Looks like he’s not alone. PCalc developer James Thomson (via Daring Fireball) recounted his struggles with Apple’s new policy of listing Apps by original release dates, ignoring update dates, and forcing older Apps to the frozen hinterlands of the last few pages in a list growing well past 5500. Under the old model:
Sales started to slow down over time, but with each of the 1.0.1 and 1.0.2 updates they went back up into the stratosphere as PCalc moved to the front page of the Utilities section again.
And now?
As it stands, the App Store is too crowded to find anything if you don’t know exactly what you are looking for by name.
So while, according to Apple Insider, the App Store may still be climbing faster than iTunes Music did, GigaOm is pishing the posh on the iPhone bump in general.
During Apple’s Q4 conference call, Steve Jobs said that the App Store would reach 200 million downloads today spanning over 5500 Apps in 62 countries. How will Apple’s (continuing?) tweaks on App Store organization help or hinder developers moving forward? And will they, as Dieter is suggesting, have to start putting as much time, money, and effort into marketing as they do coding? Or are there no easy answers?
[The Lightning Reviews are over, but from their ashes rise... the Forum Reviews! TiPb has assembled a crack team of App-aficionados, and every week we'll be bringing you a few of their very best reviews right here on the blog. And be sure to check out TiPb's iPhone App Store Forum for even more!]
Given the lack of iPhone tools for camera or picture editing (you don’t even have some basic filters on the camera!), I saw this program and was pretty excited. It is advertised as a way to add filters to your pictures, including many filters that are commonly found on major software editing packages. So I decided to pick this up and take a look to see what it offered.
It’s time for App Avalanche 14, and this week we’re taking a look at the Finance category in the App Store and at what’s Good, Better, Best, and, of course, the CrApp. If you are looking for some good finance apps, there are a load of apps in the App Store in this category. Unfortunately, there seem to be a ton of very mediocre apps (according to reviews left by App Store visitors), and it takes a bit of sifting through the coal dust to find some diamonds. Read on to learn about some Finance apps you may want to try for yourself!
Yup, Kevin Rose is back, back again, this time with a sneak peak at Qik for the iPhone, the online video broadcasting App that everyone and their Twitter-feed was “going live” with on the Nokia N95 last year.
Not a jailbreak, but a real honest-to-Steveness App Store application, Kevin says it will be available soon. We say… will Apple approve it? And if they do, what will it say having internet broadcast video capability on a device that still lacks support for local video recording?
Who knows? As Dieter points out, Apple’s cagey approval/rejection process is still incomprehensible.
Qik looks to be One Sweet App, however, and we can’t wait for it to “go live.” Can you?
Want to get attention for your App? Innovative and drop dead gorgeous UI is one heckuva way to do it. Enter Weightbot from Tapbots. Killer mascot, even more interesting user experience. These are the kinds of high-polish Apps we’ve been waiting for (no pun intended!)
Anyone else pushing the iPhone envelope? Please let us know!
If you happened to miss our first Apps for Less, be sure to check it out for some great App Store deals! We here at TiPb are all about saving you money, so without further ado…
Arguably the top racing game available on the App Store, Raging Thunder, is now on sale for $3.99. That’s 50% off folks… not a deal to pass up if you enjoy your racers!
Ok, next up we have some good news for those of you who still have not bought a great little game called Spore! Spore has just dropped a few bucks to $7.99. Two bucks off is better than nothing right? Definitely check this one out people. You won’t regret it, and if you still need some more information on it be sure to check out Dieter’s full Spore for the iPhone review.
I’m one of the biggest South Park fans you will find, so anything related to South Park I love. Well South Park’s ImaginationLand is now on sale for $2.99! For all you fans out there, do not let this one pass you by! Also be sure to check out what else is coming to the App Store soon from South Park.
Seems to have been a slow week for price drops but the ones that did drop are quality apps. Be sure to pick them up for those sale prices! If we missed anything worth mentioning, please let us know in the comments!
John Welch wrote in to let us know about Shards and Hedonism. Shards also has a free demo lite version, Shardsette available via the App Store.
Shards is a hybrid that combines inlay and breakout style games. Each level is composed of four types of triangles: floor, empty, wall, and void. You must first fill the empty triangles by tapping triangle based shapes in that appear
in a bubble that the player controls with tilt movements. Hedronism is a permutation puzzle. You start on a faceted globe and can move to your immediately adjacent neighbors changing their color in a predictable sequence. The goal is to turn the globe into any single color in the shortest time possible. Advancing to the next level increases the number of colors. Best time is kept for individual levels and for the difficulties easy, medium and hard.
[This is a TiPb AT WORK App vs. App Review! Last week, it was the Instant Messenger Showdown, with BeeJiveIM squeaking out the victory. But which blog commenter won a copy of the winning IM App? mr. Hi-Definition Congratulations!
This week, the TiPb iPhone Forums voted on their favorite Task/To Do Apps, we took the top two, and now they're going head-to-head. But wait -- there's more! One of the forum voters has already won a copy of the winning App... Congrats coreymol! Want another chance to win? COMMENT BELOW! and make sure you leave a valid email address in the comment form -- it won't be made public, but it will be used to contact you if you win! Check out the full contest details, then grab your iPhone and get ready to get things done -- the TiPb AT WORK Task/Do To Showdown is on!]
I use my iPhone all the time. At work or play, it completes me. I have a few gripes (no sense beating the cut/copy/paste dead horse) - there are some glaring omissions that make it difficult for people to take the iPhone seriously for business or just everyday productivity.
Some kind of sync-able task or to-do list is such a basic feature, and fortunately, the advent of 3rd party apps have made it possible for developers to provide a plethora of apps to remedy this deficiency. The two apps that you folks in the forum picked for this TiPb AT WORK smackdown is Things and Appigo’s Todo. Users have given them both a 4-star rating in the App Store and, quite honestly, it’s a VERY close call to me.
Which of these two get-er-done apps are the best? How do they stack up? Read on!
Yet another iPhone related lawsuit only this time it does not involve Apple… shocking isn’t it?
Coors beer company is being sued by Hottrix, creators of the strangely popular iBeer app for a cool 12.5 million for copyright infringement. The lawsuit alleges that Coors copied its iPhone application iBeer. Both Hottrix’s App and Coors’ iPint simply create the illusion of beer being poured out when a user tilts the handset as if the user is drinking it. The only major difference between the two apps is that iBeer costs $3 and iPint was free - it has been pulled from the App Store by Apple.
More or less, the lawsuit claims that iBeer was a success until iPint quickly stole it’s thunder by being offered for free. Stop and think about this, both Apps were released on July 11th so how is one to determine who really came up with the idea? Hottrix answer, this youtube video that was released back in August of 2007.
Why someone would spend 3 bucks on such a App, I have no clue. But Coors… come on, talk about a blatant rip off. Hottrix, 12.5 million? Seriously?
It’s time for App Avalanche 13, and this week we’re taking a look at the Entertainment category in the App Store and at what’s Good, Better, Best, and, of course, the CrApp. There’s at least 26 (!) pages of Entertainment apps and counting. After exhaustive research by our highly-trained TiPb staff (please note: author taking massive liberties with the truth here; likely exaggerating), these apps have been hand-picked for YOU. Given that this is unlucky Avalanche 13, written on the 13th, I’m sure the author of the CrApp is feeling quite unlucky for being featured here!
The iPhone Blog merged with the Phone different site in May of 2008. Both sites were founded on a premise that comes one from one of Apple's old slogans: Think different. The iPhone Blog: for people who dare to phone different.
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