Tag: Itunes »

Just under a week after Apple's media event, iPhone OS 3.1.3 is now available for both iPhone and iPod touch. The update comes after Apple released iPhone OS 3.2, which is iPad exclusive, to developers in its ADC network. As expected by many, this new update includes no new features however it does come packed with a few security fixes.

Including:

- Improves accuracy of reported battery level on iPhone 3GS
- Resolves issue where third-party apps would not launch in some instances
- Fixes a bug that may cause an app to crash when using the Japanese Kana keyboard

The update is compatible with all iPhone and iPod touch models, and is available for download from iTunes right now.

You may remember a few months back now that Apple unveiled a new system in which it used a web-based interface to show song information for an individual iTunes URL, before you were physically transferred to the actual iTunes store itself. The move came in sync with the iTunes store re-design which saw the store become more streamlined overall, with a cleaner, crisper interface. Until now, these new web-based 'Preview' pages have lay dormant, offering no real purpose other than to provide necessary links to albums and individual tracks on the iTunes store.

Today, Apple has reportedly enabled studio 30 second previews of all tracks in it's current iTunes catalog to work in-browser. Mac Rumors are reporting via GigaOM that these previews are encoded in 44.1 KHz AAC format at 300+ kbps, and playback is issued via QuickTime.

The move falls in line with Apple's recent acquisition of the online music streaming service Lala, which could see Apple move it's entire current catalog online, possibly offering all-you-can-eat subscription based plans in the future.

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.

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

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:

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.

Correction: the app Chopper was on sale during the holidays, and continues to be on sale. The app is regularly priced at $4.99 but is on sale for $0.99. Sales figures updated below.

Many developers are seeing their iTunes sales reports for the first time after iTunes Connect opened back up after Apple closed it for the Christmas rush, and those sales numbers are amazing. With many apps showing 2-4x normal sales of their paid apps on Christmas day and increased sales continuing in the days following. Free app download number showing up to 5x normal rate as well. Could this be all the new iPhone and iPod Touch owners looking for apps to fill up their devices or most likely people with newly gifted iTunes gift cards to burn.

David Frampton of Majic Software, the developer of Chopper (iTunes Link), the number 2 paid game and number 3 paid app overall, reported sales 3x normal on 12/25 with sales in the days following still much higher than normal, but dropping off by about 30% on the 26th and another 10%/day on the 27th. The Chopper developer pulled in sales of over 50,000 copies of his $4.99 app (on sale for $0.99 during the holidays) for the 4 day period of 12/24 - 12/27 with around half of those sales coming on Christmas day. That's nearly $25,000 in sales in one day, 12/25, alone.

Another developer we talked with, Mark Johnson, reported sales of over four times normal on Christmas day. Hit Tennis (iTunes Link) the $1.99 tennis game, currently number 55 in the top 100 paid iPhone Sports games, had sales of nearly 200 on 12/25 with normal daily sales in the 40s.

Gabriel Pasqualini from Portengo, developers of Cartoonize Me (iTunes Link), the top 15 app on the Entertainment paid app list showed sales 3x normal on the 25th with sales on the 26th being about 90% of what they were on the 25th.

Other stories are similar in nature with most developers of apps on iTunes top 100 lists showing sales 2-4 times normal. Other developers of apps not in any of the top 100 lists also reported much higher than normal sales, though not 4x.

Tim Haines, developer of Burn Ball (iTunes Link) which is not currently in the top 100 paid games reported a similar 3x normal sales on 12/25. He also reported that the free version of his game, Burn Ball Lite (iTunes Link), had download numbers 5x normal on 12/25.

No one knows how long the increased sales will continue, but this is a much deserved present for these independent developers.

It looks like app developers have decided to participate in Black Friday sales and have started early. There are a bunch of really great games and apps on sale in the iTunes App Store right now with more being added every time we check out our price drops page. We'll keep the list of the top tier apps here and send out a message on our Twitter stream when we update this page.

[Last Updated: 11/28 2:00pm Pacific]

Read on for the list.

Apple has scheduled an event Tuesday. The main purpose of that event is to launch new iPod Nano and Touch models. But it's also expected that iTunes 8 will be released with features like a Pandora-like Genius, new visualization, and grid view.

But more importantly iPhone OS 2.1 should also be released to coincide with the expected release of the notification service scheduled to be released in September. With the iPhone OS 2.1 and notification service I would expect to see Apple release a mobile version of iChat. Or at least I would hope to see it. This was rumored from the start for the 2.0 release but it seems that the notification service was not ready for that release in July.

We'll see what Steve has in store for us Tuesday.

Unlike last time, when 2.0.1 was released, we aren't waiting. We are installing this right now. Hoping that it fixes some of the issues with stability we've had over that past couple weeks (two restores last week alone).

No word on what is new, just Bug Fixes listed by Apple.

Steven Frank of Panic has said the things that many developers are thinking, but due to the NDA not sure if they can.

I work in the software industry so I can (A) solve problems that annoy me, and (B) make money on which to live. While I respect the GPL and Open Source movements, I believe that commercial software is a necessary and important part of the ecosystem -- however NOT at the expense of the above basic freedoms.

The iTunes App Store distribution model mangles almost every one of those tenets in some way, which is exasperating to me.

If you are a developer or not, read the entire article here, it's worth your time.

Apple today posted the first update to the iPhone OS for both generations of iPhones (original and 3G), and the iPod Touch. The updated only lists mysterious bug fixes. Some users are reporting that it gets rid of the lag seen in Contacts and the Camera. We'll be trying it once a few more brave souls have and report back. Hopefully it will address some of the more serious bugs as well.

[originally spotted at TUAW]

So developers are blaming Apple, Apple isn't commenting, as they never do. But the deal is that for any iPhone OS 2.0 users there is a major stability issue that is causing data loss to watch out for.

Here's how it happens -- you are running an app and the screen goes blank and your iPhone or iPod Touch restarts.  You see the Apple logo and it looks like the device is restarting.  And the Apple logo doesn't go away.  And it still doesn't go away.  So, let's try restarting again-- hold down the power button for 8 seconds and it goes blank.  Start it again.  Same thing happens -- seems to be stuck in the boot up process.

I know that this has happened to at least 3 people on Twitter. Doesn't seem like it's an uncommon problem.

What do you do?  Well the only thing that seems to work is to force a restore from iTunes. For info on how to do that, see this Apple support article.  So after you give your phone the death grip and breathe a sigh of relief as the restore process starts you begin to wonder what happened?

I have a theory and it's just a theory.  I have no way to prove this.  But I think the crashes are being caused by lost memory.  Applications may not be properly cleaning up after themselves, known as releasing memory, when an application ends.  This lost memory is building up over time and causing the crashes as other applications can't get enough memory to work properly.

What you can do to keep this from happening.  Probably not much, it's mainly up Apple to fix what is causing this.  There are some things you can do that might mitigate the problem or help you recover when it does happen.

First, if an application crashes and you are returned to the application list, don't just go on with what you are doing.  It's a good idea to restart the phone to help it clean up lost memory.  To do this, hold down the power button for a few seconds and slide the shutdown slider.  Wait a couple seconds and hit the power button to boot back up.

What you can do the help recover if your phone does crash is let that agonizingly slow backup process in iTunes complete.  This will help so that you won't lose all your preferences (and your high score in Poker Dice!) when your phone needs to be restored.  It's time consuming, but hopefully not as time consuming as setting everything back up though.

So, about an hour later, hopefully your restore has worked completely and that includes the backup restore process. If the backup restore process doesn't work you will still luckily retain any synced contacts, calendar, etc.

To me this problem is just an indication that Apple has pushed out the 2.0 update a little early. They had deadlines and didn't make things as bullet proof as 1.x was.

All apologies to Pink Floyd for the title.

Pink Floyd - Careful With That Axe Eugene
[youtube r3R2PgMiTvw]