Apple to Ban More Apps from App Store
Another batch of iPhone apps are, apparently, about to get the axe. Reports are popping up around the net, that “cookie cutter” type apps are starting to be pulled from the App Store. This would include RSS apps, and photo gallery type apps. Any app that just packages an online service, and doesn’t offer any other functionality.
It was just a while ago the Apple was bragging about 100K apps in the App Store, but the past few weeks seem to contradict that, with all the cuts. First we heard about the so called “explicit” apps being pulled, then WiFi stumbling apps were purged, and now the “cookie cutter” apps are starting to go.
Personally, I’m looking at this as a good thing. Not good for developers, but good for consumers. Sure there are a lot of apps to choose from, but so many of them are just the same as another app, that is the same as something else. As a consumer, I would love to see less “crap” and more useful, functional applications. As a budding developer, I can definitely see the other point of view, but I think this could push developers to be more thoughtful and work a little harder on their end product.
So, you may be asking, “What the heck is a cookie cutter app?”. Basically, it is any app that just creates a new user interface for a service that is already available in another form. RSS apps are notorious for this. An RSS feed is pretty much the same, no matter what kind of “packaging” you put it in.
Related Blogs
- Related Blogs on Iphone
- Reading Emerson with an iPhone E-Reader « ResourceShelf
- Adolescent Medicine Heath
Views 195 times by 28 visitors
Two PowerBooks spliced into one epic snowboard (video)
We don’t know that this requires much more explanation than the title. A couple of rad dudes from the German-speaking parts of Europe have taken up tools against their old titanium PowerBooks G4s and produced the righteous bit of snow-surfing kit you see above. It was done for a competition asking for creative ways to re-utilize old gear, though judging by all the flopping and crashing that ensued in their tests, this isn’t exactly useful. See it on video after the break, and if it really catches your fancy, the PowerBook snowboard can be found on eBay, though no one has been mad enough to bid for it yet.
Views 1689 times by 100 visitors
Apple Releases Two New iPhone 3GS Ads – First Steps and On Hold
Apple has just released two new iPhone ads promoting different features of iPhone 3GS . With over 150,000 apps in its sleeve, Apple, beyond any doubt, has the largest number of Apps in its App Store. There is an App for almost anything that you can think off, regardless of gender and age group.
The two ads released today are “First Steps” and “On Hold”. These ads can be seen through the official iPhone Gallery here (requires QuickTime), or directly through the videos embedded below.
The apps mentioned in the ads can be downloaded from iTunes by following the link here.
The biggest inventory of apps in its store gives Apple huge edge over all other major mobile platforms like Android, Windows Phones and Symbian
Views 2042 times by 72 visitors
Rumor: The iPad To Go On Presale Next Week
It’s time to warm up your credit cards folks. Despite the fact that you won’t have it in your hands before March 29th (or 60 days after the announcement, according to Steve Jobs), you should be able to put in your iPad order as soon as next week.
According to a reliable source of ours familiar with the matter, Apple will be starting the presale of the iPad as soon as February 25th.
Presale will be US only, and should be limited to the Wi-Fi version for now. If Apple holds to the announced schedule, you should then receive your iPad within approximately 30 days.
I’m however holding off for the 3G one, you?
Related Blogs
- Related Blogs on ipad
Views 2206 times by 68 visitors
Evidence Suggests Video Chat for Next iPhone
Some interesting information has come to light this evening that may indicate a future direction of Apple’s iPhone OS products. Below is some pretty definitive evidence that future iPhones and iPads will have video chatting capability.
These icons were found in the 3.2 SDK which seem to indicate that there will be video calling on a future iPxxx device.
But Wait! That’s not all. If you click below, hidden in some of the underlying iPad telephony apps are some VideoChat strings that are equally, if not more, telling evidence of future VideoChatting capabilities.
Video chat likely means front facing camera on these devices as well. We’ll know more soon. Also, we’ve found some references to “iChat”.
While it is possible that Apple brought code over from its Mac telephony products, it is unlikely that they also built icons and compressed them into the iPad SDK for such a product if it weren’t being built for future release.
Related Blogs
- Related Blogs on ipad
- Related Blogs on Iphone
- Reading Emerson with an iPhone E-Reader « ResourceShelf
- Thrive Nightclub
Views 3019 times by 68 visitors
Apple’s War On Porn Is Just Getting Started
means business this time — apps that sell sex are being tossed out of the App Store en masse. \
For the past 12 hours, app developers have been getting notices from Apple saying that their apps have been taken down, due to a new policy that bans all “overtly sexual content”.
Apple has a history of making sudden changes to its policies and removing apps, but a developer we spoke to said that the scale of the current purge is unprecedented.
On the Go Girls, for example, has had 17 apps removed so far, about half of its total portfolio. The latest notice came less than an hour ago, so the clean-up is still in full swing. Jens Ltd, another top adult developer, has only one app remaining.
Developers were not warned of the new policy in advance, and it is unclear what prompted it. This could be a major financial setback to adult app companies, most of which are very small. But they don’t anticipate going out of business . “It’s not like pictures of beautiful women in bikinis suddenly became irrelevant,” one developer told us.
Established brands aren’t safe from the purge either. For the moment, Playboy’s latest app is still up, but a number of Maxim apps have disappeared.
Apple has so far refused to confirm or deny a policy shift. The only statement from the company thus far states: “Whenever we receive customer complaints about objectionable content we review them. If we find these apps contain inappropriate material we remove them and request the developer make any necessary changes in order to be distributed by Apple.”
Apple has not responded to a request for clarification.
See also: 15 Outrageous Sex Apps That Made It Into The App Store
Related Blogs
- Related Blogs on porn
- BEHIND BLONDIE PARK » Blog Archive » Porn Star Want Personal …
Views 1469 times by 58 visitors
Likelihood of iPhone/Bing Search Deal is High?
Collins Stewart analyst Sandeep Aggarwal says the likelihood of Microsoft winning a search deal for the iPhone is high. He made these comments after spending a day with Microsoft executives on Feb. 10.
“Likelihood of Microsoft winning Apple search deal for iPhone is high. Though Microsoft did not confirm or deny any chatters on the likelihood of Microsoft wining Apple search deal for iPhone, Mr. Apter told us that for right economics Microsoft would like to win the Apple search deal. We note that a Bing launching a search App for iPhone sometime ago. In our view, Apple search deal can be strategically very significant win for Microsoft not only because of Google and Apple’s history of working together but also because Microsoft has been lagging behind in terms of making in roads on fast growing mobile Internet market.”
Views 3688 times by 63 visitors
Thoughts on the (iTablet) iPad- Connectivity, apps, Multitasking, integrating with Macs
A couple of thoughts I had last night (written on 13.01.2010) about interfaces, the current state of development for the iPhone OS, how Apple could build a hybrid of Mac and iPhone OS, and how the company could build multi-tasking into its rumoured tablet. My thought were the following:
a. A new category: I don’t think the iTablet, if it exists, will be either a Mac or an iPhone. My super-superficial reason: it doesn’t fit in the Mac line-up depicted on the online Apple Store (see pic), but a more underlying reason is that I don’t see space for it in either a Mac-category or a Mobile phone/media player category. Which is not to say that it won’t do either well, but I think it will more fall into the class of Netbooks, though of course with the purpose of bombing those low-tech, low-innovation devices out of the water… just like Apple did with MP3 players and with Phones. Note from today: as it turns out, the iPad is depicted below the iPod, iPhone, and Mac lines, but time will tell where it will be once it’s on sale.
b. The Keyboard: I think that any 10″ screen will demand more connectivity to secondary (Apple) devices than the iPhone allows for. That means, an external keyboard and mouse, which transforms the tablet into a desktop. I have less complaints about the software-keyboard now, after working with a Touch for a while, but I still don’t see it as an alternative for longer texts, which a larger screen would warrant. Some months ago, I made a stupid mock-up of the iPhone + a keyboard (see pic), which is how I envision it looking (only better).
c. The App Store: 3 Billion Apps downloaded, Apple just reported, which also suggests a kind of lock-in. For better or worse, developers have accepted the App-store and I think it works for several reasons for both, namely more protection from pirates, more predictability for developers when developing for the black hole that is Apple, and more control by Apple, which is what Apple likes, not to mention new income streams for both. I think the App Store will continue to exist and will present new challenges when talking about a larger screen. Note from today: I don’t believe that what we will get to see in less than two months will be that what people were playing around with after the Apple keynote. iPhone apps inflated to a larger screen, come on?
d: The User Interface: Previously, OS X also introduced Dashboard into Tiger (I believe), whose interface, on the surface at least, resembles the iPhone. My view is that Apple will give developers the option to just keep the same resolution apps as they have offered before, though not exclusively of course. But imagine “Quick Looking” an app and still having it run inside its “Icon,” while the user does something else. For the rest, I of course think that full-screen Apps will exist, which is where Dashboard comes in, or at least a type of Dashboard. (Note: that was wrong. More below.)
e. Integration with the Mac: One of the most underused interfaces, at least on my Mac, is Dashboard, which allows people to have continuously open widgets on anything from news, to games, to radio, to system monitoring. It’s useful for those purposes, but not really something i spend more than a few minutes at a time with. Yet the first thing that came to mind when thinking of a “Tablet,” using both iPhone and Mac interface components, was Dashboard. It creates a new layer on top of a traditional desktop, allowing for user-input and information display. When I envision someone running the apps that would work on the “iTablet” also, I think of it either being that you open up a new layer on your Mac and run the very same apps on it through something like a Dashboard-like interface. Or, and the simplest solution is usually the best, through having the Tablet sync through iTunes with regular applications on the Mac.
Note from today: well, obviously this was wrong, but there have been several theories aired of having a type of Dashboard on the iPad for apps like calculator and weather, which don’t at all make sense to run in single focus on a larger screen than the iPhone.
Further thoughts from today: I do think that we will see a new OS update for both the iPhone and iPad before the release of the iPad. This will address the concerns that people have about it just being a larger iPod Touch. For the rest, to me the only downside to this device is the lack of a front-facing camera for video-calling, and some minor things. And I also think it’s the perfect “parent device!” What the Wii was to gaming, the iPad is to computing, addressing a very very blue ocean.
As previously stated, I’m still in line to get one this year, though only after trying one first
Views 3067 times by 65 visitors
$459 Million Worth Of iPhone Apps Pirated Till Date
The success of iPhone and the App Store has spawned a new bunch of entrepreneurs who now earn their livelihood developing applications for iPhone users.
With close to 135,000 iPhone apps on the App Store today, the revenues made from the App Store constitute a very significant chunk of income not just for the app developers but for Apple as well.
Back in September of last year, Toni Sacconaghi, an analyst with Bernstein Research had estimated the revenues from the App Store to be between $240 million to $440 million a year for Apple. The sale of iPhone apps also brought a cumulative revenue of nearly $560 million to $1 billion to the developers. Since then a lot of things have changed – The number of iPhone apps downloaded have nearly doubled to 3 billion today. Also, with in-app purchasing enabled, the revenues the developers stand to make from their apps is much higher.
However, this only constitutes the tangible part of the app economy. As with the producers of any other digital content like music or video, iPhone app developers too have been victims of piracy. An analysis conducted by the folks at 24/7 WallSt reveals the extent of impact that piracy has been causing to these small time app developers. According to their study, there are nearly 7.5 million jailbroken iPhones in the world today and close to 40% of these devices make use of pirated software.
In their study, the authors point out that paid applications have an average piracy rate of 75% which would mean that the total value of pirated apps today stand at $4.59 billion. Conservatively assuming that only 10% of these users would have actually purchased the app in the absence of piracy, the revenue lost comes close to $459 million.
Related Blogs
- Related Blogs on Jailbreak
- Found footage: Jailbreak BTstack support extended to 1st gen iPod …
- ipod touch jailbreak 3.1.2 windows | iPod Touch
- JAILBREAK & UNLOCK Iphone 3G/3GS ON 3.1 & 3.1.2 FW (SUPPORTS …
- Guide to Jailbreak iPhone 2g 3G 3GS OS 3.1.2 with Redsn0w 0.9 | iPhone
- Jailbreak Progenitor GeoHot Claims First Hacked PS3 | AnimeNews.biz
Views 2231 times by 60 visitors
Apple Allowing VOIP Over 3G
There are lots of great VOIP applications out there for the iPhone, such as iCall which allows you to make free calls to the United States and Canada, Skype and Fring. What was one of the main disadvantages of these applications is that we were unable to use them over our 3G connection, thus only permitting us to make calls over WiFi.
Apple along with AT&T have decided to ban VOIP over 3G connection, thus removing the capability from the iPhone SDK, that only allowed developers to use WiFi connection. However back in October, AT&T announced that it would start allowing VOIP applications on the iPhone to use 3G connectivity, but not until now that Apple has made this possible.
Before this, we used to have an application known as “3G Unrestrictor“, which is a utility that allowed VOIP over 3G. This utility have not always worked, and if caught using it, it may cause you some legal troubles.
However, iCall have issued a press release on Wednesday stating that Apple has permitted VOIP over 3G connections, thus upgrading the iPhone’s SDK.
With the latest revisions Apple has made to the iPhone developer agreement and Software Development Kit, iCall for the iPhone and iPod Touch now enabled unrestricted free local and long distance calling over 3G data networks. iCall with support for VoIP over 3G networks is now available in the App Store for download. iCall is the first and only VoIP application available for the iPhone platform that allows use over 3G networks. iCall for the iPhone and iPod Touch may now be downloaded from the App Store at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/icall-free-voip/id293837001?mt=8&uo=6
This is a major step by Apple and AT&T in which they permitted the usage of VOPI applications over 3G, which would definitely help decrease our phone bills and make our iPhones more interesting.
Related Blogs
- Related Blogs on Apple
Views 3376 times by 83 visitors
