The iPhone user population is both easily definable but diverse in many ways. Many have deep interests and knowledge in technology, while some are just in the cool. Developing applications for iPhone customers is, therefore, a tough challenge.

With Girlfriend Caller, we saw many ratings of 4 or 5 stars, but also many 1 stars. Why? The answer may in fact be very simple. Free applications often have many more customers reviews, but it’s never perfect. In fact, it reminds me of a line straight out of Batman, “You’re either die the hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” Free applications either crash and burn, or stay around long enough to be hated by everybody.

However, I am in fact excited to see so many people download Girlfriend Caller, a first, but of course not last series of free (and some paid) applications coming from our team. More than anything, we want your feedback, your feature requests.

Let’s hear from you, the customer, in much more details than the simple reviews that is written quite quickly on the still imperfect iPhone keyboard.

We want to encourage feedback that are constructive. A 1 star saying “this app sucks” does not help make the next generation applications better. A 4 star, “here’s what I want” helps keep us motivated and serve your interests. We do what do we do because we enjoy it.

PS. Why was it called the Girlfriend Caller? Let me explain….

With many iPhone applications coming soon, I can’t expect that you would be able to try them all. I yet to have extended exposure to many developers and their applications, but I’m going to mention one here that I would strongly encourage you to try.

Zintin is a picture social networking tool. I have seen these guys at work from the early beginning and their application hit the spot in photo sharing on the iPhone. You can take pictures, share them with anyone around you, and also edit the pictures to add a little piece of creativity. It is these kinds of apps that makes the iPhone so useful, and I highly encourage you to check out their application when it releases. Zintin does these three things very well:

1. you can discover the people around you and know when your friends are nearby
2. you can share pictures and express yourself on your wall
3. you can engage new people, or just have fun with your friends.

It will be exciting to use Zintin, and it’d be even better when you and friends all use it, so be sure to check it out on the app store, or visit their site.

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.