App Piracy and Why Apple Needs to Help

Ryan posted earlier last week about Apple’s growing pains. Yes, Apple has approved over 100,000 apps, and we’re long since past the 2 billion download milestone, which is great. But alongside the explosive growth in the App Store has come explosive growth in another, not entirely unexpected direction: piracy.

I’m not going to pretend that piracy is a new or even an unusual phenomenon. Grabbing the latest album or movie off of the internet takes about as much effort as wiggling your pinky finger. But App Store piracy is a bit unique. First of all, we’re hearing a lot more indie developers speaking out about it. And secondly, those developers are extremely restricted in what preventative measures they can take, thanks in no small part to Apple.

The real power is in the numbers. Recently, Fishlabs reported that they experienced first-day piracy rates of 95% for Rally Master Pro. This is far from unusual; Smells Like Donkey claimed to experience rates as high as 90% in the week following the release of their newest game, Tap Fu, and ngmoco regularly experiences first-week rates of 50-90%. These rates decrease over time as pirates lose interests and more legitimate customers download the game, but indie developers are hit the hardest, with many enduring lasting piracy rates around 50%. Worst of all, hotly anticipated apps are cracked not within hours, but within moments of their release.

Needless to say, many are frustrated. Smells Like Donkey wrote that they felt “totally screwed over” after seeing just how rampant piracy was. And who can blame them? There aren’t many viable ways to protect applications.

Developers can attempt to check for pirated apps, but they often feel compelled to tread lightly. There’s nothing worse for PR than blocking a legitimate customer after a piracy check generates a “false positive.” (I.e., a genuine buyer gets mistaken for a pirate.) In the App Store, word of mouth is often what makes or breaks a game. Some insert pop-up notifications when a pirated app is detected, asking the user to buy a legal copy of the application, while others revert their games to a “lite” mode; most are loathe to permanently disable the apps.

Continue reading App Piracy and Why Apple Needs to Help »

100,000 apps and growing pains.

On November 28th 2008 Apple hit a landmark for their iPhone App Store. They reached 10,000 approved applications for their device. Less then a year later, Apple has hit another landmark in approving their 100,000th app. This number is mind boggling when you think about the amount of development man hours that have gone into it.

Recently I’ve read some other saddening numbers in that some developers are seeing piracy rates of upwards of 90% on their applications. I firmly believe that Apple’s recent move to allow developers to sell in game purchases in their free apps is a direct response to the massive pirating we see going on. If developers, publishers, startups and the like are going to make money consistently on the device in a complete sea of pirates and the race to $0.99 they are going to do start thinking and doing things completely differently. A lot of people are starting to expect a lot of game for almost no money. The problem is very few companies can exist by merely selling their app for such a low price, but then you’ll almost never get noticed if you price yourself higher. It is definitely a catch 22 for many devs. What I see happening in this space is that the devs who take the model of giving their game away for free and then convincing me to go farther by spending $0.99 or $1.99 will more likely succeed. The other approach is to lock people out of the game based on a timed events similar to how iMob does it. There may even be a 3rd or 4th solution to this problem that has yet to emerge.

This flood of apps will not stop, and some analysts are saying that we’ll see 250,000 applications by this time next year and that number may even be low if we look at the growth pattern over the last year and half. Crazy as it sounds, I think this is just the tip of the iceberg that will be the app store. Everyone will be developing stuff for the iPhone. At some point, Apple will be changing it’s slogan to “There are 100 apps for that” as extreme over saturation hits in all areas. Even Adobe is releasing a Flash game converter that allows you to make your Flash game into an app and with that every Flash game will get converted in no time.

Continue reading 100,000 apps and growing pains. »

In App Purchase Now Available For Free Apps

Since the launch of 3.0, I’ve seen just about 0 successful attempts at in app purchasing. With the pricing scale the way it is, and customers unwillingness to buy things that cost more than a dollar, I wonder if it will ever take off, unless the in-app purchases are going for something around a nickel.

To beat this lack of use, Apple, unwilling to let anything not named Apple TV whither away and die, has decided to let in-app purchasing be available on free apps, making way for a new ‘buy it if you like it’ system.

You can also simplify your development by creating a single version of your app that uses In App Purchase to unlock additional functionality, eliminating the need to create Lite versions of your app. Using In App Purchase in your app can also help combat some of the problems of software piracy by allowing you to verify In App Purchases.

The app industry seems to have mixed feelings but all see somewhat excited about the change.

“This announcement changes the landscape of the App Store as we know it,” said Colin Smith, co-founder and vice president of Freeverse. “It’s not clear just yet how quickly it will change, but you can be sure that this will be significant. Freeverse is currently discussing how to incorporate this change into our development plans.”

Bryan Barletta, Developer Relations for Medialets and former Editor in Chief of 148apps, has an interesting take on the subject. “Part of me is excited. The ability to do one app that is both a lite and full version will reduce some clutter going forward once adoption has taken place and we’ll most likely see more free apps hit the store knowing that they can charge at a later time.” He warns though that “the App Store could easily turn into a pay-to-play market, where you download a shell of an app with no content in it until you purchase a DLC package. There will be people who use it right, and they will be showcased for it, but I’m still not sure this was the best idea. So few apps have actually implemented in app purchasing on a paid side.”

So is this the beginning of the end for lite versions of apps, or will this just become a really annoying way for apps to appear free, even when they aren’t? I can just envision the day that The Sims 4 comes out, for free, with no furniture or clothing available… I can’t wait.

Spotify Wins!

Being a proud citizen of the United States of America, I enjoy many fine things in life. I eat Tex-Mex quite regularly, my Chinese food contains almost no vegetables, and I can go to football games (no, not soccer) whenever I get a chance, but there is something missing from my life. No, not a functional countrywide rail system… Spotify!

I had Spotify for about a month in the States (via nefarious methods) but those plodding Europeans shut down my account, saying that I was out of the country for too long. Sorry… I’m just bitter. That month may have been the best month, musically, of my life. I love Pandora to death, but having the ability to make a playlist using whatever song I want made me really happy. Unfortunately, due to what I’m sure is doing of a mentally incompetent Congressman, music laws prevent Spotify in its current form from existing in the US.

Regardless of my personal issues with the music industry, Spotify happily exists in Europe, and the iPhone app has just been approved by Apple according to PaidContent:UK. I could get into the approval process that Spotify had to go through, but the focus here is on me. I’m the one that can’t use the app. So lame. For all of you UK readers, here’s a really cool video of the Spotify app in action. Enjoy!

Urban Ducklings may sound like the subtitle of a really bad Howard the Duck sequel, but it’s actual a pretty nifty new casual arcade game. Thanks to the Iphone’s unique controls, Urban Ducklings gives the classic “cross the road” genre a new twist (pun intended).

Read More »

Monday Morning App HQ

Random musings of the App Store

Apple, you might want to improve your approval process

It seems that news comes out, on a weekly basis, that demonstrates how bad Apple’s approval system is, and this week was no different, with two notable stories. First, the Google Voice app. In the FCC letters, Apple claims AT&T has nothing to do with this, but it simply reeks of their interference, though on the technical side, it was rejected because it duplicates an already existing native feature – the phone. Why then, are there so many “Text Free” apps. Apple simply has no consistency. Apple, however, revealed some interesting nuggets of information: about 8500 apps are submitted each week, Apple employs 40 full-time app reviewers, and each app is reviewed by two separate people. Some rough number crunching by Jeff, our head honcho, reveals that the average time a single person spends reviewing an app is 5.6 minutes. This is simply atrocious, and frankly explains a lot. More and more, it is showing that Apple struck gold with the App Store, but was in no way expecting it and has no idea what to do. The next news story is the saga of Spotify, an awesome internet radio app. Apple has done absolutely nothing, and the app is still in limbo after several weeks in review. Obviously, Apple believes Spotify is a great app, so great in fact, that it will hurt iTunes store music downloads. Much like in the case of A.D.D., the answer here is simply more transparency. Come on, Apple, at least let the developers know what is happening so that they might speed the process. And of course, make up your mind! Have the cajones to either approve it or reject rather than leaving it rotting in app purgatory.

Race for the best Kart Racer

Gameloft seems to be going head to head with other developers lately, and kart racing is the latest iteration of this. Both Konami (Krazy Kart Racing) and Gameloft (Shrek Kart) have Mario Kart style racers due out soon on the App Store. Simply based on screenshots and video alone, I’d say the edge goes to Gameloft. The graphics in Shrek Kart are much nicer (Krazy Kart graphics are somewhat blocky and the karts look like they’re hovering due to the lack of a shadow), and the track design looks better for Shrek Kart. From the video, Shrek Kart looks to be a very competent Mario Kart-like game. I typically dislike the gimmicky use of movie characters and the like in games, but Shrek Kart looks like a can’t miss.

Free “Knights Onrush” promotional game

In a nice promotional move, the folks over at Moregames have released a free supplement game to their hit “Knights Onrush.” Though we thoroughly enjoyed Knights Onrush in our review, the promotional game is nothing like it. It uses the same characters, but rather than a Castle Defense game, it is a side scrolling hack-’n-slash with some nice RPG elements and best of all, a jump button. It’s a typical highscore affair, and while the game is glitchy, it is rather enjoyable. The game will likely climb the free app charts and gain some publicity for the main game, and Moregames even hints at the fact that they might give the game a premium paid version. I applaud this great marketing move, which is good for both the developer and cash-strapped iPhone gamers!

This week’s sign of the apocalypse

The Mobile Navigator app is steadily hanging in the top 100 paid apps, at a whopping price tag of $69.99. Personally, I’m waiting for a $.99 sale.

Apps of the Week

Gangster: West Coast Hustle

Gameloft has truly achieved a milestone for the iPhone with their immensely impressive GTA-style game. This game features a fully explorable 3D sandbox world with plenty of ways to get your hands dirty. The story missions are entertaining, graphics are rich, and best of all, the controls are fantastic. If Gameloft sticks to a mantra of light on innovation, heavy on quality, while producing games like this at such a bargain price, you won’t hear any complaining from me.

Sonar Ruler

If you’re like me, then you love showing off cool, unique things that only an iPhone can do. The latest and greatest of these apps is Sonar Ruler. The concept of Sonar Ruler is simply so cool I didn’t believe it at first: by using sonar technology, you can simply point your iPhone at a (large) object and just like that, find out how far away it is. Sounds futuristic, right? Best of all, if you use the app correctly, its measurements are actually fairly precise, within an inch usually. No, it’s not going to replace a ruler or measuring tape, but it’s pretty freaking awesome.

That’s it for this week’s MMAHQ. I hope everyone is enjoying the column, and have a great week!

FCC Responses From Apple, AT&T, and Google Released

TechCrunch has gotten ahold of the responses from Apple, AT&T, and Google to the FCC request for information on why the Google Voice application was rejected. The summary from Apple is that the app hasn’t been rejected and they are still studying it.

Quote from Apple response:

Contrary to published reports, Apple has not rejected the Google Voice application, and continues to study it. The application has not been approved because, as submitted for review, it appears to alter the iPhone’s distinctive user experience by replacing the iPhone’s core mobile telephone functionality and Apple user interface with its own user interface for telephone calls, text messaging and voicemail. Apple spent a lot of time and effort developing this distinct and innovative way to seamlessly deliver core functionality of the iPhone. For example, on an iPhone, the “Phone” icon that is always shown at the bottom of the Home Screen launches Apple’s mobile telephone application, providing access to Favorites, Recents, Contacts, a Keypad, and Visual Voicemail. The Google Voice application replaces Apple’s Visual Voicemail by routing calls through a separate Google Voice telephone number that stores any voicemail, preventing voicemail from being stored on the iPhone, i.e., disabling Apple’s Visual Voicemail. Similarly, SMS text messages are managed through the Google hub—replacing the iPhone’s text messaging feature. In addition, the iPhone user’s entire Contacts database is transferred to Google’s servers, and we have yet to obtain any assurances from Google that this data will only be used in appropriate ways. These factors present several new issues and questions to us that we are still pondering at this time.

Regarding Apple’s agreement with AT&T and what role AT&T has in the approval of applications, Apple says that they alone make the final decision to approve or reject an application. But Apple goes on to say that their agreement with AT&T keeps them from approving VoIP apps and apps that violate the AT&T terms of service.

There is a provision in Apple’s agreement with AT&T that obligates Apple not to include functionality in any Apple phone that enables a customer to use AT&T’s cellular network service to originate or terminate a VoIP session without obtaining AT&T’s permission. Apple honors this obligation, in addition to respecting AT&T’s customer Terms of Service, which, for example, prohibit an AT&T customer from using AT&T’s cellular service to redirect a TV signal to an iPhone. From time to time, AT&T has expressed concerns regarding network efficiency and potential network congestion associated with certain applications, and Apple takes such concerns into consideration.

Some other gems from Apple’s response:

• Apple employs over 40 full-time app reviewers
• At least 2 reviewers study each app before it’s approved
• There’s a senior review board that meets weekly to review applications that raise new questions. Most likely this is where apps go when the developer gets the “unexpected extra time to review” notice.
• 95% of applications are approved within 14 days of being submitted.
• Apple receives 8,500 new and updated app submissions every week, roughly 20% are not approved

Those last 2 points don’t really add up. If 20% of submissions are rejected every week, now do 95% get approved within 2 weeks. Perhaps Apple is saying that of the 80% that get approved, 95% of those get approved within 14 days?

AT&T’s response on the other hand pretty much completely sidesteps the question of rejection of VoIP and video applications (like SlingPlayer). They don’t explain why those applications are available on most of the other platforms in use on the AT&T network.

FCC Question: Do any devices that operate on AT&T’s network allow use of other
applications that have been rejected for the iPhone?

As discussed above, AT&T does not participate in Apple’s day-to-day consideration of
whether particular iPhone applications should or should not be rejected for use on the
iPhone, and Apple does not typically notify AT&T when particular iPhone applications
are accepted or rejected. Consequently, AT&T cannot identify all applications that have been rejected for the iPhone. As discussed above and on the AT&T Choice website,
however, AT&T customers are able to use a broad range of applications on their AT&T
devices in a manner consistent with AT&T’s terms of use. In particular, AT&T
customers can use Google Voice on any AT&T phone, including the iPhone, by
accessing it through their web browser. Customers can also download compatible
applications for music, social networking, photography, weather, navigation, travel,

In Google’s response to the FCC, the really interesting part, the conversation between Apple and Google about the Google Voice application is, unfortunately redacted. I’m hoping that the Freedom of Information Act will allow the release of that text at some point in the future.

For the full, responses, check out TechCrunch:

Apple’s Response
AT&T’s Response
Google’s Response

[Via TechCrunch]

App Store News Round-up for August 14th

While Apple and AT&T’s lawyers are busy dealing with multiple lawsuits for failing to deliver MMS, we’ve been rounding up the latest App Store news.

Man, that’s a lot of beer money. Ever wonder how much you’ve spent on apps? There’s some new software for Mac that reads all of your downloaded apps and ads up how much they would cost. To be truly accurate you need to edit the prices of some apps, but it’s pretty close. I hate to tell you how much I’ve spent so far. Here’s a hint — I could easily feed an NFL team for a week.

In other news, man seeks attention. Someone trying to make a point decides to try and get publicity for that point. Not a new story, it happens all the time. But this guy decided he was so upset with Apple that he was going to shoot his iPhone with a 9MM and then set it on fire. That should prove a point. Watch the video for a nice case of misguided anger.

Luxor getting the Plus+ treatment Luxor, one of the best known marble shooter games is getting Plus+ integration and will be released for the iPhone soon. One of the first specific games to be announced with the social gaming platform developed by ngmoco:) integrated.

What will be keeping me busy this weekend. Worms just released an update. I’m going to try that out and hope that it fixes the major problems we had with the game. I’m testing out GPS apps. Gomi still has me hooked. Plus a couple other pre-release games I’m looking into.

What are you playing this weekend? Let us know in the comments. Have a great weekend everyone!

Dear Steve, Please Fix the App Store Approval Process

Dear Mr. Jobs,

In all of these months since the app store launched, I’ve been hesitant to be negative of Apple and the app store approval process. Developers have responded passionately and repeatedly with stories of rejected apps and even apps removed from the app store for various reasons. Sometimes they were right, the rejection didn’t make sense. But many times, they were wrong, the app should have been rejected due to obvious reasons.

But today, it seems as though Apple has gone from being just mysterious in it’s approval process to outright complacent. With the removal of apps that use the Google Voice APIs to allow you to access their services, Apple has crossed a line into scary overlord territory. It almost seems as though roles in the 1984 commercial have been reversed.

So yes, these apps may duplicate some of the functions of the iPhone. But as many argue, they don’t, as the features they supply aren’t available on the iPhone. They no more duplicate functions than any of hundreds of apps that provide weather information, calendar interfaces, embedded browsers, contact management, sms services, heck, even the dozens of voice recorders already released now duplicate a default application in OS 3.0.

My big question is, what made this happen now? Is AT&T behind this rejection? If so, this adds to a list of innovative apps they have neutered. For example, SlingPlayer, an application that AT&T even publicizes for Blackberry was restricted to only working over Wifi for the iPhone. Ridiculous… that basically strips 90% of it’s functionality. And if they are behind the rejection of Google Voice related apps, an application that’s already available on Blackberries as well, on their network even, I have to wonder what’s going on? What are they thinking? What are they afraid of?

I can’t believe it’s really their network. They have been adding new customers regularly. Not just this quarter, but for the past 2 years. They’ve had time to upgrade their network as needed for all these new iPhone customers.

Further, why would Apple be in such a stranglehold from AT&T? Why would Apple allow AT&T to stifle innovation in this platform and restrict such applications? It’s boggling why AT&T treats iPhones and their users with such a lack of respect even though we pay more for the same service than other customers.

So, to get to my point, what all this adds up to is that the iPhone is still the best mobile platform to develop for, by far. We all know that. But the platform that freed developers in so many ways is being increasingly perceived as a hostile environment. There are too many unknowns for some developers to put the time and expense into developing the next big, innovative app for the platform when they have no way of even verifying that they can ever release their app.

People are starting companies, risking their livelihoods and their futures on the iPhone and the iTunes App Store. It’s just bad developer (not to mention public) relations to operate such a veiled process like this knowing that so many people depend on it for their livelihood. Not to mention that it will eventually end up in court and could cost Apple a bundle.

So, Mr. Jobs, I ask this of you. You have the power to fix all of these problems. Please do so and we can all be a big happy family again.

First, take the developer agreement and re-write it. At its core, the problem is that Apple has only published rules to developers that basically say, we’ll approve what we want to, here are a few very non-specific guidelines to follow.

Get your product managers in there and tell them to re-write it so that it is written for the benefit of the developers not Apple’s legal department. No blanket statements, be specific with details about what is and is not allowed. Leave nothing out. Then, open it up for discussion with your devoted developers to get their feedback. And then, stick to it. No exceptions like you made for AT&T (going around the in-app purchasing with their GPS app), or Google (use of undocumented APIs for the proximity sensor). We’ll all be happier if we are all on a well explained and level playing field.

Second, slap AT&T, tell them that they have no control over the app store. Apple, you have created a revolution with this platform and it’s bigger than AT&T. But, if they are restricting innovation it can never come close to it’s full potential.

And Steve, can I call you Steve? That brings up a bigger topic related to AT&T. Can you please do something about the AT&T exclusivity in the USA? They treat the iPhone like it’s a cheap Nokia feature phone, not like the best phone ever seen by man. They treat it like a nuisance and it’s users like second-class citizens. We aren’t treated as we should be treated, as their only hope for a future and the only reason they are still in business. AT&T are acting like narrow-minded, slow to upgrade, innovation stifling knuckleheads. So, please, use your powers, the ones that you so deftly used a few years to get your way with AT&T, to either get them to clean up their act, or move on to Verizon like everyone thinks is going to happen.

Respectfully yours,
Jeff Scott
Publisher / Founder
148Apps

Google Voice apps Removed/Rejected from the App Store

Today, TechCrunch revealed that the 2 existing Google Voice apps, VoiceCentral and GV Mobile had been removed from the app store. They also heard from Google that the official Google Voice application for the iPhone had been rejected by Apple.

The apps were officially rejected due to the clause in the iPhone developer agreement that states that apps can’t duplicate the functions built into the OS. Really, a lame clause and likely just covering up something else. After all, how many hundreds of apps in the app store duplicate functionality of the built-in apps?

The rejections have been unofficially blamed on a clueless AT&T attempting to protect their fleeting business. If true, it shows a real desperate company that just doesn’t understand the need to innovate and lead rather than just fail by sticking to your quickly aging business.

But why has AT&T intervened yet again when this same app is available on Blackberry phones using the AT&T network? When will AT&T stop treating iPhone customers like second class customers?

I’m no fan of AT&T, I think very few customers are, but this just adds another log to the fire.

[Via TechCrunch]

App Store: 1.5 Billion Apps Served

Apple today announced that the iTunes App Store has served over 1.5 billion app downloads worldwide. This comes less than 3 months since the Apple announced the 1 billionth download in April. The App Store continues to show amazing growth and has seen over 100,000 developers sign up for the iPhone developer program.

While there are many discussed problems with the app store from a developer prospective, it has really taken off with consumers. The word revolutionary seems to be thrown around a lot in relation to the iTunes App Store. But the app store really has done things for consumer app shopping that we’ve never seen before. Even others that have tried to reproduce the functionality of the app store since it was launched just over a year ago, such as Google and Blackberry, have failed to even come close. Steve Jobs commented on this fact in the announcement:

“The App Store is like nothing the industry has ever seen before in both scale and quality. With 1.5 billion apps downloaded, it is going to be very hard for others to catch up.”

With 58,088 active apps in the US app store today, and 300 new ones added every day, will the growth ever slow?

We recently asked our readers to weigh in on how many apps and how much they have spent in a survey. The average number of applications and games downloaded thus far by the 160 respondents was 230. This is a larger number than I would have expected for a fairly new platform. Respondents also noted that they have spent, on average, $136 thus far on applications and games with the average monthly spend being in the $11-$20 range. That puts the average price paid per application at just $0.59 indicating that more than half of the applications downloaded by the people responding to the survey were free.

It took 9 months for the first billion apps to be downloaded and just 3 for an additional half billion to be added to that. So as we continue to up this steep growth hill, there’s still not peak in sight. I’m sure developers hope that Apple will get some of the issues they face with developing and selling apps fixed, but for consumers, it’s been a pretty smooth ride.

How Has the App Store Changed Your Mobile Usage?

Today, July 11th, 2009, we celebrate the 1 year anniversary of the iTunes App Store. As of today the app store contains over 56,801 apps and has hosted well over a billion app downloads. I asked some of our writers to look back over the year and discuss how the app store and iPhone apps in general, had changed their mobile usage and their lives.

Read on for our thoughts, screen shots of our home screens, and our favorite apps.

Continue reading How Has the App Store Changed Your Mobile Usage? »

148 is Not Enough, Apple Heard Us!

In one of the lesser talked about new features of iPhone OS 3.0, you can now install more than 148 applications on your iPhone. With OS 3, the number of pages you can fill with applications has been raised from 9 to 11. This gives you a maximum number of applications you can display of 180.

So now the next question will obviously be, are you going to change the name of the site to 180Apps? No, we aren’t going to change. We’re happy with 148Apps and we’re sticking with it.

One of our slogans around here at 148Apps has been “148 Is Not Enough!” — there are even t-shirts available with that slogan. And now, are we supposed to change that?

Truth be told, with OS 3.0 there really is no limit to the number of apps you can install — other than available storage space. Even though your phone will get slower and slower with the more applications you install, you can keep adding them. The only limit is the number of applications that you can see on your phone application launcher. That maximum to display is 11 pages or a total of 180 icons including the 4 in the tray at the bottom. Beyond the 180 icons displayed, you can use Spotlight search to find and launch the applications. The only problem with this is that it will be nearly impossible to remember what applications you have installed beyond the 180 you can display.

It’s a very odd decision for Apple to make. Why add only 2 more pages? Why not just allow for an infinite number of pages? And even though there are only 11 pages, why allow users to install more than what you can display? These are answers that we will never know as Apple never discusses such minute details. We’ll just have to guess as to their motive. Personally, I think the whole reason was that they heard our call to add more — but didn’t want to make us too happy.

Apple Announces iPhone Winners of the Apple Design Awards

On the second night of it’s 2009 World Wide Developer Conference, Apple announced the winners of the this years Apple Design Awards. The winners are split amongst the Mac and iPhone applications submitted by their developers for the competition. Winning applications are considered to be the pinnacle of design and user experience and recognize technical excellence, innovation, and outstanding achievement. This year’s iPhone application winners along with their award descriptions are:

iPhone Developer Showcase

MLB.com At Bat 2009 version 1.0.1 from MLB.com (app info)

MLB At Bat 2009 is an innovative, highly connected app that sets a great standard for all other iPhone sports apps to follow.

At Bat 2009 is the fastest, most detailed way to follow baseball on an iPhone or iPod touch. Users can listen live to every regular and postseason game with no blackout restrictions, see real-time scores, play highlights, and stream audio of all games At Bat 2009 uses MediaPlayer for in-game video highlights, AudioToolbox for streaming audio, QuartzCore, CoreGraphics, UIKit, and Core Animation to optimize the user experience, SQLite for data caching and tracking video view history, and SystemConfiguration for reach-ability.

Postage version 1.0.1 from Rogue Sheep (app info)

Postage sets a new standard for attractiveness and ease of use in an iPhone app.

With Postage you create and send beautiful, personalized digital postcards using the built-in camera and Photo Library. Core Animation provides smooth transitions and eye-catching effects while Quartz provides high quality graphics, effects, and text display. With 3G/Edge/Wi-Fi networking, you have connectivity virtually everywhere. And you can easily select recipients of your Postage postcards with Address Book integration.

Topple 2 version 1.1 from ngmoco:) (app info)

Topple 2 is an ideal model for excellent iPhone game and game sequel design, technology adoption, performance, connectedness, and localization.

Topple 2 combines the features of multitouch and the accelerometer to create a game about stacking blocks and keeping them from toppling over. Local WiFi multiplayer mode enables game play between two players, and a challenge mode where recorded sessions can be sent to others players via email, twitter or facebook. Localized for English, French, German, Japanese, and Spanish, Topple 2 uses multiple iPhone SDK technologies including UIKit, OpenGL ES, Bonjour, CFNetwork, Multi-Touch, Accelerometer, Email, and Twitter and Facebook integration.
Continue reading Apple Announces iPhone Winners of the Apple Design Awards »

Why I’m Not Upgrading to the iPhone 3GS

There’s one main reason I’m not going to buy the iPhone 3GS.

It’s not that it’s not enough of an upgrade. It’s a decent revision that makes the phone a heck of a lot faster. Sure most of the obvious parts of the upgrade is in the OS revision, but there are still a couple great features of the iPhone 3GS. The new camera is fantastic. The compass is great and should add a ton of functionality to maps and game controls. The extra memory, faster processor, and extra battery life is killer!

But I’m still not going to upgrade to the 3GS, even though I really want to.

The reason I’m not going to upgrade is because of AT&T.

AT&T has consistently treated iPhone users as second class citizens on their network. Not allowing iPhone applications to do things that their counterparts on Windows Mobile or Blackberry do. And the whole time, charging us more for the privilege of having less service.

They have announced that they will be adding MMS support for the iPhone in late summer. Nice of them to say that it will be at no extra charge. Tethering support will come and some unspecified time later and will be an extra charge. My guess for the price of tethering is just take the cost for Windows Mobile tethering and add $15.
Continue reading Why I’m Not Upgrading to the iPhone 3GS »

Liveblog from the 2009 WWDC Keynote

We’ll be blogging live from the 2009 WWDC Keynote (come on new iPhone!). Powered by Friendfeed, you can watch the news here, or head on over directly to our special group set up on Friendfeed: WWDC 2009 Keynote Group. If you have a Friendfeed account you can comment and join in on the conversation.

Continue reading Liveblog from the 2009 WWDC Keynote »

This application lists all the Laptops that Apple have made starting from iBook in July 1999 – and going up to the PowerBook G4, 17″ (2005). Why? Well I’m not sure you need this app, but I have to confess to looking & lusting over the laptops!

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Here Come E3 and WWDC! Going? Let’s Meet Up!

The next few weeks are going to be exciting for the iPhone community. First up we have E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo in LA. This huge video game conference is where all of the great hardware and games get announced for the year. While the iPhone isn’t going to play a major role in this show, it will likely make a larger showing than any other mobile phone has in the past. We’ll be reporting from the show any fantastic things we come across.

The week following that, WWDC will be in San Francisco. This yearly developers conference hosted by Apple is where all the big iPhone news comes out. Or at least it has in the past. While rumors are mixed, we could see the release of the 3.0 OS, and maybe even a new iPhone or two. We’ll keep you posted.

148Apps will be a sponsor the the second iPhone Developers Union meet up at WWDC. The event will be held at Jillians in the Metreon on Monday night, June 8th at 7pm. For more information, see the @iPhoneDevUnion Twitter stream.

If you’re an iPhone developer, we’d love to meet up with you at either conference and see what you are working on. Just let us know what time is good for you. Send us an email or hit us up on Twitter.

Trent Reznor Speaks Out Against App Store Policy

Over the weekend, Trent Reznor, front-man for Nine Inch Nails, received quite a bit of bad news from the App Store. It seems that the update to their app, nin: access, was denied.

The app is currently in the App Store, available for free, having already passed through the approval process once. The changes in this update? Well, they’d fix some of the bugs that have left many users giving the app a poor rating due to unexpected issues.

So what exactly was Apple’s reason for denying the update?

“Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple’s reasonable judgement may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users.”

This is in reference to the album “The Downward Spiral” made available through the app. Here’s what Trent had to say in response to the issue:

Continue reading Trent Reznor Speaks Out Against App Store Policy »

Slingbox App Rejection Rumor Debunked

Last week, I was lucky enough to receive a Slingbox and an ad-hoc copy of the latest build of the Slingbox iPhone app for review purposes. While I won’t be able to release a review of the app until it goes live, I’m thoroughly impressed.

Today, all over the internet there has been “an unconfirmed tip from a source close to Apple’s approval processes” claiming that the app had in fact been denied due to pressure from AT&T. The app is slated to allow use over 3G and WiFi, meaning that it would in fact be a bandwidth burden for AT&T, but considering the app already exists on the BlackBerry and Windows Mobile phones which AT&T sure carries a few of, there’s no reason to believe this rumor to be true (even BGR agree’s!)

Continue reading Slingbox App Rejection Rumor Debunked »

Riding the fall of the stock market? Eh? AirCoaster 3D is a roller coaster simulator with a built-in track editor and an online database for community uploads. Besides the thrill of riding a fake coaster, you can also get some bitter laughs out of riding a track based on the Dow Jones index.

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iPhone SDK Agreement Confusion Clarified

Developers and news outlets alike have been up in arms about the clarification made in the agreement signed by developers before receiving the SDK. Unfortunately, there have been some serious misconceptions about what, if anything, has actually changed and what it will mean for both the official development and jailbroken communities.

Section 3.2 Use of the SDK, paragraph (e) states:

(e) You will not, through use of the SDK or otherwise, create any Application or other program that would disable, hack or otherwise interfere with any security, digital signing, digital rights management, content protection, verification or authentication mechanisms implemented in or by the iPhone operating system software, iPod touch operating system software, this SDK, or other Apple software, services or technology, or enable others to do so.

Continue reading iPhone SDK Agreement Confusion Clarified »

Wowza! 30,000 Apps in the iTunes App Store!

In under 9 months the app store has grown from 0 to over 30,000 apps. To break that down a little, here are some stats from our old 10,000 Apps page — the image isn’t up to date, but the stats are updated every few minutes:

Number of apps (some currently inactive): 30,005
Number of games / entertainment apps: 10,126 (33.7% of total)
Number of apps submitted in September, 2008: 2,944 (98/day)
Number of apps submitted in February, 2009: 5,872 (209/day)
Number of free apps / games in the store: 7,086
Total cost to buy every app ever submitted to the app store: $81,444.81 ($2.71 average/app)

The app store will be 1 year old on 7/11/2009 — if things continue on this growth curve, we should hit 50,000 apps by then. That feat, for a new platform and distribution model, would be amazing.

Note: Philip Elmer-DeWitt Apple 2.0 blog on Fortune.com has some more info and some interesting analysis. He believes the tide of new apps has slowed. February, 2009 was the largest month ever, and it’s still early in March — we’ll have to see how the month finishes out before we’d agree with that theory.

iPhone OS 3.0 Announcement Next Week

Apple today sent out invites for an event on 3/17 to announce the iPhone OS 3.0 (I’m sure ours is still in the mail). Turns out that March 24th event that everyone was speculating about was actually March 17th.

Apple will likely announce the early details of iPhone OS 3.0 including the changes that will impact developers. We’re likely to see an updated SDK well before the OS ships to consumers to allow developers to build and test their apps with the new OS. It’s unclear if Apple will ship the 3.0 SDK on 3/17 or just announce it.

We’re not likely to see any updated consumer facing features demonstrated next week. That would be very unlike Apple. Those Apple will likely hold of on and show at the keynote of WWDC.

The timing of this announcement matches up well with the time line Apple followed for the 2.0 release with the SDK announced on 3/6/2008. This was followed up with detail announcement at WWDC and consumer release in July alongside the iPhone 3G. This also lends some credence to the idea that a new iPhone will be announced at WWDC this year.

This announcement means that WWDC is a lot more relevant for iPhone developers now. There should be lots of talks on the new iPhone OS features.

What features do you think we’ll see in 3.0? What do you want to see? Hit us up in the comments and let us know your thoughts. We’ll have a wrap up post next week to talk about what was announced and how it compares with what you’d like to see.

App Store Insider: August Trometer Part 2

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Interview with August Trometer: Part 2:

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Finishing up our interview with August, I ask him about what it is like being an iPhone developer in the lime-light, or Celebrity Developer. He talks about how much fun it has been to break out of the traditional role from time to time, and how it has really helped out his programming business.

I also get his opinions on Apple’s filing to have jailbreaking iPhones judged illegal, what that means to the development community, and how jailbreaking is actually beneficial to the App Store and making the iPhone a popular development platform. August also tells us why he has avoided it.

Most importantly, August gives us the breaking story about the soon to be released app, YOWZA!!, and how it will change the way you shop and use your iPhone.

Listen to how August met Greg Grunberg (Matt Parkman on Heroes) on Twitter, and joined forces with Rick Yaeger from MacMerc, to create a whole new business model for an iPhone app, and how they have tackled the problems of turning your iPhone into a money-saving shopping tool! And it’s going to be FREE!

Here is a little taste from Greg himself.

Enjoy!

You can check out August’s digital book, Optimizing Your Website for Mobile Safari on your Kindle from Amazon, or buy it in PDF format here.

App Store Insider: Corey Johnson

This is the start of a new series here on 148Apps. A series where we interview people from all areas of the app development process. From developers, to designers, even management. Looking to help others gain insight into what works, and what doesn’t work in app development and sales. – Editor

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Interview with Corey Johnson:

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Corey tells us how he made the transition to developing for the iPhone, and tells some stories about the pitfalls of working within Apple’s strict guidelines. Overall he has been enjoying the experience, and relates that Apple’s tools and services for developers keeps getting better. Corey comments that Apple still has a ways to go toward helping the programmers communicate with their users and get useful feedback.

Lastly, he tells us about some of the apps he has in the AppStore and how he came to create them. His app, Movie Brain, required some lateral thinking to get his app to be a self-contained, searchable database of all movies. He also introduces a new app coming soon, just in time for Oscar season. The app is called “And The Award Goes To…Oscar Edition” and will be able to display past Oscar winners as well as the nominees for the upcoming Oscars. In addition, the app will allow you to cast votes for you favorite movies and compare them to the votes of other users of the app. Corey hopes this will be the basis for other interactive apps he has planned for later.

Links to all of Corey’s apps are below. Let us know what you think of the interview and any feedback for Corey on the apps.

Enjoy!

Apple Posts Q1 2009 Results – iPhone Sales Still Strong

Quarterly results are in — Apple reports record revenue of $10.17 billion and record net quarterly profit of $1.61 billion. This is the first quarter ever that Apple has posted revenue over 10 billion dollars.

Apple sold 2.5 million computers in the quarter (+9% y/y). Desktop sales are down about 25% while portable (laptop) sales are up around 34%.

They have also bucked the trend of luxury retailers and actually seen retail growth of 2% in the quarter ending 12/27/2008 at the 251 Apple retails stores.

Coming just a few days after Apple announced that there have been over 500 million app downloads, we now know to whom all those apps are being sold. Apple sold 22.7 million iPods in the quarter (3% growth y/y) — it’s expected that a modest number of those are iPod Touches but they represent a greater percentage of the revenue. In addition, they announced that 4.4 million iPhones (88% growth y/y) were sold in the last quarter bringing the total to 13.7 million for the year.

In addition, Apple re-affirmed commitment to the Apple TV, seeing 3x growth in sales year over year. Stressing that it’s still considered a hobby and that they see growth in the segment in the future.

[ Full details: Apple Reports First Quarter Results - Apple PR ]

Philnote Disappoints Us — Just Like the Typical Stevenote Does

Well, the keynote is over and no significant iPhone news. No significant news at all, really. Quick roundup: new 17″ MacBook Pro, new iWork, new iLife, DRM free iTunes music.

The only iPhone related news had to do with other products mainly. First, there are some new slideshow formats you can sync to the iPhone from the updated iPhoto. Whoop-tee-do! Second, all songs in the iTunes Music Store will be DRM free by the end of this quarter (that’s March 31st to you and me). And there will be variable pricing (you know — all the songs you want will cost more while the ones you don’t want will cost less). And finally there will be a Keynote Remote app available for the iPhone. While these are great and wonderful things to some, to me it’s just meh…

Where’s the iPhone Nano? Were the case manufacturers just playing with us?

Where’s the notification service? You know, the one that we were told would launch in September 2008? The one that was in the iPhone SDK, then pulled? Where’s iChat for the iPhone?

But most importantly, where is MMS? Every $9 phone has that now. Why doesn’t the most advanced phone in the world have it? I bet that new Palm to be announced tomorrow will have it.

I guess we’ll have to just keep waiting for these things. Apple always does things on their own time schedule. But, come on! Please, Steve? Or Phil? Or anyone? Pretty please? Or maybe, I will look at that new palm? I wonder how many apps you can load on that device?

Apple’s 2008 in-ear headphones

Yes, I bought the new headphones. I was ready to buy them when Steve Jobs announced them in…what…November? I had bought some 3rd party in-ear, iPhone headphones that served me well and were very affordable. After only a few months, however, the control button stopped working and I found out the company’s headphone division had been sold off, but nobody was offering support. Weak. Other in-ear headphones that promised better quality and service were out of my price range, so I have been using the standard “bud” headphones that came with my 2G iPhone and hurt my ears. When Apple said they would offer a pair for $79, I was eager to get my hands on a set. While I wish Apple made a set in black, their button controls seem superior to the others I have looked at, so I’m willing to live with the “he’s got an iPod/iPhone!” recognition factor.

Continue reading Apple’s 2008 in-ear headphones »

iPhone Games Coming to Your TV?

Recently, the fantastic Erica Sadun of Ars Technica uncovered a little undocumented iPhone OS SDK nugget that showed the OS had some hooks to TV output. Turns out this MPTVOutWindow class gives an iPhone OS application the ability to direct it’s output to the TV when connected with the Apple A/V video cables while getting input from the device accelerometer still. Effectively this could turn you iPhone or iPod Touch into an input device and TV game system. But it must be pointed out that this is still totally undocumented and completely unsupported by Apple at the current time.

So what’s the result? Erica contacted Freeverse and asked them to play around with it. They took their killer Moto Chaser (App Store) game and modified it to work with this new output class. Here’s what Moto Chaser looks like played on your TV and controlled and connected to an iPod Touch.

So what does this mean? Why is Apple making this available? Well I doubt we’ll see this officially announced anytime soon. How will Apple use this? A dedicated gaming device? For use on the Apple TV using an iPhone simulator like software application to allow iPhone OS apps to run on your TV screen? Who knows what Apple has planned, they are as always tight lipped.

[ Source: Ars Technica ]