Weather.com really frustrated me tonight while checking the weather on my BlackBerry. I was using the WAP site and saw an ad to download the weather.com application for BlackBerry. “Sweet!” I’m thinking to myself, I use it all the time on my iPod Touch how handy to have it when I’m away from WiFi. Then I realized it would be a big fat fee to use it, $12.99 per quarter! Whaaaat??? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not opposed to paying for applications and software. I usually upgrade versions for pretty much everything within the first 1-2 months of availability. But when I get the same service for free on the iPod (and by extension iPhone) it really rubs me the wrong way. Either charge me for the iPod Touch app or find another way to subsidize your income.

Weather.com App Download Screenshots

This interesting story about how one man was able to make a huge profit off of software that did nothing. TechCrunch humorously covered the story yesterday but it had been removed before I could even see it in the app directory. Of course, without $1,000 to buy it or an iPhone/iPod to run it on, I wasn’t going to be giving any hands on demos anyway!

Imagine how much people would pay for an application that actually did do something… the sky is the limit!

I’m an Apple fan boy. I switched with at dawn of OS X and haven’t looked back. I love the iPhone for it’s style and functionality – but when it comes right down to it – I’m not compelled to buy a new phone that’s really only moderately better than the last version. Sure GPS is great (I’ve got that now) and the touch screen is amazing – but I’m going to be sticking with my Blackberry for a while longer. I might go out and get that iPod Touch I’ve been thinking about instead because it doesn’t look like true improvements in the device are happening anytime soon. Information week has a few other reasons not to upgrade. If I do need a new phone (let’s hope not this one’s hardy 2 months old) I may venture over to the Nokia store and see what they have to offer.

Mark Hendrickson of TechCrunch did a really nice summary of the live blog notes from the Apple iPhone roadmap event this morning. Unfortunately, as consumers we’re left to wait until June until we can actually get our hands on all the 3rd party application goodness that’s likely to spring forth. Application developers can get their hands on the SDK now. Guess I’ll be sticking with the Blackberry for a while yet.