It has been almost a year since geolocation services like Fourspare and Gowalla came into the iPhones of nerds (myself included) that made the annual pilgrimage to Austin Texas for South by Southwest Interactive. The Austin based Gowalla had a significant marketing presence at last year’s conference while Foursquare was stronger out of the gate, being the must have app for SXSWers looking for the hot parties and the who’s who’s of the tech world each night and filling out their badge sashes with the all-night benders that are a SXSW staple. Gowalla picked up steam throughout last year, and now many people (myself and most of my friends) use both apps whenever they remember to check-in somewhere.
Tomorrow is the day that like Moses, Steve Jobs comes down from the mountain and unveils the next great thing from Apple that will change our lives and the way that we interact with media and the internet. McGraw-Hill’s CEO Harold McGraw while being interviewed by CNBC, confirmed that they were working with Apple to bring their e-book materials to the Apple tablet.
This brings an interesting angle hinting at possible markets for the new tablet like device. Some other bloggers have brought up the potential uses for such a e-book like device to hopefully make a huge dent in the textbook market, hopefully lowering prices. Apple already has a stranglehold in higher education as the glowing apple logo lights lecture halls around the world and iPhones are almost required materials for learning. Another potential market for the Apple tablet device is in healthcare, where PC tablets have seen fairly wide adoption and I think the right hardware with thoughtout software could be a huge success in the healthcare industry with the greater push toward electronic medical records.
Everything is mere speculation and hopes made with fingers crossed with little more than 12 hours till the big reveal, but I had to join in on the Apple speculation fun.
After checking my email on the blackberry and finding that CNN was reporting that Apple did announce the 3G iPhone, I rushed to much to my dismay that the new iPhone isn’t coming out until July 11th. At first look I was ready to buy with the faster 3G network and much lighter price, but there are a couple of things that I really thought that this iPhone would have.
The biggest thing that I would have like to see in this new iPhone is a video camera. There is a lot of good things the Nokia’s are able to do with services like QIK. It seems like the ability to do video and upload it with the iPhone would be great for mobile journalism. I’ve been a crackberry user for years and am really torn between getting the new blackberry bold or the new iPhone when they come out. Maybe I’ll get both
