It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything regarding the rumored official Sirius XM application for the iPhone. (If you are not familiar with the situation be sure to check out TiPb’s complete Sirius XM coverage!) Now a report from SeekingAlpha has pointed us to a App Store app called ReachMD. [iTunes Link]
What makes this application interesting is that it streams, with no subscription needed, Sirius XM’s channel 160 – MedicalRadio – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
So with that being said, TiPb poses this question to all of our readers: if ReachMD is providing their content to Sirius XM for satellite but separately licensing digital streaming rights via an App Store app, does this mean we will start to see other Sirius XM channels pop up in iTunes? Or are you still holding out for a full-fledged subscription based application? Some kind of major content deal between Sirius XM itself and iTunes?
[Via SeekingAlpha]
In today’s Apps For Less we found a few very worthy deals that you should definitely take advantage of.
First up we have a gem of a game from Gameloft — you might have heard it? — Assassin’s Creed – Altaïr’s Chronicles [iTunes Link]. You should know that it is one to pick up, especially at it’s new low price of $5.99 (down from $9.99!) Not a bad deal at all.
The fate of the Holy Land depends on you… Plunge into this direct prequel to the critically acclaimed game title, Assassin’s Creed™, offering rich gameplay and a well-balanced mix of stealth, chaotic action, and riddle-solving exploration in the midst of fully 3D-rendered historical environments of the Crusades’ Middle East
This next game also comes to us from Gameloft, Siberian Strike. [iTunes Link] You can now pick this one up for $.99! Great deal for an action packed, quality game!
Renewing the retro genre, Siberian Strike offers tons of enemies to destroy in many different ways thanks to the wild array of dangerous weapons at your disposal. Explosive missions make this game one of a kind with gameplay mixing shooting and riveting piloting assignments. Made for shoot’em up fans and casual players thanks to intuitive gameplay that makes it fun and within reach for everyone.
Last but not least we have an application that is actually not a game! The unit conversion app, Convertbot, [iTunes Link] is now on sale for a very limited time for the low price of $.99!
Convert currency, length, mass, time and much more in an exciting new way! Converting numbers will never again be a mundane task. In addition to its innovative interface, our robot is smart enough to convert to and from mixed units. Are you 5 foot 9 inches tall? Other converters require you to convert that to 5.75 ft in your head before being able to enter it. Convertbot allows mixed units like Foot + Inches, Pounds + Ounces, and more!
If you are a developer and are planning on a sale for your application feel free to contact us to be included in the next Apps for Less!
A billion apps. Developers getting rich. Apple making a bit of money. Or is it all just a house of cards ready to come tumbling down, with only one sneaky developer and a rule-breaking easter egg to blame?
See, the App Store has rules. You can’t, for example, include porn in an application and expect it to get approved and hosted by Apple in the App Store. But lets say your app looks all sweet and interesting, gets approved by Apple, and then lets slip that with one little gesture or secret code — porn. Or worse, malware or other malicious code.
Sound crazy? Wired (via Ars) tells us it’s already happened, albeit with language in an app called Lyrics.
Seems the app had some language that caused Apple to reject it, so the dev applied a language filter to clean that **** up, but added in a stealthy way to swipe the About screen to re-enable it. Said developer Jelle Prins:
“It’s almost impossible for Apple to see if there’s an Easter egg because they can’t really see the source code. In theory a developer could make a simple Easter egg in their app and provide a user with whatever content they want.”
Until Apple reads that quote, begins scouring apps even more closely, maybe asking developers to submit the actual code base, and making current app approval delays look like the blink of an eye.
Geniuses the lot of you.
Venture Partners guestimated, based on a survey from O’Reilly, that Apple has made “only” $20-$45 million from their 30% cut of App Store revenue since the service launched in July 2008.
To quickly recap, App Store developers can charge whatever they’d like for apps — including free as in $0 — and Apple will take 30% off the top, from which they pay storage, bandwidth, infrastructure, transactional processing fees, etc. Obviously 30% of free is nothing, but for $9.99 apps, they’d gross almost $3, and net… well, that’s anyone’s guess. (see above).
Techcrunch (via Daring Fireball) provides some interesting analysis on that point, and the larger point on just what Apple may be netting in total:
I think Liew’s numbers are well below the actual revenue numbers, but no matter if its $50 million, $100 million or $200 million, that’s not a huge amount of money for a company that has nearly $30 billion in cash in the bank. But going forward, that number is only going to increase both as the platform expands and as in-app purchases come into play. That’s not bad for a company that just wanted to make enough money to keep the App Store running.
Parallels to the iTunes Music Store, and what it did for iPod sales, are thus as plentiful as they are well founded.
Ok, not many applications currently in the App Store worthy of our Apps for Less. Although, the ones we did end up finding are not bad deals.
First up we have Terminator Salvation [iTunes Link], if you have not checked out the trailer we post two weeks ago what are you waiting for? This is one of the top games in the App Store and it seems like Gameloft has gotten the hang of programming games for the iPhones hardware. The best thing about this game now is it’s price – it has dropped from $9.99 to $5.99. People complained about the higher price and Gameloft has listened. I feel bad for the early adapters as we always get the short end of the stick in terms of price but that’s to be expected.
Next up we have PCalc [iTunes Link], now on sale for $4.99 An excellent app for anyone who needs a feature-rich calculator that the stock app on the iPhone simply can not match. Features are as follows:
- Switchable button layouts – choose from many different horizontal and vertical layouts to suit your needs.
- Calculator themes – pick your look, all the way from minimalist to striking.
- An RPN mode with one button access to the stack and optional two-line display.
- Hexadecimal, octal and binary modes, complete with a variety of bitwise operators.
- All the extensive unit conversions and constants from the desktop PCalc.
- A simulated paper tape to keep track of your calculations.
- Multiple undo and redo. Just flick the LCD to the right and left to reveal the past and future.
- Stylish, consistent user interface.
- Shake to clear! Two shakes to clear, three shakes to clear all.
If you are a developer and have a great app in the App Store at a great price, we want to hear about it!
Zombie fans take note, today Capcom has released an iPhone and iPod touch version of their most popular video game series into the App Store. Resident Evil DEGENERATION [iTunes Link] is a 3rd-person survival horror shooter that is based on the CG-animated movie of the same name, recently released on Blu Ray and DVD. Some features of this shooter are as follows:
- Use your in-game PDA to collect intel, manage inventory and access maps.
- “Laser targeting” allows the players to make aimed accurate shots.
- Backgrounds, character models and objects are all rendered in full 3D.
- Intuitive context sensitive control scheme.
- Action icons pop up as needed.
- Accelerometer features:
>- Shake iPhone/iPod Touch to “Shake of Zombie” melee attacks.
>- Tilt back device to reload.
Resident Evil DEGENERATION is now available in the App Store for $5.99. If you pick this one up be sure to let us know what you think!
More screen shots after the break!
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For NO PARTICULAR REASON, we just wanted to remind everyone that even if you don’t have a US credit card, Apple has helpfully provided a knowledge base article on how to create and use US App Store accounts. With these accounts, you can still download and use apps (and redeem promo codes).
The process involves making sure you’re not already logged in with another account, then choosing App Store from the menu, downloading a free app, choosing “none” for the payment type, and responding to the confirmation menu.
Downside is it requires you to download apps via iTunes — for now. iPhone 3.0 will let you manage multiple accounts on-device.
[Via iphoneincanada]
Today AT&T’s very own application, myWireless, was released in the the App Store for all AT&T subscribers to download. myWireless [iTunes Link] is a crafty little app that lets iPhone users manage their AT&T accounts easily from the device itself. You can view your data and minutes usage, view and pay your bill, and you can even add and remove extra features like text messaging and early nights/weekends, all from the comfort of your very own iPhone.
I’ve tested it out and pretty much any option on AT&T’s website is built into this app. You can even access your full detailed bill via PDF file.
It is important to note that you must have an active AT&T Mobility account that is registered for online account management in order to use this application.
With all of the rejections in the App Store going on as of late it’s about time we have some good news for our pal Trent Reznor – see link above – and all of the developers out there.
It seems that Apple has rejected a newspaper reading app, Newspaper(s) [iTunes Link], for containing objectionable content. This app contains newspapers from around the world and one of them has a picture of a topless woman. Apple, however, let the developer know in it’s rejection email that Parental Controls have been announced for iPhone OS 3.0 and that it “would be appropriate to resubmit your application for review once this feature is available.”
So there you have it folks. Will these new parental control features (see them in our iPhone 3.0 Walkthrough) help cut down on rejected apps or will we still see these types of rejections take place? Sound off in the comments!
[Via iLounge]
Well I’m sure you’ve heard about the ruckus Apple has created by rejecting the latest update to the official Nine Inch Nails application. As it turns out, there was no new content added in the update, all that was included were simple bug fixes yet Apple still rejected it. Well now some of Reznor’s fans have spoke out against Apple on his forums and he has replied with the following (emphasis ours):
Everyone – let me be clear. I love Apple products and as goofy and out-of-touch as their app approval process / policy is, I will still use them because they work 1000X better than the competition. This is not a debate, it’s a fact. The iPhone is THE most elegant, modern smartphone at this point in time and it’s perfect for what we want to do with the NIN app – except for the ludicrous approval process, and that’s what I want to draw attention to.
Android is cool, but nobody has an Android phone. Blackberry is OK but the hardware is inconsistent and WinMo straight-up sucks balls. If Apple doesn’t get it together, we will most certainly make it available to the jailbreak community. I didn’t invest in this app to see it languish on the sidelines from an idiotic policy while this tour is in full swing.
Ouch, some pretty harsh words for Windows Mobile right there. Dieter is slowly deleting each and every NIN MP3 on his computer at the moment and it’s a safe bet you will not see the above quote on WMExperts anytime soon.
It will be interesting to see exactly how this unfolds the next week or so.
