iLounge

During the iPhone Software Roadmap Event on March 6, 2008, Apple showed a total of 29 applications—10 in some demonstrated form, 9 on a list of additional sample programs, and 10 on what appeared to be a mocked-up list of third-party applications. Though these applications won’t be available until late June or later, if at all, we’ve assembled a complete list of what was shown for curious readers and developers to consider. Some are definitely going to be released; others may serve as inspirations to companies looking for ideas Apple considered worth including on stage.

Apple-Demonstrated iPhone Applications

Ten applications were shown on stage by Apple’s Scott Forstall and five third-party companies. The applications range from pure demonstrations to early versions of sure-to-be-released titles, as described further below.

AOL Instant Messenger for iPhone: Native to the iPhone rather than running off of a more limited web-based interface, AOL’s Instant Messenger (AIM) for iPhone is the closest thing to Apple’s IM program iChat yet seen for the device. Using a sophisticated Buddy List with buddy icons and current status, AIM lets you update your online profile and photo directly from the iPhone, conduct multiple conversations that can be swipe-gestured through, and use emoticons. A Bonjour icon at the bottom of the screen—used by iChat to figure out buddies who are available for audio and video conferencing—was not demonstrated or explained. Likely to be available to users, price and date yet to be determined.

Apple App Store: A dedicated application designed to provide downloadable access to all iPhone and iPod touch software from Apple’s servers. Based upon the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store, the App Store program presents Featured apps (Just Added and Staff Favorites), a list of categories, Top 50 apps, search, and updates features. Downloading is supported via cell or Wi-Fi wireless. Updates tracks updates to applications to let you download improved versions of applications, immediately. Guaranteed to be available to users in June; free for iPhone users, and for a “nominal” fee for iPod touch users.

Apple’s Hello World: A demonstration application designed to show off the ease of coding an iPhone application and transferring it to a live iPhone for testing and tweaking. Unlikely to be available to users.

Apple’s Photo Editor: This unnamed demonstration application was shown to demonstrate coding of iPhone applications, and featured Contrast, Saturation, and Exposure slider controls, an Auto-Enhance switch, and an “Advanced” menu. These features, found in Apple’s iPhoto, would presumably enable photos taken with the iPhone or stored in its database to be tweaked before use or e-mailing. It is unclear whether Apple will integrate these editor features into the current Photos application—the most likely scenario—or whether they’ll be put into a separate app, or discarded.

Apple’s Touch FX: A demonstration application designed to show off iPhone’s video hardware and developer access to its database of stored content, specifically taking a random photo from the Photos application and allowing the user to deform it with touch and pinch gestures. Unlikely to be available to users in demonstrated form, but possibly the basis of an iPhone Photo Booth-style application yet to be announced.

Apple’s Touch Fighter: A demonstration game based somewhat on Nintendo’s StarFox and Namco’s Starblade, designed to show off accelerometer-based steering and touchscreen-based button pressing, along with the iPhone’s OpenGL software and 3-D graphics hardware, plus its OpenAL positional audio. Running at roughly 30 frames per second, Touch Fighter lets you steer a starfighter and shoot at ships launched from a battleship floating above a planet. Likely to be available to users.

Electronic Arts’ Spore: A portable device optimized version of the company’s Will Wright-developed life simulator, enabling you to start with a primitive creature and build it up with body parts to evolve. The demonstration featured touchscreen-based customization of your spore character and accelerometer based movement of the character within 2-D bodies of water. Eighteen levels long, the game has been announced for a September release in some form, at an unknown price.

Epocrates Drug Reference Application: Designed for medical professionals, this application consisted of several pieces, a Drug Lookup table with photos, dosing, drug formulation information, warnings, adverse reactions, and other details; MultiCheck, which lets physicians determine whether harmful interactions will result from adding a new medication to a patient who is already on other medications; and Identify Drug, which lets you enter several characteristics of a drug into the Epocrates RX system to find matching medications. This is likely to actually be released; Epocrates states that it will be free.

Salesforce.com Salesforce Automation (SFA) Application: This demonstration application has a number of tools for employees handling sales for a company. One screen shows the day’s activities on a schedule, providing a graph of progress towards monthly sales goals, while other screens include sortable lists of sales opportunities, presentation of new sales lead data that has been pushed to the phone from the company’s servers, and instant access to the Google Maps to visit a sales lead in person. This application is likely to actually be released, date unknown.

Sega’s Super Monkey Ball: Based upon the Nintendo GameCube title, this demonstration game has you pilot a monkey inside of a ball through a series of mazes, collecting bananas to rack up extra lives. The game’s key features are smooth 3-D graphics and game console-like sound, plus iPhone accelerometer-based controls. Developed by Other Ocean, this game is very likely to actually be released, date unknown.

Additional Applications Shown During Scott Forstall’s Xcode Demonstration

In the Xcode portion of the Scott Forstall demonstration of iPhone application development, a collection of iPhone games was shown in an opened folder alongside separate collections of Productivity Apps and Utilities, which were closed. The titles listed were:

AsteroidFighter2, BlockBreaker, CasinoMegaFunPack, ClassicArcadeGames, HangmanPlus, MagicRealm, MyGame, SpeedRun3000, and WolfHunter.

MyGame was highlighted to demonstrate a work in progress title being developed by a phantom programmer, and its folder was later shown alongside a photo editing application, as well as separately in a performance analysis application. The other titles on the list were most likely just mockups. However, they do illustrate game categories considered viable by Apple: space shooting, Breakout, casino games, classic arcade games, pen and pencil games, fantasy games, driving games, and action games.

Additional Applications Shown During Steve Jobs App Store Demonstration

Ten additional applications were shown during Steve Jobs’ demonstration of the App Store, all of which appeared to be completely made up for the purpose of highlighting how the store would look when populated by third-party applications. As with the applications in the Scott Forstall Xcode demonstration, these are very unlikely to be actually released, but they may illustrate applications Apple considers to be viable for third-party development. Each application is listed separately below, along with the App Store’s associated price.

Classic Board Games Backgammon: Free.

Weary Traveler Travel Guide: Free.

MovieTicketStubs.com Movie Reviews: Free.

News Headlines: Price not listed.

Games, Inc. Solitaire: Free.

Money Maker Corp. Expenses: Free.

ESSN Sports Scores: $5.

Newsstand Technology News. $5.

Tastings.com Recipes: $5.

Big Tipper Restaurants: Free.

Of course, many additional native applications will be announced for the iPhone in the days to come, both by Apple and third-party developers. A large list of web applications for the iPhone can be found on iLounge, as well.

Shop in the loungeStore for iPod + iPhone Accessories.

Next: The Complete Guide to iTunes Tagging

Previous: Ask iLounge 3-7-08

If you have a comment, news tip, advertising inquiry, or coverage request, a question about iPods or accessories, or if you sell or market iPod products or services, read iLounge's Comments + Questions policies before posting, and fully identify yourself if you do. We will delete comments containing advertising, astroturfing, trolling, personal attacks, offensive language, or other objectionable content, then ban and/or publicly identify violators.

Name:

Email:

Remember my personal information

Subscribe to this discussion. We'll update you whenever new comments are added.

This is to help us deter automated comment spamming.
Please type the characters exactly as you see them in the image below:

What's new at iLounge? Subscribe to iPodweek!
Each week we giveaway three (3) iTunes Gift cards.