While the rest of the world watched in anticipation of Apple’s quarterly earnings announcement, Wolfram Alpha quietly introduced their new iPhone application into the App Store on Monday.

As the “official” application for Wolfram Alpha, an answer engine from Wolfram Research, users will have no choice but to pay up for this high-brow app, as it was unveiled with a jaw-dropping $50 price tag.

Despite offering a multitude of neat functions – graphing calculator, calorie counter, international economic index, astronomy guide, etc. – a lot of people anticipate it being difficult for this app to achieve any degree of notable success at such a lofty price. The app, after all, is simply a compressed, portable, carbon-copy of the website, which is accessible as a Firefox add-on.

Wolfram Alpha was initially hyped up to be the “next Google,” but even those behind the search engine never shared those hopes or intentions. And, needless to say, even Google has never had the “audacity” to introduce a $50 app.

Sad but true, the Wolfram Alpha iPhone is getting more attention today from the mobile community for its cost than it is anything else, although some were also surprised that Apple gave the app an age-restricted rating of 9+ due to “infrequent/mild profanity or cruel humor.”

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Looking thin but strong, Steve Jobs took the stage this morning at Apple’s annual September media event to introduce a new lineup of exciting offerings from Apple.

“So today we’re introducing something really great,” said Jobs. “And that’s iTunes 9. The next major release of iTunes.”

In addition, Jobs unveiled pre-made ringtones that will now be available from four major record labels through iTunes.

The ringtones (which number over 30,000) will be priced at $1.29 each.

“Now today we have something new for iPhone and iPod touch users: Phone 3.1, with a bunch of new features and bug fixes,” Jobs next revealed.

iPhone OS 3.1 will be available later today.

Jobs also touched on the ever-expanding inventory of the App Store, which now boasts some 75,000 iPhone and iPod apps.

Please stay with Mobile Marketing Watch for more news and updates from Apple’s media event as they become available.

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Mobile commerce as a whole is still in its infancy, with a long way to go before most people feel comfortable with the idea.  To advance the technology, a group of top brands met with industry associations and key solution providers to form the “GS1 MobileCom.”

The idea behind the GS1 MobileCom is to create a cross-industry initiative involving manufacturers, retailers, mobile industry companies and solution providers that will allow for all consumers to have access to trusted product information and related services via their mobile phones, as well as to allow all stakeholders to use open standards to make this possible and to ensure interoperable, scalable and cost-effective applications.

More simply, it’s a collaborative effort between all that have an interest in the future of mobile commerce to come together to create a blueprint, so to speak, to ensure everything comes together properly in terms of mobile commerce and everything it involves.

Global brands such as Johnson & Johnson, Nestlé, Kraft, L’Oréal, Wal-Mart and Carrefour met with groups such as the MMA, GSMA and CTIA at MIT in Boston recently to share ideas and their individual visions for the future of mobile commerce.  This collaboration formed the GS1 MobileCom to “contribute to the common development of the mobile commerce marketplace.”

Two main points the collaboration wants to define is a way for consumers to get product information on their mobile phones by scanning a barcode on product packaging, as well as maintaining an open environment through development.

It’s a great start, and something that was needed.  The mobile community has always been good in bringing providers and various companies together in efforts to expand the mobile cause.  It should be interesting to see what develops out of these partnerships, and what advancements they produce- especially in terms of making product barcodes “scannable” to consumers.

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The so-called $100 laptop made waves when the One Laptop Per Child nonprofit decided that cheap computers for kids could help emerging economies catch up to developed countries, by providing knowledge and other opportunities for poor children. Now, a potential $50 smart phone could do the same.

Hong Kong conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa today unveiled a new subsidiary called INQ, whose raison d’etre will be to make cheap smart phones rivalling Nokia, Motorola, Apple, and all the other big-name makers. That makes good sense: As Business Week noted, the company will be able to sell more of its mobile Internet services if more people had phones with which to use them.

I like the idea of democratizing smart phones, especially since many more people, in the United States and around the world, have mobile phone service than they do their own Internet connection. Cheaper smart phones could thus make the Web more accessible to a broader demographic. Marketers, in turn, would be able to reach a wider range of consumers via mobile Internet. While SMS will only get stronger in its own right, it can also be used to promote, say, a brand’s mobile Web site that the user can finally access.

INQ also raises the question, “How much are consumers over-paying for their smart phones?” Read the rest

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A day after the news broke that Verizon Wireless was planning to increase the price on outgoing SMS messages, the carrier issued a statement trying take it back.

Verizon now claims the 3-cent hike on outgoing text messages is just an idea. And besides, the carrier says, it would only affect aggregators, so it’s the aggregators’ fault if everyone else gets that price increase passed onto them.

That’s what it boils down to, though you have to slog through a lot of pretty words (”our friends in the nonprofit and public policy arenas”) to figure it out. Ugh. If you can stomach it, here’s the statement: Read the rest

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As if Verizon Wireless hasn’t had enough negative publicity by refusing to grant SMS short codes based on content, the U.S. cellular carrier made another PR blunder Thursday when it announced increased rates for outgoing texts.

Effective November 1, Verizon will increase the per-message price for sending texts by 3 cents. The move will ultimately double or triple the cost for marketers who send messages to opted-in subscribers, considering that marketers currently pay an average $0.025 per message sent.

“I have one word to say in reaction,” Forrester analyst Neil Strother said. “Ouch.”

Mobile marketing professionals everywhere were scrambling to make sense of the rate hike, in some cases holding emergency meetings to decide how to cope. While many are going to demand further explanation from Verizon, I have to wonder about the long-term effects on the mobile marketing industry. Could other carriers follow suit? Who will end up paying? Could this lead to all content becoming premium content–that is, that is content that people pay extra to receive? Read the rest

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Canadian texters got up-in-thumbs recently when telecom company Telus Corp. unveiled new pricing that would start charging people without data plans to receive SMS messages. Up ’til now, users without bulk plans only had to pay for outgoing texts. Faced with having to now shell out for twice as many messages, the plan-less apparently cried outrage over the possibility of having to pay for spam SMS.

Due to the outcry (I’m guessing it went something like, “You hosers!”) Telus yesterday said it would give credit to customers for each spam message they receive. Complainants simply have to forward the offending SMS with the keyword “spam” to the shortcode 7726–which conveniently also spells out the word “spam.” They’ll then get credit for the 15 cents they’d have been charged to receive the text.

I’m not sure what to think of all this. The whole thing smacks of both greed and irrational fear on the part of Canadian consumers. Read the rest

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