The countdown is on. In just 3 days as of this writing will be the launch of the new 3G iPhone, and likely the Apple iPhone application store. It is hard to know what to expect, but I think there will be a flood of applications. The question remains as to how and whether Apple would evaluate the submitted applications: quality, stability, useability, security? These are all important points to look at, especially in the interests of the end user.

I expect to see at least 200 applications to be released, most of which will likely be free or cost $.99. I also expect these to be the most popular in acquiring early users, but likely also have low retention rates. It is likely a much smaller minority who will pay big bucks early on for major applications. It will be exciting to watch the evolution of the financial models here.

Unlike some previous platforms that have distributed applications (eg Facebook), people are used to paying Apple to download music files and plugging in their phones for application updates.

The following are some more guesses as to what the applications you will see. Of the applications,

1. 30% will be social networking, or have social network contents
2. 20% will be games, but it’ll be dominated by big players
3. 30% will be entertainment, music, lifestyle, environment
4. 10-15% will be productivity based.
5. 10-15% will be mobile versions of existing services

There may be much overlap between the various groups of applications. The business will be hard for those trying to take advantage of the long tail, particularly those going for the free application. I also wouldn’t expect many applications to survive more than a few weeks on the iPhone, I just hope Apple will do a good job removing the dead.