business and appstore

[txr0ckabilly]

i had originally posted this another thread but i think it deserves a topic of it's own

i'd like to see another way to download applications other than iTunes. it's hard to get someone in business to take an application seriously when it's downloaded through a music player.

i wish i could another place to download productivity apps or set it up where i can just see apps that are really geared towards enterprise.

i realize that i can sort by productivity and business but i still have to sort through apps like "garagebuy" and "ambiance".

if apple is serious about getting their foot in the door for enterprise, they need to rethink this. i just don't see me putting apps into my business where i need to enable itunes to be on all of my business computers. if i'm buying iPhones for my employees to use, i want more control over what they're putting on them. i would surely hate to know that one of my employees "accidentally" downloaded an app like the one we're talking about in this topic and costing my business 1000.00 or even a .99 social networking app.

am i missing something? do they have a business or corporate version of itunes?

I don't think many large corporate/enterprise entities would allow/encourage their users to download their own apps off a 3rd party store.

Apple do have an enterprise option that large companies can distribute iPhone apps internally, without using iTunes as a distribution medium.

I do think the App Store is going to change over time. There are a LOT of bargain basement apps which are going to flood the store and make the quality hard to find - I think Apple is going to have to either filter the apps itself or (more likely) give the user easier options to sort by rating.

Yes, you are missing something. Apple has stated that Enterprises have ways of getting apps on iPhones without iTunes (or at least without the iTunes App Store). and enterprises have a lot more control over what's able to be put on the iPhone. You can make your own apps and put them on your iPhone without Apple's approval too.

so in my small business (30 employees), i need to hire a programmer/developer to build applications for me? that's cost effective and will improve efficiency a great deal! i'll just take away some insurance benefits to pay for that extra employee i didn't think i needed.

now if i unlock one computer to enable downloading of apps, and have one person dedicated to downloading the apps i need, and dedicated to making sure all my iphones are up to date, and i can walk around bird-dogging all employees with iphones to make sure they're using the wifi for business purposes (because i'm not sure of a way to enable wifi access and no internet access on the iphones), whew! what am i doing here?!?! i've got no time for posting on forums, seems i've got some work to do to enable myself to use iphones in my place of business.

or my other solution is using a real pda built for business- small, corporate, enterprise- and apple lose that bit of revenue. they don't want that, i don't want that. i love these phones as well as apple, i want it to work. i want apple to help us out with these aspects.

i'm not trying to be a smartass, i really just want this endeavor, this phone, to be all that i think it can be.