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A short time ago we mentioned that Standford’s iPhone Application Programming course was being made available as a video podcast via iTunes U. In addition to two lectures a week, the course offers special Friday sessions, one of which recently featured Atebits‘ Loren Brichter (iTunes link), the developer behind popular iPhone (and now Mac) Twitter client, Tweetie (see our review).

Brichter, though he worked for Apple on the first generation iPhone, had no actual app development experience when he set out to make Tweetie, yet the app has become the most successful iPhone — and mobile — paid Twitter client in terms of both revenue and user base, hitting the #6 position in the App Store at one point. How’d that happen?

At the beginning of the lecture, Brichter shares his App Store daily revenue graph (sans actual dollar amounts) for Tweetie, which he says he made simply because he wasn’t satisfied with any of the existing clients. Focusing on a mix of functionality and simplicity, and an Apple-like experience, Brichter credits luck, quality, and marketing for Tweetie’s success. Part of that marketing, after a small initial sales spike due to friends and family, was the semi-facetious introduction of PEE (”popularity enhancers” like a flashlight and fart sounds) that garnered a lot of media attention and quintupled growth for a while.

Other growth occurred when Apple featured Tweetie on their main page, but the biggest growth-booster — also thanks to Apple — was when Tweetie 1.3 was rejected by the App Store due to the term f**kitlist just happening to be a trend on Twitter’s search results that day. Press jumped on it and users bought it up. (Apple reversed their decision later that same day).

The final two growth spikes occurred after Twitter itself began highlighting Tweetie as part of their sidebar factoid promotion, and after the press surrounding the recent introduction of Tweetie for Mac.

Being part of the Application Development course, Brichter also touches on some of the things he did from a programming standpoint to boost Tweetie’s performance.

Looks behind the app development curtain, especially in academic settings with some back-and-forth questions and answers, are rare enough in the iPhone world that anyone interested should definitely consider checking out the whole session.

Apple’s Ad-Hoc iPhone distribution method allows developers to register up to 100 iPhones or iPod touches so they can run their applications on them without having to go through the App Store. This is priceless for beta testing, educational environments, and other non-public environments.

Dragthing’s James Thomson, however, has posted on a problem that just might bite a few developers right in their beta tests:

Reading between the lines, and discussions on the forums, it sounds like every time I deleted or modified an entry, I was getting one closer to the magic figure of 100 device IDs you have entered since the beginning of time. When you hit the limit, regardless of how many total device IDs you have listed in the portal, your ability to further edit the list is removed completely.

In other words, if you change your beta testers — if you change your own device — you might just end up locked out of your own Ad-Hoc distribution.

Check out the full post for more on this problem and what, if nothing, Apple is currently doing to help developers fix and/or work around it.

Meanwhile, let us know if you have any ideas as well…

Maybe this explains, at least in part, the new iPhone 3.0 Beta 5released yesterday? Looks like Apple is super-eager to get developers testing and submitting 3.0 compatible applications.

We’re really eager to see what developers are coming up with to leverage all those great 3.0 features as well. Really, really eager. Ahem.

Full text of Apple’s email to developers:

All apps must be compatible with iPhone OS 3.0

Millions of iPhone and iPod touch customers will move to iPhone OS 3.0 this summer. Beginning today, all submissions to the App Store will be reviewed on the latest beta of iPhone OS 3.0. If your app submission is not compatible with iPhone OS 3.0, it will not be approved.

Existing apps in the App Store should already run on iPhone OS 3.0 without modification, but you should test your existing apps with iPhone OS 3.0 to ensure there are no compatibility issues. After iPhone OS 3.0 becomes available to customers, any app that is incompatible with iPhone OS 3.0 may be removed from the App Store.

Begin testing now

iPhone OS 3.0 beta 5 and iPhone SDK 3.0 beta 5 are now posted to the iPhone Dev Center. Start testing today to ensure your application runs on iPhone OS 3.0. Visit the iPhone Dev Center for additional development information including iPhone SDK Release Notes for iPhone OS 3.0 beta 5 and Getting ready for iPhone OS 3.0.

(Thanks DevX for the tip!)

Ars Technica reports, with some very nice commentary and screen caps from Equivalence (iTunes link) for iPhone, that:

One of the most requested features from developers, automated crash reports, can now be submitted by users via iTunes 8.2. Developers can access the reports via iTunes Connect.

No code is ever perfect, but anything that helps developers make their apps more solid for more users is certainly appreciated.

Confession: World of Warcraft came on the scene a little late to fireball my demographic center. Sure, I saw that William Shatner is a Shaman and Ozzy’s got a new Prince of Darkness to worry about, but other than hearing friends were going to try it and then… never seeing them again, I’ve just filed it away in the same drawer as Ultimate Online and Everquest… until I saw Touch Arcade’s story today.

The game is running in the Vollee client, an application from a mobile company whose main purpose is to develop software to allow mobile 3G phones to play CPU intensive PC applications over the network.

MMO…OMG! So, for those of you more tuned into the troll-powers-that-be, is WoW something you want on your iPhone? And is this the version of WoW you want?

Read Write Web has posted the findings of mobile analytics firm Flurry. They break it down as follows:

• Apps (see charts above) put the iPhone staggeringly ahead in terms of active developers, applications developed, and consumer usage. (note: lack of analytics use by BlackBerry devs likely skews those numbers).
• Smartphones are being used more than ever
• iPhone apps, if they’re marketed effectively, are making strong development houses millions of dollars.
• iPhone apps are becoming “hit-driven” like the music industry.
• Free versions help sell paid apps
• Only 10% of users update their apps (we’re not sure if that’s skewed by other platforms, Apple makes it simple to update).

It’s important to remember that with this type of analytics, results are hyper-dependent on what’s included (and what’s missing) from the data set. If nothing else, however, iPhone developers are getting more attention from, and making greater use of, market analytics at the moment.

That said, anyone surprised by these numbers?

We know our readers are far too savvy to ever fall victim to the “greater internet ****wad theory“, but a couple posts today made us stop and think about App Store reviews, how the system works (or doesn’t), and whether we ever take the time to leave positive reviews for developers of our favorite apps, or just tear off in a fury when we think we’ve been badly done by?

Last things first, is iTunes stacked against developers? Maniacal Rage (via Daring Fireball) has highlighted an issue also raised today on Twitter by Craig Hockenberry, and submitted to Apple via Radar, namely that the iTunes review system, which may work well for music and other media, breaks down when it comes to the back-and-forth requirement of the app ecosystem.

Says Garrett Murray:

But my favorite part of this whole experience is that there’s no way for me to respond to reviews as the app creator. So I can’t go in and say, “Hey, by the way, version 1.3 fixes all this and we’re just waiting on Apple’s ridiculously slow and convoluted approval process!” I just sit by and watch.

Murray’s deeper contention is that, through a one-way review system on iTunes, and a fart-app-driven, race-to-the-bottom rewarded ecosystem, Apple is fostering exactly the kind of that developers don’t want to have as customers. Yep, the dreaded appsholes.

Perhaps developers, many of whom treat their creations as dearly as children, aren’t thick skinned enough to handle the greater pressure — and greater odds of negative pressure — that came with the 20 million iPhone OS (including iPod touch) ecosystem. Maybe users like us forget there are real, living, breathing people on the other end of our “send” buttons. Maybe anger and bad experience are greater motivators than appreciation and great experience. We don’t know.

But here’s what we’re interested in finding out: do you leave positive reviews for the apps you love? Of your top 5 favorite all time iPhone (or iPod touch) apps, how many have you left rave reviews for? And to help grow and support the developers behind those great apps, would you consider doing so now if you haven’t already?

We know SlingPlayer for iPhone was built (we saw it in action at Macworld and shot the video above). We know SlingPlayer for iPhone was submitted to the App Store (SlingMedia disclosed that). But its current status is anyone’s guess. Users got upset they’d need to upgrade to the latest SlingBox. AT&T futzed with their Terms of Service but then backpedaled. BGR reported that it might or might not have been denied at AT&T’s request. SlingMedia responded that they hadn’t heard anything yet. So what’s changed?

Nothing. TUAW checked in with the folks at SlingMedia and the official word is that there’s still no word, and with an app as complex as SlingPlayer for iPhone, there could be no word for quite a while still.

So why post on it? Two reasons. 1) We get asked about it a lot. SlingPlayer is popular with the tech enthusiasts. 2) We hope that the minute blogs start posting that there’s no word, Apple will release it just to make the blogs look silly. Hey, it happens!

Maybe we should start a little informal drop pool. Pick the day you think SlingPlayer will finally be released in the iTunes App Store and post it in the comments. Let’s see if anyone can nail it!

Newsweek is reporting that the iPod touch (and presumably the iPhone, as they run the same software) is replacing more expensive, government-contracted handhelds as the “networked warefare” mobile device of choice for the US Military. Not only do soldiers often already know how to use iPods and iPhones:

Apple gadgets are proving to be surprisingly versatile. Software developers and the U.S. Department of Defense are developing military software for iPods that enables soldiers to display aerial video from drones and have teleconferences with intelligence agents halfway across the globe. Snipers in Iraq and Afghanistan now use a “ballistics calculator” called BulletFlight, made by the Florida firm Knight’s Armament for the iPod Touch and iPhone. Army researchers are developing applications to turn an iPod into a remote control for a bomb-disposal robot (tilting the iPod steers the robot). In Sudan, American military observers are using iPods to learn the appropriate etiquette for interacting with tribal leaders.

So, does this mean we’ll see full force iPhone hero shots in all the new Michael Bay movies from now on?

[via CNET via Engadget]

Not sure when this went live, or how I missed seeing it the moment it did, but the snippet of video on Trism that Apple showed off in their iPhone 3.0 Sneak Peek Event is up in full on Apple’s developer site, and it’s brought along some friends. The full list includes:

• Werner Jainek of Cultured Code (Things)
• Dr. Ge Wang of Smule (Ocarina, Leaf Trombone)
• Steve Demeter of Demiforce (Trism)
• Christina Wick of AOL (AOL Radio, AIM)

The videos show not only some great insights into the personalities behind some of our favorite apps, but the development process as well.

(Via Cocoia on Twitter)