Charleston, S.C., venture first to transform iPhone into a walking-tour guide

Oct 06, 2008 (The Post and Courier - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- AAPL | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- Call it what you will: a wireless phone, music player, video player, camera, hard-drive, map or GPS.

A trio of Charleston businessmen have developed their own term for the latest version of the iPhone that Apple Inc. launched over the summer: tour guide.

Longtime walking guide Tommy Dew, Web designer Chris Mettz and real estate agent Nat Wallen are part of the first wave of entrepreneurs whom Apple has approved to program content for its hot little device.

Under the moniker Charleston City Slicker LLC, they have produced a high-tech walking tour of Charleston for the iPhone and hope to use the platform to sell listings of local restaurants, shops and even homes for sale.

"I've been in programming for 26 years," Mettz said. "And the last time I was this excited about something was when the Apple IIe came out." That was 25 years ago.

The company's city tour became available about three weeks ago, and Dew said it's the only one available to date on the iPhone.

Once it is downloaded on the device, iPhoniphiles can pull up razor-sharp photographs, written descriptions, maps and high-definition videos of Charleston's notable buildings and attractions.

And because the phone's global positioning system "knows where you are," it can sound an alert when it nears one of the tour stops, Mettz said.

"It will be able to tell the difference between the front of the church and the graveyard," he said.

Stroll by a historic home, pull out the iPhone and gaze at a panoramic photo shot from its balconies. Click on "video" and watch Dew interview the residents as they stroll through the building.

"The content that we can put on this is so superior to what you can see live," Dew said.

By tapping into the iPhone, Charleston City Slicker is piggybacking off one of the hottest consumer product launches in history. When Apple began soliciting ideas earlier this year from companies that wanted to create programming for the iPhone, the local trio submitted their proposal -- along with tens of thousands of other hopefuls -- and they spent about 500 hours to fine-tune the content and the software. That City Slicker's application made the cut was notable, given Apple's reputation for being extremely picky.

Other businesses also are clamoring to make a buck off the device.

For instance, one of the nation's biggest venture capital firms, has created the $100 million iFund to invest in businesses that develop new applications for the iPhone. Closer to home, Charleston-based Digital Lifestyle Outfitters, which was bought by Royal Philips Electronics last year, describes itself as "the leader" in iPhone accessories. It unveiled a new lineup of products in July for use with the new version.

Charleston City Slicker is offering its tour via Apple's popular iTunes portal and on the iPhone's "App store" for $9.99 -- 30 percent of which will be kept by the Silicon Valley giant.

"Charleston is the perfect city for it," Dew said. "It's compact, and every block has something to talk about. There's too much to talk about."

At the same time, he said, downtown tour companies are strictly regulated by the city as to how many visitors they can show around and the hours they can operate.

"Everyone says I'm putting myself out of business," Dew said of his decision to add a self-guided high-tech element to his company's quiver. "What it allows me to do step outside of my footprint."

He and his partners acknowledged that the format will be foreign to most tourists. But Mettz said they expect to win fans quickly.

"I have 110 percent confidence that this is the way people are going to tour at some point in the future," he said.

Their biggest challenge will be hooking the mass of BlackBerry users -- those devices dominate the smart-phone market -- or the folks who own less sophisticated handsets.

To that end, City Slicker plans to open a kiosk in the Historic District where tourists can rent iPhones already loaded with the tour. The details still are being ironed out.

The iPhone is getting picked up quickly. The device has close to 30 percent of the U.S. smart-phone market share, second to Research in Motion's BlackBerry, according to recent estimates. Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs has stated that his company is aiming to sell 10 million of the touch-screen devices by the end of the year.

Jeff Kagan, an independent telecommunications analyst, called the iPhone launch an "amazing blowout," but he noted that a bunch of similar devices have hit the market in recent months. This month, online search titan Google Inc. will launch its own version.

"Last year, the iPhone created the category. They had no competition," Kagan said. "Now, one year later ... there are plenty of competitors in the marketplace."

City Slicker is putting all of its chips on the iPhone, and it envisions a host of spin-off tours: Charleston architecture, food and plantations, to name a few.

It also plans to create content for other cities. Beaufort is the next stop.

"The whole thing has been, for lack of a better word, an adventure," Wallen said. "From here on, this is basically going to be our full-time job."

Charleston Mayor Joe Riley said he likes the concept of bringing the walking tour industry into the 21st century.

"Tourism is a vitally important sector of our economy" Riley said in a statement. "It is interesting to see how cutting-edge technology can be adapted to allow visitors to enjoy our beautiful and historic city."

John McDermott of The Post and Courier contributed to this report.

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