What’s that? iPhone news at MWC09? It’s true. I just got back from a meeting with DocsToGo and they showed off an early version of their app. So far Word document editing is a go, Spreadsheet editing is definitely in the plan but not quite up and running yet. They’re tossing in document viewing for both plus PDFs as well — which means you can have all of your documents in one spot.
Read on to find out how it all works, where the iPhone kinks are (since Apple limits what developers can do easily), and how we’re loving their implementation of (in-app) Cut and Paste!
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If you haven’t heard, Apple’s a no-show here at Mobile World Congress 2009, this show pretty much belongs to Microsoft, HTC, and Nokia (with a side of Samsung and Sony Ericsson). However, as with other trade shows like CES and CTIA, Apple’s presence is felt in its absence. Rather than join their brethren in the mobile community, Apple sits it out and watches while other companies are forced to make their announcements in a context Apple has created. To wit: Both Microsoft and Nokia announced App Stores this week. Microsoft’s Market is basically a no-show, though, all we have is promises. Nokia’s isn’t ready yet either, but it will be in May.
Actually, we know quite a bit about Nokia’s App Store, called the Ovi Store. It’s an extension (and replacement) of their earlier services and includes everything from apps to ringtones to wallpapers to widgets. Here’s the thing, folks: Nokia may have solved the #1 problem at Apple’s App Store: finding apps that are 1. good and 2. interest you.
What Nokia has done is build a sophisticated relevancy engine that can sort apps based on a variety of factors that are actually relevant to you — like what you friends are using, or what kind of app you like to download, or what music you tend to prefer. It looks to be much better than your standard “top 50″ list and if Apple is smart and shameless (we know they’re both), they’ll steal these features as soon as humanly possible.
The Ovi Store also looks to be a little kinder and gentler on developers too, giving them more power over how (and if!) their app will be distributed.
In one corner, iFart Mobile and Joel Comm, who are now suing to have a judge rule that “pull my finger” can’t be trademarked (honest, we couldn’t make this stuff up):
In my app description on iTunes, I have testimonials. One of them is direct from my site, WorldVillage.com, in which I give the opinion, “Way better than Pull My Finger!” Of course, I have the right to state my opinion, especially one I believe to be true! [...] I also used Twitter to search for people who were discussing any of the competing fart apps and engaged in conversation with them. Air-O-Matic didn’t like that. Perhaps they believe they own Twitter and the people using it?
In the other, Pull My Finger and Air-O-Matic, who wants to get paid:
we estimate he cost us about $500K in sales. His app leapfrogged ours immediately after he started doing these things. That happened to be Christmas week. He sold hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of his app in the next month, in the spot he kicked us off of. We talked to our attorney, and decided to try to end this swiftly by asking for 1/10 of our estimated lost sales, plus attorney fees. $50K is about one week in the top spot in the App Store. We thought that was about right.
In the audience, whole heaps of developers wondering if the App Store is viable in the face of “gaming”, and millions of users who chuckle at cheap flatulence rather than voting with their wallets for innovative, world-changing mobile applications.
Our sibling-site PreCentral.net points us to an interesting developer commentary up on Ars Technica which provides this little golden spitball of insight:
he had a lot of good things to say about how Palm is handing the extremely nascent developer community and his hopes for the future of the platform. The developer told us that he has explored mobile development on Apple’s iPhone SDK and found much of the company’s position towards their community to be “developer-hostile”—an obvious reference to their insistence on enforcing a pointless NDA well past its expiration date and their strong hand in regulating what can and cannot be developed for its platform.
Apple, of course, is providing Cocoa Touch, an iPhone-optimized version of their Objective C frameworks that, while highly administrated by Apple, provides desktop-class power with a hefty of amount of access to developers. Palm, by contrast, is using Mojo as an open, web-standards based framework for the webOS, which we’re guessing will be something similar to how Widgets work (half way between WebApps and native apps).
Every solution comes with compromises, so in the end it will be up to each developer to choose which platform(s) best suit their needs and the apps they want to build, but is the way in which Apple treats developers — something entirely outside the SDK — going to be a concern as competing alternatives like Android and webOS become increasingly available?
MacRumors is reporting a… well, rumor, that Apple may introduce a new section to the App Store for “premium” games with a price point at (or above?) $19.99.
The rumors suggests WWDC in June as a likely introduction event, and it would be exclusive to big publishers and allow them to side-step the $0.99 domination of cheaper Apps (some awesome indie fare but also a lot of… well, CrApps) that suck all the air out of the current Top lists.
This could actually be an interesting solution, allowing for both the cheap games many want to consume, but also providing a viable business option for developers who want to invest more resources into bigger games. (Grand Theft Auto: Cupertino Chaos anyone?)
I’d be willing to pay more for really good, in depth, immersive, highly optimized, and expertly rendered games, and think it will continue to push the iPhone and iPod touch into Nintendo DS and Sony PSP territory.
It should come as some relief, then, that the iPhone SDK has now also been bumped to 2.2.1. Says Ars Technica’s Erica Sadun:
In all likelihood, the 2.2.1 SDK is, as suggested, a simple bug update without any significant API changes.
So not much different from the iPhone OS 2.2.1 then?
Of course, with such a minor point release we can’t really expect anything revolutionary (we’ll likely need 3.0 for that). But Apple has been known to sneak some early clues into frameworks, so hopefully we’ll find something to look forward to once the deep code divers get through tearing this one apart.
TiPb: We’ve been spending a lot of time lately discussing the App Store
and what business model(s) it will evolve From launch, you took the
route of having both a premium paid version of Twitterrific and a
free, add-supported version. What made you settle on that idea, and
how effective has it been for you?
Craig Hockenberry: The desire to have both a free and paid version of Twitterrific came from our experience on the Mac. It’s the best of both worlds for everyone: we get some funds to pay for the development of the product, and users get to choose how they want to support us.
We decided on having ads before the final details of the App Store were
revealed. Since there are no demos in iTunes, the ability to have a free
version for people to evaluate has been a big benefit. A lot of my fellow
developers are now looking at this model.
Warning: Video possibly NSFW-ish. If bikini bouncing will get you in trouble, stay clear.
We previously mentioned in passing that Apple had rejected iBoobs, an iPhone app that presented accelerometer-powered cartoon jiggling. Apparently this crossed even the (sigh) fart app line. Well, the Register says Wobble decided to get around this by not providing any built in booty, cartoon or otherwise. All it does is enable user-definable “wobble” zones in ANY photo or image. We’re guessing that while the above video makes the real focus clear enough, Wobble was likely submitted to Apple with more innocuous images, like jello or cartoon puppies or what not.
As such, Wobble is now one of the more than 15,000 apps available via the iTunes App Store. You buying it? Protesting it? Protesting out loud while nonchalantly hitting the download link?
And guys, before you get too jiggly with it, just imagine what the ladies might do in Wobble revenge…
Marc Edwards is one of the well known team behind Mac Dashboard Widget aces iSlayer and iPhone development house bjango, whose apps include Jobs, Cities, Darkness, and Phases, and he was kind enough to sit down and talk App development and ecosystem with TiPb.
TiPb: Your team is famous for their Mac OS X Dashboard widgets, was developing for the iPhone really the easy transition some have suggested?
Marc: For us, yes. Our widgets have used Cocoa plugins for quite some time. A lot of widgets are straight HTML, Javascript and CSS though, which is very different to what’s needed for iPhone apps.
It looks like Apple has begin to approve some 3rd party web browsers for the iPhone. Like the (Jobs save us) “fart” apps that were pulled or pending for a long while only to flood the market on some magic-8-ball decided day, some of these web browsers were biding their time in the App Store approval queue for a good long while according to MacRumors:
Edge Browser (Free) – No loss of screen real estate to the address or navigation bars. Incognito ($1.99) – Now you can browse without leaving a history of any kind. WebMate:Tabbed Browser ($0.99) – Web Mate simplifies browsing by queuing up all the links you click on, then allowing you to view them one by one when you’re ready. And Shaking Web ($1.99) – adds a sophisticated algorithm to compensate small hand shaking to allow for easier reading.
BUT (you did see the big old BUT in the headline, right), those thinking, hoping, praying, or reporting that these are actually alternative rendering engines need to back on up a second. To the best of our knowledge, these are merely different UI implementations of the built-in iPhone WebKit rendering engine, much like those already used in Twitterrific, 1Password, and other long-ago approved Apps. The only difference — that TiPb can tell — is that these are stand-alone iPhone WebKit implementations (like MobileSafari, though more limited due to SDK restrictions and non-default status).
So, no Firefox, Chrome, Opera, or (Jobs save us again!) IE 6 for the iPhone just yet, okay?
Still, for those who want different user experiences and features, well, now you can go get them! Anyone try one yet?
