Lots of news coming out of the Apple Worldwide Developer’s Conference today. TechCrunch‘s Erik Schonfeld teased a lot of new apps for the iPhone complete with a brief interview by Michael Arrington of eBay’s very own Alan Lewis speculating on the reasons behind Alan’s attendance – attendee or presenter?
Alan was indeed attending as a presenter. He and eBay Mobile product manager, Ken Sun, were fortunate enough to demo their brand-new application to Steve Jobs last week and he liked it so much he invited them to do the same earlier today during his keynote in San Francisco this morning. I managed to get on the phone with Ken before he took the stage:
“The iPhone has quickly become the #1 mobile device for accessing eBay and while the current Safari experience is great, we wanted to create the best mobile experience for our customers,” said Ken Sun. “5 weeks ago we decided to create this application. The ease of developing with the iPhone SDK helped us to quickly integrate with eBay’s web services.”
He also provided me with some screen shots so I could share with readers:
HOME: Immediate access to search and “My eBay at a glance” so buyers and sellers can stay on top of their auctions throughout the day. It is also personalized with the user’s MyWorld avatar:
My eBay: Buyers and sellers can view the items they’re tracking so they can easily find the ones they need to take action on:
Search Results: Search the entire inventory of auctions and fixed-price items available on eBay.com. A refine button will be available to allow buyers to zero-in on what they’re looking for by category, price or auction type:
The bad news? The eBay application won’t be available until the App Store launches later this Summer. The good news? It will be available for free when it does.
I plan on catching up with Ken this week to find out what it was like to demo for Steve Jobs and what’s involved in taking a concept from idea to reality in just 5 weeks.
Cheers,
RBH