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Apple adds an App Store Resource Center for developers

Hans — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 22:19:49 +0000

Today Apple announced the App Store Resource Center in an e-mail to iPhone Developers. The App Store Resource Center is a single destination where developers can find anything they want to know about submitting their app to the App Store.

The App Store Resource Center contains three sections:

Prepare for App Submission – Get started with iTunes Connect, including setting up your user accounts, submitting contracts, tax and banking information, and gathering application information.
App Store Approval Process – Ensure your application is ready for submission and learn what to expect during the app approval process.
Managing Apps on the App Store – Make the most of your presence on the App Store and learn what you can do to manage your app once it has been posted.

iPhone Developers can access the App Store Resource Center at http://developer.apple.com/iphone/appstore. Apple is known for having a really strict approval process, but with this resource I believe that developers will find it easier to find out what steps they can take to prevent their apps from getting rejected.

Search for top iPhone Apps using Bing

Hans — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 23:11:28 +0000

If you want to visually search through top iPhone apps, or recently released iPhone apps Microsoft has now added this in their Bing search engine. It’s currently in beta, but you can see it in action at Bing.com/visualsearch. It’s really fun to browse for iPhone apps using Bing!

With Bing’s visual search you can narrow your search by Publishers, Category, or Price (highest/lowest). Hovering over an iPhone app shows the app’s company, price, category, ranking, and release date. Clicking on an iPhone app icon takes you to search results for the app on Bing instead of launching the app in iTunes.

I found this Bing visual search for iPhone apps really useful. I can easily search for reviews of each iPhone application and filter my searches. It would be great if Bing also added the iTunes link to the iPhone applications rather than having us search Bing to get the iTunes links. What do you think about this search? Will you be using it to search for future iPhone apps or will you just stick to using iTunes?

iPhone App developers: Do not use glossy chat bubbles in your App Store apps!

Hans — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 02:59:55 +0000

Here is another crazy App Store story. If you’re an iPhone App developer, do not use the same glossy buttons in the SMS app in any of your iPhone applications. Apparently this is trademarked by Apple, and they don’t want you to use it in any of your applications. Joe Stump found this out the hard way.

Joe Stump, a former architect of Digg made an application called Chess Wars. Chess Wars is an application that allows you to play Chess on your iPhone with your Facebook friends using Facebook connect. After submitting his application and having it approved by Apple, Joe realized that his application had a bug in it. He fixed the bug he found and resubmitted it, and Apple approved the update. After submitting this update Joe realized that there was another bug for new users so he submitted another update for the Chess Wars app. Unfortunately this time Apple did not approve his application. Due to the iPhone OS 3.0 update, his Application did not work for users and Apple did not approve the updated working version of his application so he got negative reviews. Unfortunately these negative reviews will stick there and may affect future sales of his application.

It’s been more than 6 weeks and Apple has still not approved Joe’s application. A few days ago, Joe Stump decided to make a blog post about it which got posted on TechCrunch. The post on TechCrunch got a lot of attention and I believe that caused Apple to contact Joe recently.

An Apple representative contacted Joe yesterday morning and told him that his chat interface looks similar to the one in the iPhone SMS client. You can argue that there are other applications like Tweetie that have a similar interface, but Tweetie also has an icon next to the speech bubbles and it’s less shiny. Apple suggested to Joe that he make his chat bubbles more square and “less shiny”.

I think this is a ridiculous reason for Apple to reject an update for an application. I hope that Apple takes steps to improve their App Store review process. Right now not too many developers are happy with it!

Facebook 3.0 iPhone App Released!

Hans — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 21:27:20 +0000

The much anticipated Facebook 3.0 iPhone app has now been released and Facebook addicts can download it from the App Store! About a month ago, Joe Hewitt, the developer of the Facebook iPhone app made an update on Facebook saying that Facebook 3.0 for the iPhone was coming. On Sunday, August 16, Joe Hewitt was finally done with the development of the Facebook 3.0 iPhone Application and he submitted it to the App Store for review. Unsurprisingly enough, Apple spent over two weeks approving this application and kept many users impatient! Read on below to see the new features of the Facebok 3.0 iPhone application. There is no push notification on Facebook 3.0, Joe Hewitt says that this feature will be added in the Facebook 3.1 iPhone App update.

What’s new in the Facebook 3.0 iPhone App?

iPhone 3GS users can now upload videos
Built-in web browser: All links can be viewed without leaving the Facebook iPhone App!
The ability to zoom in to photos.
Full photo management. You can create/delete albums, delete photos/photo tags.
Photos can be uploaded to any album
Profile Picture can now be changed.
View upcoming events and RSVP See your upcoming Events and RSVP
View your friends’ birthdays your friends’ birthdays
The ability to view pages and post updates and photos to Pages you administer
Write/read your friends’ notes
You can like posts or photos.
See the same news feed on the Facebook website
All of your friends’ friends and pages can be viewed
View your mutual friends
Easy searching for people and Pages
Make friend requests
Become a fan of Pages
Quickly call/text your friends
Create shortcuts to favorite friends/Pages
You can sort friends according to first or last name in settings.
Chat friends are sorted alphabetically.

Download Facebook 3.0 for iPhone

If you’re already using Facebook you can update your app through the App Store, or you can click here to download Facebook 3.0 for the iPhone.

Loving the new Facebook iPhone App? Share your thoughts on it in the comments!

Apple Bans iPhone Developer

Hans — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 01:57:08 +0000

Over the course of 9 months, Khalid Shaikh and his team of 26 employees have submitted over 900 applications to the App Store. That is a very huge amount of apps from one company. Unfortunately none of these 900 applications were of good quality. Shaikh and his dev team didn’t care about the quality of the apps, they just cared about making as much money as possible. Instead of pricing their apps as 99 cents each, Shaikh priced them $4.99 each. Mobile Crunch estimates that he earned thousands of dollars per day from sales until he got banned.

On Friday, July 24 Apple revoked Sheikh’s developer license and removed all his apps from the App Store. It’s not because of the quality of apps that Shaikh got banned, but it’s because he had copyright issues with a lot of applications. Apple did the right thing by banning him. Imagine if Apple had to check through each and every app for copyright issues, that would really slow down the approval of apps.

Unfortunately Shaikh is not the only iPhone Developer who is flooding the App Store with cheap quality apps. Brighthouse Labs, the company with the most iPhone apps in the App Store has over 2,000 apps for 99 cents and seems to have copyright issues just like Shaikh did. Their apps are still up in the App Store and judging by the reviews of some apps it doesn’t look like people like them.

What do you think about Shaikh getting banned? Do you think he deserved it? Have you come across other iPhone developers doing the same thing? Leave a comment.

[via Mobile Crunch]

AT&T Denies Having Rejected Google Voice Apps

Hans — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 21:41:05 +0000

Last week Apple or AT&T rejected the official Google Voice app, and banned/removed other unofficial Google Voice apps in the App Store. The FCC decided to investigate, and they sent letters to Apple, AT&T, and Google to find out more info. You can see all the letters at TechCrunch.

AT&T responded to this by issuing the following statement:

“AT&T does not manage or approve applications for the App Store. We have received the letter and will, of course, respond to it.”

AT&T is not revealing much in this statement. They’re just saying that they don’t manage or approve applications, but of course we knew that too. Apple manages and approves all applications in the App Store. What we don’t know is whether AT&T had influenced Apple or been able to get them to remove all the Google Voice Apps.

According to Sean Kovacs, an Apple support representative Raymond C claims that GV Mobile was removed from the App Store at the request of AT&T. This has not been confirmed, but you can see a screenshot of the chat below.

Raymond C said the following:

Yea unfortunately at the request of AT&T GV was removed from the App store. I am truly sorry for the inconvenience and frustration on this unfortunate removal of a great application.

Maybe the FCC’s involvement may mean that Google Voice apps will be back, but don’t count on it. On the bright side, you can still jailbreak and download GV Mobile from Cydia, and Google has said that they will be working on a mobile site version of Google Voice too. Google Voice will continue for the iPhone!

Developers: Want to port your iPhone app to Windows Mobile?

Hans — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 18:14:24 +0000

If you’re a developer fed up with the iPhone App Store’s ridiculous process or keep getting rejected from the App Store, you may want to consider porting your app to Windows Mobile. Unlike the iPhone’s App Store, the Windows Mobile Marketplace does not require approval, you can just submit your app!

Luke Thompson, a software developer with Gripwire.com took on the challenge to port his iPhone app to Windows Mobile. A case study has been published on MSDN. It outlines Thompson’s experience and shows what he went through to port the Amplitude iPhone app to Windows Mobile.

Thompson did face many challenges along the way, but he was still able to port his app. While it may not seem easy to port an iPhone app to Windows Mobile, as a developer I would still want to learn how to do this because Microsoft’s Windows Mobile Marketplace does not remove apps over silly reasons, and they don’t require approvals unlike the App Store.s

Read: Porting iPhone Apps Case Study (MSDN)

[via Windows Mobile Blog]

FCC Investigates Apple or AT&T’s Google Voice App Rejection

Arasha — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 05:00:00 +0000

Earlier this week Apple rejected the official Google voice app and removed all other previously approved Google Voice Apps from the App Store leaving many developers frustrated. Many developers invested a lot of time and effort in building their apps, and it was a slap in their faces to have their apps removed.

It has not been confirmed whether Apple or AT&T were responsible for the removal of Google Voice apps. Today the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decided to contact Apple, AT&T, and Google to find out the whole deal behind this. They want to know why Apple rejected the Google Voice App, which third-party applications were rejected, the contact information for each developer’s app that was rejected, who was responsible for the removal or rejections of the apps, whether AT&T has a role in approval of the apps, a list of iPhone applications or categories of applications that were rejected and for what purposes, and the standards for considering and approving applications.

Tech Crunch has posted the letter that was sent to Apple, AT&T, and Yahoo. It would be interesting to see Apple’s responses to these questions, but unfortunately we won’t ever be seeing them. I do hope this makes Apple or AT&T think twice before rejecting any app next time. A Google spokesperson told Tech Crunch the following:

“Apple did not approve the Google Voice application we submitted six weeks ago to the Apple App Store. We will continue to work to bring our services to iPhone users, for example by taking advantage of advances in mobile browsers. We will supply the information that the Commission has requested.”

I would like to see Google release their Google Voice app to jailbroken iPhones or iPod Touches on Cydia, but that will never happen. We can only dream of this!

[via CNNMoney.com]

Official Google Voice App Blocked from App Store

Hans — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 19:15:37 +0000

Yesterday Apple removed all Google-voice related iPhone apps from the App Store, and they also rejected the official Google Voice iPhone application. They are saying that the Google Voice apps “duplicate features that come with the iPhone”. Unfortunately due to Apple’s strict App Store policies, we will never see a Google Voice App on the App Store.

A Google Spokesperson has told us the following:

We work hard to bring Google applications to a number of mobile platforms, including the iPhone. Apple did not approve the Google Voice application we submitted six weeks ago to the Apple App Store. We will continue to work to bring our services to iPhone users — for example, by taking advances in mobile browsers.

Not only should we be blaming Apple for rejecting the Google Voice app, but we should be blaming AT&T as well. John Gruber from Daring Fireball says that Google Voice apps are banned from the App Store because of AT&T:

Well, so much for my speculation. A reliable little birdie has informed me that it was indeed AT&T that objected to Google Voice apps for the iPhone. It’s that simple.

Thankfully, Sean Hovac the developer of the GV Mobile app has decided to release his app for free on Cydia. You can jailbreak your iPhone and download it.

How to get GV Mobile:

Jailbreak your iPhone
Open Cydia
Tap the Search button
Type in GV Mobile
Tap the app, and hit the install button!

GV Mobile Features:

Dial numbers (domestic for free and international at a variable rate) via the iPhone’s address book or typing in on the keypad
Send SMS messages
Retrieve and delete recent call history
Playback and delete voicemails
Take calls from different phones other than your iPhone
Add, delete, enable, or disable the phones that Google Voice forwards calls to

Update: Google Voice is still in beta, if you didn’t get a Google Voice invite from Google then you cannot use this yet. Some users have also been reporting that this app crashes. Sean Kovac is working on fixing it.

[via Daring Fireball and Sean Kovac]

Apple’s App Store Tops tops more than 1.5 billion downloads

Arasha — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 21:54:34 +0000

In a press release today Apple announced that their App Store has reached more than 1.5 billion iPhone and iPod Touch application downloads in just one year and that there are more than 65,000 apps in the App Store.

Here are some key numbers Apple announced in their press release:

App Store has more than 65,000 apps and more than 1.5 billion downloads
App Store is available in more than 77 countries
Apple has shipped more than 40 million devices that run apps from the App Store

Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs went on to say that it would be hard for any other App Store to catch up with Apple.

“With 1.5 billion apps downloaded, it is going to be very hard for others to catch up.” – Steve Jobs

That 1.5 billion download count Apple announced does not mean much because Apple did not reveal how many of those 1.5 billion downloads were updates, free app downloads, or re-downloads. It is impressive that Apple has more than 65,000 apps in the App Store, but how many of these are quality apps?

With their recent press release, Apple is just trying to scare it’s competitors with numbers. Lets face it, Apple’s App Store has a very strict approval process, and an influx of fart apps in the App Store. Other App Stores do stand a chance against Apple. It will be hard for them to catch up in numbers, but it won’t be hard for them to catch up based on quality of their apps.

[Via Apple]