iPhone and Ham Radio

The iPhone has taken the "smart phone" market by storm with something like a 25% market share in a minute. Now, my rule on technology is that I'm into purchasing version 1.1 after the bugs have been worked out. (Example: I am on XP, not Vista, and would wait another year before moving there. Except Microsoft just announced Windows 7 or something...).In any case, after Apple released the iPhone 3G, I got into the act after watching the YL work with hers for about a month. I can tell you that the phone is truly revolutionary from a use perspective. It is simple to use for just about anything. But what really differentiated the 3G for me was the ability, finally, of getting applications from third parties. There are a ton of applications out there.Except ham radio.Now, over on the ARRL Web Site, Surfin' is up with an article called "I Phone, Therefore I Ham," a good look at the ability of the iPhone to use applications.WA1LOU gives a good review of what is out there. But the truth is, what is out there is really just an access to another web site to do your stuff. Sure, you can use an "application" to go look up callsigns -- but you can use the imbedded browser on the iPhone to do the exact same thing. Sure, you can use the map and GPS function on the iPhone to find QTH's, but you can do that in native mode as well.If you carefully look at what are "applications" for ham radio, most of them are simply portals to information you can find on the web already.But, a suggestion, however, for all those web sites: build your site for mobile use. Most sites will benefit from signing up for a service to do this and almost all services build the site for a mobile phone and specifically for an iPhone.Want to see? Access K9JY.com on your mobile phone. What you see is targeted for the mobile screen. And if you have a iPhone, you will get an iPhone version. While this site will automatically detect your mobile or iPhone if you access it that way, you can also bookmark the mobile version of K9JY.com as http://m.k9jy.com and get your stuff a little bit faster.It is Sweepstakes this weekend. Go rock on some radio.