events in your area using the iPhone location services.
• Remote - An application that let’s you access and control the media on your computer (running iTunes) or Apple TV over a local wireless network
• Pandora - listen to streaming music based on your music tastes. Now that this is mobile it’s going to be a serious threat to terrestrial radio.
• AOL Radio - similar to Pandora but a different mindset for finding music and other radio stations online

I still have quite a few other applications I have heard about and intend to test and these are only the free one. One application we are really excited about for our business is Outpost. Outpost will allow us to manage out projects in the online service called Basecamp which I highly recommend for small business owners managing projects for multiple clients. Another application that I am looking forward to getting is 1Password. I have a different password for everything and most are complex to say the least. This will be welcome and in my opinion should have been an iPhone feature from the beginning. I still hope to see a cut and paste feature in the near future. Apple is supposed to be working on that but other things have been higher on their “to-do list.”

Because most of these are third party application my iPhone has “crashed” or frozen up more. That’s always a risk when third party solutions are added to the mix no matter what the platform is but so far those glitches have been minor and the benefits have far outweighed any problems.

The thing that stands out to me more than anything with these iPhone applications or web site optimized for the iPhone is they are extremely easy to use and not cluttered. That inspires me to consider how we design sites for our clients and options we can provide for mobile users. Are you an iPhone or iTouch user? Are you using the new software and have downloaded new applications? What gets you excited and feel has solved some problems by giving you these tools to use in the mobile space?

On several occasions I have had the opportunity to catch the late night talk show, Late Night with Conan O’Brian. One of the skits they do is called, “In the Year 2000″ in which several of the stars and maybe a guest puts on funny collars and shine lights up on their face to give a mystical futuristic effect in which they give offbeat prophetic statements about the the future like,

“The hyphen will be replaced by the dash, and the dash will be replacedby the hyphen. No one will notice.”

Well it’s supposed to be the “future” but it’s called the year “2000.” Which of the writing was 8 years ago but It’s more of another way to tell jokes with a play on words and is sort of a homage to all the crazy optimistic futuristic predictions that were made during the sixties and time of the space race where things like space colonies, flying cars and jet packs. Well those things have not come to fruition at least not in as the way imagined for the general public or in the way they were illustrated. However in the 1967 film, 1999 A.D. they did hit kind of close to the mark in regards to what we know today as the Internet and more specifically e-mail and the World Wide Web.

One thing that is kind of funny about the above video is that while it hits pretty close to the mark on you can definitely see they were thinking in the context of their “present day”. Multiple tiny screens instead of a windows-like graphical interface on one computer screen, knobs and dials instead software controls and images of paper receipts instead of text being rendered as part of a web page. It’s very hard to predict the future of technology no more than 2 years in the future. In the year 2000 I would have had a hard time imaging touch and motion sensitive interfaces like the Nintentdo Wii or Apple’s iPhone but the reason they are popular and came about was people want to interact naturally. Let’s do something crazy. In 5 years (2013) we will probably see many changes in technology especially in the worlds of energy, transportation and mobile computing. What do you see in that short time? What can you or your business do to think forward without being restricted to what is the “normal” way of doing things now while at the same time not being so bizarre or financially impractical? What unique products or services do you think we could offer in 5 years?

In case you haven’t noticed we have entered a “new age” of consumer computing is the last couple of years. One of the mobile devices getting the most press coverage is Apple’s iPhone. Yes, a majority of business users still use Blackberry’s but let’s focus on the consumer and I am really going to stress the word consumer as a potential buyer and not the other meaning of a “non business” user.

Last week I stopped by our local Barnes and Noble in Greenville,SC to look for a reference book that would help me get a better grasp of a piece of software I recently bought, Final Cut Express. I found the book I was looking for, Final Cut Express 4 - Movie Making for Everyone by Diane Weynand. However while in the store I did something Barnes and Noble would hate. I pulled out my iPhone, brought up Amazon.com and typed in the book’s ISBN’s number and discovered I could get the book for $15 dollars cheaper than if I had bought it that day at Barnes and Noble. Now to be fair if I had needed the book that day I would have bought it at Barnes and Noble because $15 was not going to effect my budget on the project if it had needed to be done quicker but Barnes and Noble did lose a sale.

Are you aware that many of your potential customers are carrying around devices such as this and they don’t even have to use your wi-fi (Barnes and Noble does offer wi-fi for a price but I accessed this information over the cellular network just fine.)

Do you have a ‘brick and mortar” store, are you doing everything you can to accommodate comparison shoppers? Are your customers and potential clients restricted to sitting in from of a computer or reading a brochure to learn about your business or are you giving them an option to listen to your marketing message via a podcast they can take with them? Are you prepared to match sale prices? If you do are you advertising it? If you can’t match the offers at online places like Amazon are you prepared to explain the benefits of ordering from you? I don’t care if you are a fan of Apple and the iPhone or not it will have an impact on your business.

We are in the process of removing our “land line” telephone from our telecommunications package. We are keeping the number but moving it to a cell phone for the time being. Two reasons for making this move is as follows;

• Saving Money - We discovered we could save at least 60 dollars a month by moving the phone number from a “land line” to a cell phone
• The only call we have received on the landline are from telemarketers or family members and as time as gone on family members have been calling us on a separate cell accounts anyway.
• We have transitioned to an online fax service - better deal. We receive a pdf like file and we don’t have to waste paper or ink rolls or deal with a bulky fax machine

All that being said, their is still a habit of coming home to see if they are any messages on the land line and now we have both wall units and portable phones in the house that will not be used but I still have a desire to still have a “base unit” to come home to. What would I like? Perhaps I shouldn’t even be posting this but are phone companies loosing out with the mass exodus from land line accounts to cell phones? Is their still a use for having a communications line that is more likely to stay on when other things get knocked off? I could care less about using a “land line” to make calls with. For the most part I have used it for listening to messages or as a backup number. Instead of a clunky wall receiver I would love to have something that looks like an iPhone except wall mounted where I could check “visual voice mail” and also control things like home security and have access to cameras outside. I feel like I’m compromising to a degree in getting rid of the land line but I would love to see more innovative ideas for good replacement. Yes, I realize they are home control devices for media and security but none quite are a solid replacement.

In the meantime I will be searching for the “next generation” of “land line” - no, it’s not the cell phone although for a lot of people it’s good enough. What are your thoughts? Could we develop solutions for such a niche? Maybe I’m not aware of such a product, if that is the case I lot of other people are not as well. Share what you know in the comments.

Recently we announced that Harmonious New Media was our official slogan or company mantra. I’m excited to say that we have also registered the domain, harmoniousnewmedia.com and looking forward to doing great things with it. Initially we are using it as a redirect to this web site. We are exploring other ideas as well.