IPhone developers 'shaken, not stirred' by antenna problems

Despite all the negative press Apple has gotten of late about the iPhone 4 antenna defect -- my favorite headline was Slate.com’s “Here’s Your Free Case, Jerk” -- the company can rightly argue that the product has been a success. Despite Apple’s missteps with the antenna design, it still sold 3 million of the new models since June 24 and its application platform remains the go-to place for software developers.

Apple’s App Store, within iTunes, has 200,000 iPhone apps on its shelves, at last count, and I doubt that the pace of new app development will be slowed much, if at all, by the antenna problem. After all, most of the apps are for doing things that have nothing to do with talking on the phone.

A case in point is “Shaken, Not Stirred,” a new iPhone app developed by Bamboudesign of San Francisco, which designs and builds mobile apps for its clients as well. Better than 90 percent of its clients want the firm to develop apps for the iPhone, said Marine Leroux, founder and CEO of Bamboudesign.

“Shaken, Not Stirred” is a cocktail recipe application for the top fifty most popular cocktails, organized by spirit, color, flavor, and theme. After buying the app for $1.99, you can use it at home to impress your guests or in a bar to play “Stump the Bartender.”

The app’s name, as you may already know, comes from the catchphrase from many James Bond spy films in which the hero orders his martinis “shaken, not stirred,” which always made me wonder if anybody in the last 50 years has ordered a martini stirred. (One bartender told me that in fact, some do -- perhaps the defiantly uncool.)

Bamboudesign is also developing a version of “Shaken, Not Stirred” for the iPad, said Leroux, who noted when iPad was introduced in January that developers would likely want to develop separate versions of their apps for iPhone and iPad to take advantage of the larger screen on the iPad.

The antenna problem is unlikely to discourage developers from continuing to develop apps for the Apple platform, she said, although some may develop on the OS 3 platform rather than OS 4 until the antenna issue is resolved.

Long term, however, Leroux believes OS 4 on the iPhone 4 has a lot going for it, and for developers.
“The iPhone 4 remains a powerful technology with more opportunities to develop apps, such as the multi-threading, multi-tasking, but also better graphic resolution and a faster processor,” she said.

Bamboudesign remains largely an Apple shop because most of its clients want to get on the Apple platform. Leroux is keeping her eye on Google’s Android platform however, whose application store now has 70,000 apps available, second only to Apple in inventory.