Kudos to the people at Makayama, the mobile software development house. In terms of attacking the iPhone apps market, they’re one of the first companies to charge for apps that will only install on jailbroken iPhones, but their plan of attack is quite savvy. Take software that adds extremely common functionality found on just about any other device these days, and build it for the iPhone. Their earlier app CameraPro for example, is an image capture application with features such as zoom, self timer, burst mode and other items commonly found on most modern devices. The iPhone on the other hand, as much as you hate to love it or love to hate it, is missing plenty of basic functionality that third-party developers will begin addressing with the release of the SDK. Why not get ahead of the game? Makayama’s latest offering adds functionality that was introduced to the mainstream about a decade ago, and is now found in just about any handset. Voice Dial 1.0 brings voice recognition capabilities to the iPhone, allowing users to speak commands that will initiate phone calls, open applications or even open bookmarked sites in Safari. The app uses a relatively antiquated technique; rather than provide true voice recognition it allows you to record spoken clips and then match commands against stored recordings. Even still, operating the iPhone’s virtual interface in certain situations is extremely unsafe and Voice Dial will greatly assist users in these scenarios. Is this functionality worth the hefty $28 you’ll need to shell out once the trial expires? Hey, at least Makayama isn’t charging you for apps that others get for free…
[Via I4U]