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Of iPhones, eBooks, and Ajax
In what is sure to be the first of many lame announcements, publishing house HarperCollins announced a "new service" exclusively for the iPhone which allows users to browse the first few pages of the company's upcoming releases.
It's not the service itself that's lame. In fact, the service is rather cool. Letting users get sneak-peaks of books via smartphone seems like a great way to increase interest in reading and boost sales.
It's the precedence that it sets.
You see, this service was already out for other smartphones as a Flash-based mobile service. Of course, the iPhone does not support Flash or Java. So, you take out the Flash functionality, replace it with Ajax, and presto, you have a "new" service for the iPhone.
So, now we get to look forward to months and months of every company, news outlet and web site with any sort of mobile service creating an Ajax-based version, slapping the "iPhone App" label to it, and trumpeting out a new product to users.
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