All Articles in App Store Apps

Podcaster was rejected from the App Store for duplicating the (at that point upcoming) functionality of the built in iPod app. Seems like Podstreamer (Streamcaster in the Canadian store?!), however, made it in. While the two apps might not be identical, the situation does nothing to alleviate the appearance of capricious, near-random behavior from Apple’s approval department. (Thanks benstinson for the tip!)

Next up, Daring Fireball reports that a CoverFlow-esque contacts app was rejected by Apple for using the private CoverFlow API.

The problem? According to developer Landon Fuller, they didn’t use any private APIs — they created their own Cover Flow implementation using the public APIs.

Gruber rightly notes the apparent hypocrisy in Google publicly flaunting their use of private API’s in the Google Mobile App, while Peeps is rejected for the mere (apparently wrongful) suspicion they’re using one.

Lastly, Ars Technica says Apple has added a new category to the App Store… one that allows for Pull My Finger to make its inglorious return:

“The very kind Apple Team Member told me that they didn’t want to reject it originally, but that they were sorting out how this ‘genre’ of apps were going to be handled,” he added. “She told me they’d be lifting the restriction on them, and more apps will follow that may have been previously not allowed.”

What else will this new “Entertainment” category cover? What else will it allow? Your most creative guesses welcome in the comments!

Apple Insider, quoting TouchMeme developer Krishna Vegesna, reports that Apple has made some changes to the way it displays applications in the App Store, which they break down into three areas:

– Most popular apps are now highlighted in each category page – Free apps are separated from — and hence no longer dominate — paid apps in the side bar – Tweaked the design to make it more consistent with the iPhone App Store app

Says (and quotes) Apple Insider:

While Friday’s changes may not solve all of developers’ problems, Vegesna said he believes Apple “now truly understands the software as a service model and is enhancing the [App Store] every week (in some cases, multiple times a week).”

Is it a big enough step to really help amid the onslaught of 10,000+ apps? Probably not, but it’s a step and hopefully yet another sign that Apple is willing to keep working to help developers, users, and themselves benefit from the App Store model.

If you’ve had a chance to check it out, and noticed the difference, let us know if it improved your experience and ability to find apps.

Not content to simply produce great (and great looking) software, Craig Hockenberry continues to knock it out of the park on his furbo.org blog as well, this time with an open letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs on App Store Pricing:

As an iPhone developer who’s been in the App Store since its launch, I’m starting to see a trend that concerns me: developers are lowering prices to the lowest possible level in order to get favorable placement in iTunes. This proliferation of 99¢ “ringtone apps” is affecting our product development.

This is something we’ve been following on TiPb, and something that both interests and concerns us greatly. The App Store is quite literally a killer app on the iPhone, but competition of revving up from all sides, including Android Market and the BlackBerry series of offerings.

Check out Hockenberry’s complete article, and let us know what you think Apple could do to properly incentivize developers to make the next Excel, the next Quark, the next killer app?

Or should they? Do you prefer your $0.99 apps, and don’t really care if we ever see anything more?

Merry Christmas, tiny little media-un-savvy kids: rudolf just ran down granny!

Well, that’s the story Gizmodo reports, anyway:

Yesterday’s episode of Santa Live featured the song “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.” Apparently, children young enough to care about Santa are also young enough to have trouble understanding the jokey song about grand-matricide. Parents complained, and Majewski, already $12,000 in debt (that’s a lot of bribed commenters!) was forced to pull the app. He remains the only one baffled by his lack of success with Santa Live.

Majewski, already controversial since the discovery he was paying for good reviews via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, is likely not having a great holiday season himself now, even absent joyous vehicular homicide carols.

Did the parents over react? Should Majewski better have known better? Or did some one just get a little revenge paying parents to complain via Mechanical Turk?

Brother’s In Arms: Hour of Heroes Forum Review by msbaylor. (Visit the thread for video and more pics. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

This new game from Gameloft has raised the bar yet again on their games. After finding out that this game has in the App Store I immediately downloaded it and started to play it. The graphics are that of Nintendo64, but the detection, Audio and AI are better than that of the N64. For those of you that remember the ‘ol N64, do you remember shooting the wall and the bullet holes didn’t show up? Or when you would attempt to run over someone with a tank and they wouldn’t die? Well unlike the N64, you can do that in this game, as well as get run over, bombed, shot, or punched in the face.

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Apple has now hit the milestone 10,000th app in the iTunes App Store, and to celebrate, TapTapTap created the awesome icon tile artwork above (via TUAW), and what’s more, CNBC (via iLounge) noted that Apple has snuck in some new ad copy claiming iPhone users have “downloaded over 300 million” apps.

Those numbers are simply staggering. As Steve Jobs recently, the adoption rate is beyond anything seen before in the industry. That the App Store is as unified, integrated, and easy as the iPhone platform itself is no doubt the driving factor.

But the question increasingly becomes, amid 10,000 apps, how do developers get more of those 300 million downloads for their apps?

Icon Factory co-founder and Frenzic designer Gedeon Maheux, on his gedblog, suggests that the app icon is an important place to start:

All too often icons are treated as second-class citizens, especially in the App Store. Lately, developers have taken to plastering “SALE” or “60% OFF!” within their icons. They’ve become lazy and let the iPhone software mar their design with glossy highlights which obscure efforts to brand their software. They use dull colors or pile on heaps of detail that just adds unwanted noise to an already cluttered array of choices. After the flashy ad pitches have faded, the icon still has to live on the user’s device and is often the first line of interaction with the product.

Another tool that may help is the new promo code system Apple has enabled for the (US-only so far) App Store. Erica Sadun provides a great iPhone promo code walk through over on Ars, explaining how to both give and receive, as well as some helpful hints for developers:

You can preview your Application. Once your App has been given a green light by Apple, the codes can be used—even before the release date you set in iTunes connect. Whenever your app is “Ready for Sale”, Apple says you can offer free downloads. Setting a future date and releasing previews allows you to build your buzz before you go live in the App Store.

The scariest thing of all? It hasn’t even been 6 months since the App Store launched (Dec. 17 will mark that anniversary). What will things look like in another 6?

David Perry of Didev Studios wrote in to tell us about Bugz for the iPhone, and was kind enough to send along some interesting insights into the game, developing for the iPhone, and the App Store.

On the origins of Bugz as a PSP game:

Bugz was originally conceived about 2 years ago as a PSP game. It took me around a year of coding, design, graphics and audio work before I made a release into a competition that was being run at the time. Bugz was well received in the competition and received first place. The public seemed to like Bugz and it’s quirky cuteness.

On moving Bugz to the iPhone:

Recently I decided to look at iPhone development and Bugz was an obvious choice as a first project. The initial version of Bugz for the PSP only had 17 levels – this would obviously need expanding for the iPhone version. Whilst contemplating the iPhone port of Bugz, I asked a friend to join me on the project, he accepted and Didev Studios was born.

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Looks like Google isn’t the only one making sure that when a user talks, the iPhone listens. Vlingo wrote in to tell us that their well-known BlackBerry app is now available for the iPhone, and it sure looks like they’ve been listening as well!

Vlingo lets you:

• Initiate calls to anyone in your address book.
• Look up anything through Yahoo! or Google in one step. Just say, “Web search: concert tickets in Boston,” and the results are displayed.
• Look up and map local listings. For example, by saying, “Find Italian restaurants in San Francisco,” vlingo will show choices and can populate Google Maps with the touch of a button.
• Send Facebook and Twitter status updates without typing. Vlingo also automatically embeds a Web browser so users can easily access the mobile versions of Facebook and Twitter to keep track of their friends’ updates.

Google works pretty well, but doesn’t include contact search (and seems to have trouble with British, Southern, or anything other than TV-ized North American accents.)

Vlingo does search contacts, and does a good job of it (and even suggests alternatives, which is welcome when it has trouble distinguishing between individuals with close-sounding names). However, unlike Google (which uses forbidden API’s to access the phone-like “lift to your ear and start talking” functionality) you have to press a button, then talk, then press a button again when you’re finished. There are helpful tutorials included to get you used to the process and on your way.

Gallery after the jump! Read the rest of this entry »

Ahh, sports. The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat. If you are old enough, you probably remember the “agony of defeat” guy - painful on more than one level (for him, and for you if you are old enough to know what I’m talking about). I love me some sports, and thankfully there are some great sports apps for the iPhone. Two of my favorites are freebies - Sportacular and SportsTap. Which one has the edge? Who comes out on top as being more competitive and “sportier?”  Who hits the shot at the buzzer FTW?! Check out the App v. App after the break! Read the rest of this entry »

UPDATE: Chad here giving Amazon Mobile for iPhone a try!

I am very excited for Amazon’s new native app on the App Store [iTunes Link] for a couple of reasons. Mainly, I like to shop on Amazon, so this offers a convenient tool. Second, it is a really neat experimental feature called “Amazon Remembers”, more on this later…

The app gives you what you would expect in an iPhone app these days: a home screen, search, cart, remembers and more. Let’s discuss each of these briefly.

Home: This is your start page in the app. It displays items from your wish list and search

Search: You um, search for products here

Cart: View any items you have in your cart; items display from the web or the app

Remembers: This is really cool. Basically you take a photo of something you are looking for, and Amazon will find a match. Amazon has real people looking at this stuff, so it can take a day or two to get a result.

More: This is where everything else is placed. Wish lists, account information tracking packages, etc.

I am very impressed with the app. Amazon could have just made a native app that mimicked their web app, but instead they are trying new things (Amazon Remembers) and giving us access to useful tools (Tracking Packages). I have captured several photos, enjoy them below!

Amazon sent me an email telling me they found a matching product for the picture of the Sharpie marker that I took (see screen hot below). Very cool! I can then buy that item directly from the iPhone! Sweet!

Gallery and Rene’s original post after the break!

Sure, Android may have the Amazon MP3 store, but now the iPhone has everything else! Amazon Mobile for iPhone lets you shop quickly (1-Click) and securely (SSL). Will it be as good an experience as the WebApp optimized website version? We’ll see — we still prefer the Facebook WebApp to the native App, but Google’s latest native App is killer. So far, it offers all the usual Amazon goodness, plus a new feature called Amazon Remembers, which lets you snaps photos of things (they use a folding chair in the example) you like, which it then keeps in the App and sends to Amazon, and shows you alongside anything Amazon thinks is similar in their catalog. Seems to be US only at the moment (at least it’s not in the Canadian App store yet, anyone else get it internationally?), but if you grab it, please let me know how it works (and if it stimulates you to spend a little for the economy, ‘natch!)

(Thanks Miguel for the tip!)

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