SOFTA Ventures

Interesting Article on Why iPhone Will Stick with AT&T

Very interesting assessment as to why Apple will stick with AT&T as it’s sole provider in the short run. It’s always interesting to see additional facts and insights by those with knowledge. Rumors have abounded for months as to when Verizon will offer the iPhone. This article casts doubt that Verizon will ever offer this version of the iPhone on its current CDMA network.

Why the iPhone Isn’t Going Anywhere

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Simple. Smart. SOFTA.

The smartphone wave is growing.

In less than a year the iPhone garnered a 28 percent smartphone marketshare, according to Apple. Recent studies show that smartphones now outsell standard cell phones.

Informa Telecoms & Media predict that while traditional handset sales are expected to fall, Smartphone sales will maintain robust growth, 35.3% year on year – Smartphone penetration will reach 13.5% of new handsets sold.

Smartphones are bringing people together. It is the next level of networking. Even established networks like LinkedIn and Facebook are seeing the value in mobile networking.

One common feature of Smartphone users is the desire to have easy-to-use, cost-effective apps.

The SOFTA Ventures team has been riding the wave of software solutions for more than 20 years, combining their marketing know how with an ability to keep technology, intuitive, inexpensive and instant. Applying this knowledge to iPhone’s and other smartphone technologies in the natural next step.

SOFTA Ventures is in the business of making smart phone smarter. Follow us on our latest adventure.

October 28th, 2009 Posted by softaventures | SOFTA, apple, blackberry, development, iphone, smartphone | no comments

All Good Things Come to Those Who Research

Well it ends up that our trials with the iPhone SDK 3.x shortcomings proved to be one of the best things that could have happened to our project. In searching for a work around we uncovered an answer that is not a work around but is truly a superior solution to what we had thought the SDK could provide. The answer moves us from the realm of just providing a software application to being a service provider.

It entails adding some equipment at a data center, but that equipment opens us to some very expansive telecommunications possibilities. It will allow us to create an engine that we can then use not just on our iPhone app, but as the back end for any smartphone on which we choose to release our application. We’ve had numerous conversations with both the manufacturer as well as the local VAR and we are convinced it will do everything we need for now and well into the future.

And in a serendipitous twist it also solves the issues we were having with out Iowa project. It will allow us to do everything we wanted our third party technical partner to provide but couldn’t.

In speaking with the manufacturer it seems that no one else is using this hardware in the way we intend, even though it is 100% capable of doing what we want. That may be the best news of all, it gives us a competitive advantage.

Shows what you can do when you view problems not as roadblocks that impede, but as challenges to succeed.

September 9th, 2009 Posted by Michael ORoark | SOFTA, Uncategorized, blackberry, development, internet, iphone, mobility, palm, smartphone, social networking | no comments

Challenges with Progress. It’s the Yang-Yin?

Well our disappointment with Apple‘s iPhone SDK 3.1 is not going to go away anytime soon. Our technical issue is systemic to the SDK There is a wall between where we want to go within the iPhone and the SDK that can only be circumvented by jailbreaking the iPhone. And being the legitimate developers we are, we’ll leave that to the hacker apps. Hopefully Apple and AT&T will see the potential revenue here and eventually open it up.

In the mean time we have identified a couple of alternatives that will provide a decent workaround, and could quite possibly be a benefit that we wouldn’t of otherwise had if were able to ue the iPhone SDK the way we had originally intended. The benefit will accrue to us when we migrate our app to other smartphones.

As for our Iowa project that one is looking to be on long-term hiatus. Another technical issue that one of our third party technical partners was not willing to move on. Too bad too, because I was doing the coding on that one and was truly enjoying it.

But have to move on, can’t dwell on what might have been. We have enough other ideas in the pipeline that there is no downtime.

August 18th, 2009 Posted by Michael ORoark | SOFTA, development, iphone, smartphone | no comments

Twitter Takes Off

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Why do we bring you this clip? Because Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, will all become and integral part of business solutions we will be rolling out on iPhones, Blackberrys, and other smartphones in the coming months.

All geared toward businesses that want to touch their customers with relevant, useful information, specifically targeted at them.