Mobile Ticketing Taking Off: 15 Billion Sold by 2014

Buying and selling tickets is another business that's slowly being migrated over to our mobile devices. Whether it's a movie ticket, concert ticket, plane ticket, or something else, there are a number of companies now offering digital alternatives to the tree-killing paper printouts of days past. In a new study by Juniper Research, analysts predict that the market for mobile ticketing will reach 15 billion delivered tickets by the year 2014.

According to Juniper, a little over 2 billion tickets were sold this past year. That makes the forecast of 15 billion by 2014 a notable jump which points to consumers' ever-increasing desire to perform business transactions like mobile ticket purchases using their mobile phones and other handheld devices.

Mobile ticketing initiatives benefit both parties, the ticket issuer and the purchaser. Consumers win because a digitized ticket accessible via their handheld is a convenience. (Just think: how many times have you left the house without your tickets, having to turn around and retrieve them or miss the event altogether?) For ticket sellers, not having to deal with the cost of printing tickets can provide a huge savings.

Yet despite the multi-billion increases year-over-year, this market still has a way to go. "Although 15 billion sounds large," notes the report's author Howard Wilcox, "it is in fact it a small percentage of total tickets issued -- there is plenty of scope for innovative solutions to penetrate this market." Wilcox sees the next steps for the mobile ticketing industry as encompassing more widespread purchasing via mobile phones and NFC-based ticketing.

Mobile Ticketing in the Real World

Over on online marketing site MarketingVOX, they've detailed several real-world examples of mobile ticketing including Southwest Airlines' iPhone app which allows for mobile ticket purchases, the upcoming NBA All-Star Game in Dallas which is offering special tickets to T-Mobile Android phone owners, AMC movie theaters' pilot program for mobile movie tickets, and MovieTickets.com's paperless ticket test in Chicago.

What's interesting about the U.S.-based initiatives detailed above is what early stages so many are in. Even though 42% of Americans now own a smartphone, companies are just beginning to tap into that demographic with their newly launched mobile ticketing pilot programs and marketing initiatives.

Another interesting detail from the report is the finding that Western Europe will become the leading region in mobile ticketing by 2014 based on the number of tickets sold. That has them overtaking the current mobile ticket leader, the Far East and China region. In the Asian countries, the use of NFC phones has made mobile ticketing much easier to implement. As NFC phone models make their way to other areas of the globe, the opportunities for mobile ticketing increase accordingly.

 

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/mobile_ticketing_taking_off_15_billion_sold_by_2010.php

iPod touch Now Outselling iPhone

It’s something that was easy to miss, but in talking up the user base for the iPad, Steve Jobs indirectly revealed what many following the company suspect. If the iPod touch has not already become Apple’s best-selling iPhone OS device, it soon will be.

Much to consternation of six-figure analysts, Apple doesn’t break out iPod sales, but there are hints. At the conference call for last quarter, it was stated that iPod touch sales for the quarter were up 55 percent year over year. That helped explain how iPod revenue was up by one percent from a year ago, even though total iPod units sold were down eight percent.

However, it was a remark from WWDC ‘09 and the one from the iPad event that add up to the iPod touch now being the leading iPhone OS device.

On June 8 at WWDC ‘09, it was announced that more than 40 million iPhone OS devices had been sold, and this is where it gets a little tricky. We know that through the end of June Apple sold 26.38 million iPhones. Subtracting that number from 40 million gives us 13.62 million, which admittedly leaves out sales of the iPod touch in June.

However, we do know for that entire quarter Apple sold 10.22 million iPods. Pick a number for June iPod touch sales. One million, three million, it doesn’t really matter. Let’s say two million, or 15.62 million iPod touches, 42 million iPhone OS devices total through June, 2009.

At the iPad event, Steve Jobs announced 75 million iPhone OS devices had been sold to date, though whether that date was January 27 or January 1 is not known. It won’t matter either way, but let’s assume the latter. Through 2009, Apple sold 42.517 million iPhones. Subtract that number from 75 million iPhone OS devices and we get 32.483 million iPod touches.

If you’re still awake, here’s the bottom line: the rate of sales growth of the iPod touch is very likely greater than the table shows, as in double that of the iPhone. True, the period includes the holiday quarter, the best quarter for iPods, but it just doesn’t matter. The iPod touch, the stealth device for iPhone OS, will be the best-selling model for the platform in 2010, if it isn’t already, and it is.

 

http://theappleblog.com/2010/01/28/ipod-touch-now-outselling-iphone/

Market Share: OS X, Safari Flat; iPhone OS Slows in January

Looking at data from web metrics firm Net Applications, the first month of the new year was not big news for Apple. Both Mac OS X and Safari reached something of a plateau in market share, and the growth rate of iPhone OS slowed.

OS X peaked at 5.27 percent in October, which not coincidentally was the release month of Windows 7. Since then, OS X has more or less been stuck around 5 percent, and was 5.13 percent for January. It’s an open question whether this is stagnation or perseverance. Windows 7 upgrade churn is just one of two major factors working against OS X market share, the other being continued success of the netbook.

As for the breakdown between versions of OS X, Snow Leopard has been moving up about 4 percent a month for the last three months, and now stands at 35 percent of the OS X user base. That’s a faster upgrade rate than Leopard, and much faster than Windows 7, which just broke 10 percent.

Safari is also under continued pressure from Google’s Chrome. Last month, Chrome (4.63 percent) edged past Safari (4.46 percent). Safari has since risen to 4.51 percent, while Chrome jumped to 5.2 percent, actually taking share from both Internet Explorer and Firefox. Internally, Safari 4 now accounts for 80 percent of the user base, which is phenomenal considering Safari 4 was officially launched just eight months ago.

The iPhone OS continues to steadily gain market share, no doubt a byproduct of being so close to zero. The iPhone OS is currently at 0.58 percent of the overall OS market, which may seem small but represents some 75 million devices sold in two and a half years. The iPhone is now at .47 percent, while the iPod touch is .11 percent, with both edging upward. While the iPad won’t launch until March, looking at the growth rate according to Net Applications numbers, it’s a pretty safe bet that iPhone OS will pass Linux in market share this year.

Even with a flat month in market share, Apple platforms have never sold so well, and for the Apple consumer that means more software and better resale value of hardware.

 

http://theappleblog.com/2010/02/02/market-share-os-x-safari-flat-iphone-os-slows-in-january/

Mobile Augmented Reality: Apps That Will Change the Way We See the World

 

http://gigaom.com/2010/02/02/mobile-augmented-reality-apps-that-will-change-the-way-we-see-the-world/

Using Bump’s New API To Exchange Data Between Phones

Bump, the Y Combinator funded company that got a lot of attention last year as the Billionth App, has released an API that lets devs use Bump’s bump-to-exchange scheme for swapping data phone-to-phone in their own apps.

The API is free to use unless you are generating revenue as a direct result of a bump, have more than 10,000,000 bumps/month or more than 2,500 simultaneous users.

Integrating the API looks straightforward and uses the protocol/delegate pattern familiar to iPhone devs. Have a look at this tutorial for details.

 

API Tutorial

This tutorial provides a step-by-step howto for integrating the Bump API with an iPhone app.

Source & Installation

Let's first download a sample Xcode project that will use the Bump API: BumpFour. Next, download the Bump API. Now, open the BumpFour Xcode project that you just downloaded.

Locate the API-distro_* folder (that you downloaded), drag the file Bump.h and drop it onto the BumpFour project Classes group. A dialog will appear -- make sure "Copy items" is checked before clicking "Add".

Next, drag the Bump_Resources folder and drop it onto the BumpFour project Resources group. A dialog will appear -- make sure "Copy items" is checked before clicking "Add".

Then, drag libBump.a and drop it onto the BumpFour project Frameworks group. A dialog will appear -- make sure "Copy items" is checked before clicking "Add".

If you're integrating the Bump API with your Xcode project, make sure your project includes the CoreLocation, AudioToolbox, UIKit, Foundation, CoreGraphics frameworks. The BumpFour sample project already included these frameworks.

When you have added all the required Bump API assets, the Groups & Files will look similar to these:

Compile

At the time you register, you receive an API key. You need to insert your API key in GameBumpConnector.m here:

Press "Build and Go". If you've added (installed) everything correctly and you have a valid developer key, BumpFour should run on your simulator. Press "PLAY FRIEND". You should see this:

[Note: A demo warning message will show when you are not using a production key. To upgrade your API developer key to a production key, go here.]

Using the Bump API: Bump and exchange data

There are a few calls to make to integrate Bump with your project. These are the minimum calls you must make in order to bump and exchange data.

Let's take a look at the sample project BumpFour where the calls are made.

1. Allocate a Bump object
   bumpObject = [[Bump alloc] init]; // Bump *bumpObject;
2. Set a delegate
   [bumpObject setDelegate:self];
3. Use your API key
   [bumpObject configAPIKey:@"YOUR_API_KEY"];
4. Connect with Bump's server. You must only call this after the previous three calls.
   [bumpObject connect];
   

   BumpFour calls this when user presses a button to "Play Friend". That's one way to invoke the Bump API popup. Another way might be, for example, if your app allows your users to bump a photo, when the user selects a photo from your photo picker, you can call connect. That will immediately bring up the Bump API popup, users bump, and photo is exchanged.

5. Implement the required BumpDelegate methods
   - (void) bumpDidConnect; - (void) bumpDidDisconnect:(BumpDisconnectReason)reason; - (void) bumpConnectFailed:(BumpConnectFailedReason)reason; - (void) bumpDataReceived:(NSData *)chunk;
6. Send and receive data
   [bumpObject send:moveChunk]; // NSData *moveChunk = [NSKeyedArchiver archivedDataWithRootObject:moveDict];
7. Disconnect from Bump's server
   [bumpObject disconnect];

In addition to the minimum calls above, the following are useful.

1. Send a message to the Bump feed
   [bumpObject configHistoryMessage:@"%1 just started a BumpFour match with %2!"];
2. Configure a message on the Bump API popup:
   [bumpObject configActionMessage:@"Bump with another BumpFour player to start game."];

Using the Bump API: Bump and share your app

The Bump API also has a "tell-a-friend" feature. To implement that in your app, send the connectToShareThisApp message to your Bump object. In addition, you instruct your users to bump your app into the Bump App via the configActionMessage:, doing so will take the receiver (the Bump App) to the iTunes page for your app. Let's take a look at a view controller whose sole function is to share app (we won't reference BumpFour for this example).

ShareAppViewController.h #import <UIKit/UIKit.h> #import "Bump.h" @interface ShareAppViewController : UIViewController { Bump *_bumpObject; } @end ShareAppViewController.m #import "ShareAppViewController.h" @implementation ShareAppViewController -(id)init { self = [super init]; _bumpObject = [[Bump alloc] init]; return self; } - (void)loadView { [_bumpObject configAPIKey:@"INSERT_YOUR_API_KEY_HERE"]; [_bumpObject configActionMessage:@"Share this app by bumping with a user of the Bump App"]; } -(void)viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated { [super viewWillAppear:animated]; [_bumpObject connectToShareThisApp]; } - (void)dealloc { [_bumpObject release]; [super dealloc]; } @end

 

http://www.mobileorchard.com/

http://bu.mp/apitutorial.html

Android Multi-Touch Pinch-To-Zoom

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftKgMGnzUAc

WordPress Launches Official Android App

Do you use WordPress and want to blog from your Android phone? Doing that just got a lot easier. Wordpress for Android - an open-source app backed by WordPress.org - is now available in the Android Market. With this app, anybody who blogs on WordPress.com or a self-hosted WordPress blog can post and edit blog posts, as well as moderate and post comments. In addition, the app will display notifications whenever a reader comments on a blog post.

Features

With WordPress for Android, you can also configure and manage multiple blogs, which is a great feature for those of us who post on more than one site.

Using the app is pretty straightforward. Simply enter your blog's URL and your credentials and you are ready to go. The actual editor is a pretty basic HTML editor, though unlike WordPress' early iPhone efforts, it's easy to add links and italicize or bold text. The app also makes it very easy to select and upload photos from the phone's photo gallery to a WordPress blog. While we were testing the app, however, selecting an image on the Nexus One regularly led to a crash.

Open Source App

Just like WordPress for iPhone and WordPress for BlackBerry, the Android app is an open source effort. Indeed, a large part of the code base for Wordpress for Android is based on the popular wpToGo application, which will now be discontinued in favor of the official WordPress app. Developers who are interested in helping out can find more information here.

 

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/wordpress_launches_official_android_app.php