The ecosystem is one of the key selling points of the iPhone.  Thanks to developers, Apple can count on the most vibrant app ecosystem with over 225000 applications. At the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2010 Steve Jobs has told the audience that Apple has made a check to “developers” for a billion.  Apparently a win-win situation. The App store was launched in 2008.

Consistency of the platform is one the success factors because it ensures that the same applications can run across different devices and OS releases. So that means, no binary breaks, APIs  that are backward compatible and consistent screen resolutions.

The screen resolution in Apple mobile devices:

• 480-by-320 for iPhone  2G, 3G, and 3GS   and iPod Touch
• 960-by-640 for the iPhone 4
• 1024-by-768 for the iPad

An application written for the iPhone can run on these different devices, apart for features that depend on a HW feature, this is the case of multi-tasking that is available only with iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS, for example.

And older devices can freely upgrade,  free of charge,  to iOS 4, the latest Apple mobile OS. iOS 4 works with iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS (2009), iPhone 3G (2008)  and the third-generation iPod touch (32GB and 64GB models from late 2009).

A good overview of iOS4 is iOS4 walkthrough. Thanks for David Pogue for sharing this link.

From Pogue, two nice videos on the iPhone.
Can the iPhone save your life? (at TEDMED 2009)

and Cool new things you can do with your mobile phone (at TED 2008):

Microsoft has just announced at E3, Kinect. Kinect is the evolution of project Natal. Microsoft Kinect is about interaction without controllers. Forrester James McQuivey has titled I Have Seen The Future, And The Future Is Xbox Kinect. Kinect represents a great example of what it is possible now, and gives a glimpse of future UI interaction paradigms.

In the new Microsoft Xbox, there is video chat and the possibility to watch videos together with the remote person while seeing each other in the screen.

You can see the presentation in the video below, skip to 01:04:29: Microsoft live press conference E3 2010. See the the official website of Microsoft Kinect.

You can follow E3 on youtube, www.youtube.com/E3

John Battelle, organizes one of the most interesting conferences about marketing and digital media, the CM Summit. Online, there are the presentations, and one of the most tweeted is the  Internet Trends 2010 by Morgan Stanley Research.