Apple has recently removed Airfoil Speakers Touch by Rogue Amoeba and AirFloat by The Famous Software Company from the iTunes App Store for using AirPlay APIs in a way Apple did not intend them to be used. These apps basically let you use another iOS device as an AirPlay speaker. So, for example, you could beam your audio from your iPhone to an iPod touch or iPad. Though these API's are public, it looks like some reverse engineering was needed to get them to work in this way, and that's what Apple has taken exception to. Airfoil was just taken down this week, while AirFloat was yanked last week.

Apple may just be sour that these devs have found a way to crack into AirPlay without going through the usual "Made for iPhone" accessory certification process, and allowed users to have AirPlay speaker setups without buying additional AirPlay certified audio gear.

There's obviously a big business in that kind of thing, but also a lot more quality control; there's no way of making sure these apps don't provide a sub-par experience, since there's no documented iOS API to test against. If the AirPlay is glitchy or inconsistent, then buyers might get the idea that AirPlay sucks, and will refrain from spending more on, say, an Apple TV.

There was a certain amount of noise made since these types of apps have been in the App Store for years in some cases, and have been approved over and over again during that time, including when they submitted versions with the AirPlay features.

Again, it shows that frustration doesn't only exist in Apple's curation, but in the sometimes arbitrary and sometimes delayed ways in which they enforce it.

Well, I guess the Cydia store exists for a reason... Is Apple right to shut these guys down and protect private APIs, or should they go ahead and let developers make cool apps that leverage the technology that's already there, stability and testing be damned?

Source: Rogue Amoeba, Daring Fireball, The Verge

MGTitleMenu is an open source iOS interface component that lets developers conveniently add pop-up, tile-based contextual menus to iOS apps. It makes the most sense on big screen iPad apps, but can also be used on iPhone or iPad touch. MGTileMenu, as the name hints, is from well known iOS developer Matt Gemmell under a free, attribution license (it can also be licensed without attribution for a small fee).

The idea is, if you're holding an iPad, you can invoke the context menu via a gesture (for example, a double tap). You can the quickly tap one of five action icons, or tap a "more" icon and get additional sets of action icons to choose from. MGTileMenu can also be configured for left handed or right handed use.

Gemmell was also kind enough to include his design and development process in his blog post about the component.

MGTileMenu was created as a way to show options or tools contextually, wherever your hand might be on the iPad’s screen. It’s for use in an app that I’m working on, and I thought it was worth releasing as a useful component.

The tiles are exactly the same size as app icons on the iPad’s Home screen, which provides a sensible consistency and presumably capitalises on Apple’s own research and testing. Believe it or not, the identical size was actually a happy coincidence: the first rounded-rectangle I drew by eye in Photoshop turned out to match iPad app icons to the pixel.

Having made the mockup, I felt there was something visually missing; the tiles needed something to unify them. A bezel seemed like a reasonable choice, so I started experimenting with the concept.

Check out the video below and then go read the whole post via the source link below. The parts about the bezel and the animation flocking are particularly interesting.

Source: mattgemmell.com

A recent survey by a marketing firm called App-Promo shows that 59% of developers don't manage to make enough money from app sales to break even on costs, and 80% don't generate enough revenue to support a standalone business. 68% earned $5000 or less from their top app, while 12% earned $50,000 or more.  Those top earners have around $30,000 set aside for a marketing budget.  64.5% of the apps created by those surveyed were paid, while 39.5% relied on advertising and 32.9% were freemium or lite versions of full apps.

The sample size of the group was only 102 developers, plus the marketing firm has a vested interest in scaring devs into pouring money into marketing, but even in that light, the figures still paint an interesting picture. There are a lot of disposable apps out there that I couldn't imagine any iPhone owner spending good money on. The few companies that can churn out really high-quality apps tend to have sizable budgets and a big, established business in the app world. And when developers do make high quality apps, they're often faced by an App Store customer base which no longer puts a high value on quality apps.

You can take a deeper dive in App-Promo's white paper, below,, or check out the short version in the snazzy infographic. Developers, do you have a hard time earning cash in the App Store? How much time and money do you spend on marketing and promotion?

Source: App-Promo, White Paper via TUAW

Apple is currently rejecting apps that use the Dropbox SDK to provide integration with the popular cloud storage solution. The reason for the rejections is apparently that, under a specific but not inevitable set of circumstances, someone using an app with Dropbox integration could end up on Dropbox's web site and find a way to pay Dropbox for additional storage. That would violate Apple's prohibition against using external websites to circumvent Apple's 30% cut of subscriptions. Dropbox attempted to patch the problem by removing links that would make getting to the full version of the website and finding and buying additional storage possible, but the rejections seem to have continued. Dropbox is now working to try and find a more satisfactory solution and says they'll have more information on that next week.

On the surface, Dropbox broke a rule, caused a problem for developers using their SDK, and is now correcting the mistake. It doesn't appear to have been an intentional or obvious violation, but it was eventually discovered and now Dropbox and their developers have to deal with it.

It's that latter part that highlights some of the continued frustration with Apple's App Store policies, frustrations that persist some 5 years after the introduction of the App Store. The review and rejection process is still, as often as not, impenetrable and capricious. Plenty of apps with Dropbox integration are already on the App Store, presumably using the same SDK as the apps rejected today. That they weren't rejected as well doesn't excuse Dropbox or the apps that were rejected today, but it shows that what one (or many) reviewers let in, another (or many others) may reject.

One of the rejections listed account creation for both Dropbox and Google. (You can pay Google for Google Apps or Google Drive, among other things.) It makes you wonder what would happen if an app linked to store.apple.com...

That's part of what causes frustration with Apple's system. Another part is things like the recent scam app plague. Apps that should have been obvious candidates for immediate rejection to any reviewer who laid eyes on them, were let onto the store to violate intellectual property rights and cheat users out of money.

One absolutely doesn't excuse the other, but people have innate senses of fairness, and for rules to be respected they need to be perceived as being far. (As the old saying goes, people don't mind paying taxes only because it's generally believe everyone pays taxes.)

We want and need real humans reviewing App Store apps, but developers need to believe those reviewers are being fair, and applying broadly consistent standards with generally predictable results.

To their credit, Apple is continually improving the App Store review process. Because the process is human, they recognize they can't always predict all of the edge cases, all of the time. They've made changes over the years, sometimes major ones like un-banning the use of cross-compilers, sometimes small ones like un-banning satirical political cartoons.

So far, however, they haven't changed the policy that affects Dropbox -- the requirement that Apple get 30% of all subscriptions, and that apps can't link to external websites where the same subscriptions can be purchased without Apple getting that cut.

Again, Dropbox knew about it, accidentally broke it, and is now working to fix it. In the meantime, Apple will catch some criticism, both for the policy, and for the way the App Store handles policies. And given the power Apple wields, that kind of ongoing discussion isn't a bad thing.

Source: Dropbox via @sethclifford

A Lithuanian developer, LemonLabs, has recently published an interesting infographic detailing a few simple ways in which designers can prepare their assets for developers in a useful and sensible way. The advice ranges from simple standard resolutions for icons, to highlighting particular Apple style guidelines, and how to package your final bundle of assets. A lot of it seems like common sense, but I'm sure there are at least a few iOS developers out there who would like to make sure their designers have at least glanced over something like this.

If you're an avid listener of Iterate, our mobile design podcast -- and if you aren't, hurry up and start listening now! -- you know the subject of how designers pass of assets to developers is rather hotly contested. Some designers want complete control over final image files, right down to the slice, while others think it's the developers job to take the Photoshop or Fireworks source file and cut it up themselves. Likewise, some developers have no idea how to edit an image and just want the slices all pretty and packaged, while other developers want final control to the point of preferring to slice the source files themselves.

When you factor in managing Retina (@2x) and non-retina assets, making sure everything is pixel perfect can become both an art and a chore. Luckily, compared to other platform, Apple's small set of screen sizes makes the task at least somewhat manageable. (iOS developers don't have to invent their own forms of antialiasing and test against different screen technologies, for example!)

So consider this a cheat-sheet, or a funny way to make a much-needed point.

And for way more on the topic of mobile design, keep listing to Iterate and check out our Mobile Design & Development Forum!

Source: LemonLabs via iPhoneinCanada

iOS developers on the west coast might be just a little bit peeved that WWDC sold out before they were even awake, and even more may have been cut out from the fun today as Apple canceled some tickets. Luckily, another event called the Indie Developer Lab has been put together for the same time (June 11 - 14) and only a few blocks away from the Moscone Center at The Box (it's fancier than it sounds). Tickets are considerably cheaper at $100/day as an early bird special, compared to $1600 for the whole four days at WWDC.

The show will host a contest called the IDL Remix, where groups of one to three developers will be given some rough source code, and they have to turn it into a polished final product. There's no mention of what the prize is, but it should be a fun little exercise nonetheless. Otherwise, you'll be able to code away in a nice, relaxed environment with lots of other clever programmers to meet and help you out.

The guys organizing this show are @kinkadius, @natetrue, and @flawlessfox of JailbreakCon. So, IndieDevLab may also be a good place to talk about operating outside of the Apple-approved ecosystem, if you're into that sort of thing.

If this sounds like your bag, you can register via the link below.

Source: Indie Dev Lab, via @kinkadius, @natetrue, @flawlessfox

This morning Apple has apparently canceled some WWDC 2012 tickets, claiming that they are "ineligible" because individuals aren't supposed to buy more than one. Of course, companies with teams of developers are allowed to buy more than one, but some combination of using the same address and Apple's system not working the way it's supposed to has flagged legitimate tickets for cancellation. Much to the rage and consternation of developers. Apple is apparently reinstating the purchases but needless to say, it's been a dramatic day for some iOS developers.

The Worldwide Developer Conference sold out after two hours of being on sale. That's with zero advance notice and a 5:30am PDT start time. If a developer was unfortunate enough to be in a bad time zone, or simply away from a computer when they went on sale, tough luck. WWDC policy prohibits the transfer and resale of tickets, which prevents scalping but compounds the problem for developers who missed the tiny window of availability.

That's led to some opportunists still trying to pull of sales on eBay, and to some desperate developers offering to change their name to that of the original purchaser (and pull jury duty!) in order to get access.

Have you had any problems getting your WWDC tickets? Have you been unpleasantly surprised by one of these e-mails from Apple? Developers, how important is WWDC attendence to your business? Let us know in our iOS Developer and Designer Forum

Source: TNW, eBay, Craigslist

Splashtop's desktop-to-mobile virtualization app has just perversely enabled users to access their Windows 8 PC desktop on their iPad. Of course, this sort of VPN is nothing new, but it is the first time we're seeing it with Windows 8, much of which was designed specifically for touch input. It looks like all of the gestures are there, including multitouch to reposition tiles, leftwards swipes to go back a step, dual-pane multitasking, menu options on the right side, and icon options from the bottom. Latency seems low, which means it's responsive enough to at least play a simple pinball game.

Even as Apple fans, it's hard to ignore that Windows 8 actually looks pretty awesome, and if you can have a reliable, consistent experience with it through Splashtop while still having full access to the perks of iOS, I'm tempted to give it a shot.  Of course, for this particular set up, you need to have Splashtop installed on your existing Windows 8 computer (unlike OnLive, which hosts the remote Windows machine for you). It's worth noting that since Windows 8 is still technically in a developer beta, Splashtop is gearing this towards programmers who are interested in testing their apps in a touch environment.

If you're interested in giving this a shot, the Win8 Metro Testbed for Splashtop is currently half off, but even then, it's a little steep at $24.99. In any case, Splashtop's Win8 Metro Testbed looks like it works well enough. How many of you iPad owners out there are still using a Windows machine? Are you tempted to give Windows 8 a shot? Maybe there are even a few of you thinking of switching away from Mac...

$24.99 - Download now

If you're looking for alternatives, iTap Mobile has an app for $11.99 that uses the RDP protocol, which is native to Windows, so it doesn't need something installed on the PC. RDP also captures the vectors of open windows rather than simply streaming a live image of the screen, which means reduced latency and improved responsiveness. Unfortunately, iTap doesn't list support for Windows 8 yet, but Windows 8 supports RDP - it should work, right?

$11.99 - Download now

Source: Splashtop Blog

TestFlight, the popular beta distribution service for iPhone and iPad apps, has just launched TestFlight Live and aims to give iOS developers real-time analytics (how many users are using their apps right now), engagement metrics (how often and how long users are using their apps), and more.

TestFlight LIVE has arrived. Use Testflight for more than just Beta testing. Just one SDK for Beta and Live.

One simple line of code empowers developers to take control of their beta testing and their app business. Our goal is to help you build better apps.

Both services are free and we plan to add optional premium features in the future. The features offered today will remain free.

In addition to real-time and engagement, TestFlight Live will also measure audience (which devices and which features are most used), revenue, and stability.

No word yet on what those premium features are, but developers can download the TestFlight Live SDK now via the link below. If any developers give it a whirl, let us know what you think about it in our iOS developers forum.

Source: TestFlight

Developer ID is the name Apple's giving their "trusted developer" system for deploying secure, tamper-safe non-Mac App Store apps to OS X. OS X Mountain Lion includes the option, along with Mac App Store only and all apps, regardless of source, as part of their Gatekeeper feature.

The Mac App Store is the safest place for users to get software for their Mac, but we also want to protect users when they download applications from other places. Developer ID is a new way to help prevent users from installing malware on their Mac. Along with Gatekeeper, a new feature in Mountain Lion, signing applications with your Developer ID certificate provides users with the confidence that your application is not known malware and has not been tampered with.

Get your applications ready for Gatekeeper today. It’s easy to get started with Developer ID using the automated certificate request tools in Xcode 4.3 or the Developer Certificate Utility.

While this is Mac-only for now, and I'm hard pressed to imagine Apple bringing it to iOS any time soon, it's an interesting approach that allows for a lot more flexibility for developers, variety for users, and security for the platform all at the same time.

While an official option to sideload apps onto the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad would no doubt be popular with those who jailbreak, there don't seem to be a lot of apps on Cydia, the jailbreak store, that Apple would allow unto iOS even via Sideload. For example, anything that modifies the core OS system would likely still be prohibited, making the entire concept pointless on iOS.

Can anyone think of a likely use case, or examples of iOS apps, that Apple would actually allow to be sideloaded but not allow in the App Store?

Double Fine, one of the zaniest indie game developers out there, recently decided that they would fund their next game through Kickstarter in order to get around the usual publisher restrictions. After blowing their funding target out of the water on the first day, they're now able to bring their game to platforms outside of Mac, Windows, and Linux; Double Fine's upcoming point-and-click adventure title will be coming to select iOS and Android devices too! Those who have pitched in will not only get a copy of the game, but they'll also have access to a video developer diary, and an exclusive forum where they can provide feedback on early concept art. If you are totally insane and pledge $20,000 or more, you get to go bowling with the dev team.

There are a few reasons this is awesome. For one, it shows that Kickstarter can be a great platform for funding apps, so long as those launching the campaign can drum up enough excitement. Double Fine hit their $400,000 funding target in eight hours. Currently they have $1.86 million with another 26 days of fundraising to go. That extra cash is what made the spread from desktop to mobile possible, as well as additional localizations.

The second reason this is awesome, and coincidentally, is the main reason Double Fine could create this much hype, is because Tim Schafer is widely known in the gaming world as the grand-daddy of irreverent, mind-bending, hilarious, and, of course, fun-as-balls video games. Psychonauts is usually touted as his crowning achievement. . But my personal favourite from Schafer is Grim Fandango. It was a point-and-click adventure game set in a 20s detective style following travel agent Manny Calavera as he worked his way through the land of the dead. Other classics include the Monkey Island franchise, Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, and more recently, Brutal Legend and Trenched Iron Brigade.

Unfortunately, Schafer didn't mention in his last update video which iOS or Android devices would be supproted, but if they're porting the game from PC, I'm going to guess that it will be optimized for tablets first and phones second.

You can actually grab some nice iOS ports for some of the games if you're feeling nostalgic. Be sure to toss in some cash at the Kickstarter project. Wondering what you're getting into? Check out these videos for an idea.

• Psychonauts - Download now

• Monkey Island - Download now

Source: Kickstarter

After the whole mess with social networking app, Path, uploading Contact data from iPhone users without asking, the U.S. Congress has started to get involved. Energy and Commerce Committee member Henry Waxman and Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade Subcommittee member G. K. Butterfield issued an open letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook asking some probing questions regarding the iOS developer agreement.  Most of them center around the agreement's reference to transmitting "data about a user". Some of the juicier questions include:

• "Do you consider the contents of the address book to be 'data about a user'?"
• "Do you consider the contents of the address book to be data of the contact?  If not, please explain why not.  Please explain how you protect the privacy and security interests of that contact in his or her information."
• "How many iOS apps in the U.S. iTunes Store transmit information from the address book?  How many of those ask for the user’s consent before transmitting their contacts’ information?"

In response, Apple's Tom Neumayr said in a statement that they intend on requiring explicit permission to access address book data in a future release, much like how location data is handled now.

"Apps that collect or transmit a user’s contact data without their prior permission are in violation of our guidelines. We’re working to make this even better for our customers, and as we have done with location services, any app wishing to access contact data will require explicit user approval in a future software release."

There's no mention of whether or not that will be in iOS 5.1, which Apple has been testing for some time, and may release alongside the iPad 3 in March.

The letter from Congress sought a formal reply by the end of the month, though I doubt we'll get to read that response. Apple has had some hiccups with location privacy in the past, but their corporate line has consistently been to treat private data with the utmost respect. While it's tricky holding Apple accountable for the snakey stuff that developers do in the App Store, it is their job to curate and approve submissions, and if a bad app slip through the cracks and reaches the public, it's the iPhone's reputation on the line.

At first glance, Android seems to have a better privacy system in place, as it ensures that you provide explicit permission for an app to access different types of data, but I definitely worry that the folks at Google don't look as closely at submissions as Apple does.

iMore put up a concept piece on how we'd like to see contacts, and permissions in general, handled in iOS 6. Would a popup make you feel more secure about your iPhone's personal data? Will it legitimately change a user's behaviour, or will they approve it as absent-mindedly as they do location permission now?

Source: Congressional letter, via The Next Web, AllThingsD

Do you love Path, the slick, simple, moment-sharing social network app for iPhone? Well, you get ready to dial it back a notch, because apparently they're storing your entire address book, e-mail addresses and all, on their servers, and in plain text. What kind of evil deeds does Path have planned for all that data? Well, the CEO, Dave Morin, said that the data is used exclusively to notify you when your friends sign up for Path. He also claimed that it's the industry standard to transfer that personal information in plain text, even though, as one commenter points out, it could be done with representative hash codes instead. Morin also said that they intend to update the iOS version with an opt-in dialog for the feature, which is a tweak they've already rolled out on Android.

If you're not cool with the data Path already has stored on their server, you can e-mail service@path.com and they'll wipe everything out for you.

The whole mess was discovered by the developer of an iPad news app called Denso. He was toying around with a new tool from mitmproxy.org that monitors the API calls made by apps by setting up a man-in-the-middle HTTP proxy.

This isn't the first time we've seen this issue on iOS. Nuance's popular Dragon Dictation faced and addressed similar concerns back in 2009. While we're prone to just hit the "allow" button on just about any app we download when prompted for access to personal data, you aren't currently getting that message when downloading Path on iOS. Even if you were, it's still pretty sketchy that this data is being transferred without being hashed, even if it's transferred over SSL. What if Path's servers got hacked? We wouldn't get much more than a "whoops" from Path. What worries me even more is that there are still a ton of other services out there just farming up personal data from not only you, but everyone you know, without your express or implicit permission.

It certainly makes me think twice when signing up for new services...

Source: Read Write Web, Denso, mitmproxy.org

In a recent interview, Rovio CEO Mikael Hed said that app piracy isn't a huge threat to their signature title, Angry Birds. In fact, it may help increase their popularity. Hed draws a lot of parallels to the music industry, and sees suing your fanbase as fundamentally "futile".

"We took something from the music industry, which was to stop treating the customers as users, and start treating them as fans. We do that today: we talk about how many fans we have. If we lose that fanbase, our business is done, but if we can grow that fanbase, our business will grow. ... Piracy may not be a bad thing: it can get us more business at the end of the day."

This is pretty smart on Rovio's part, since they don't just have a little slingshot game now -- they have a brand. That brand is proving to be way more valuable for cartoons, merchandise, and cross-licensing (like the case with Rio) than as an iPhone app. It's on these fronts that Rovio is staying agressive.

"We have some issues with piracy, not only in apps, but also especially in the consumer products. There is tons and tons of merchandise out there, especially in Asia, which is not officially licensed products."

While Angry Birds might be the exception rather than the rule when it comes to app store success stories, Hed's mindset here should show that publishers should always be thinking beyond the app. There's a big world outside of mobile apps, and the more of it developers can latch hooks into, the more relevant their software becomes.

Of course, smaller developers might think that's easy for Hed and his massive pork-and-poultry-fed bank account to say. With thinner margins for their apps, and nowhere near the same popularity with which they could viably sell shirts, plushies, or other branded goods, no doubt they're hit much harder by app piracy than Rovio.

Source: The Guardian

Fiksu, a mobile marketing firm, released some interesting data on how much money top iPhone app developers are spending on promoting their creations. After looking at the top 200 free iPhone App Store for December, the average cost to get someone to run an app more than three times is $1.81. This is up significantly from $1.41 in November. Fiksu also determined that the App Store saw a little over  6 million daily downloads in December, helped in no small part by the oodles of Christmas sales. In fact,m the last week of December saw advertising budgets (and traffic) double. Fiksu gathered up this information through their marketing platform, which spans over 200 million downloads, and 11 billion in-app actions. App Store rankings freeze between December 25 and 28, which creates a rush to get top position beforehand, so you hold that visibility while folks start downloading apps on their new iPhones. Fiksu CEO Micah Adler said:

“For so many app brands, December is a strategically critical month for app discovery. What we witnessed during the month was a ‘land rush’ in which advertisers earnestly spent marketing dollars in order to achieve ranking before the traditional App Store freeze which then would generate substantial organic downloads through increased visibility.”

Of course, if developers just wrote good apps and dropped us a line, maybe they'd get some free advertising by way of our Daily Apps series. Jussayin'.

Distimo released an interesting report today that examined the overall effects of different app promotions across the iPhone and iPad App Store, as well as the Android Market. One of the most striking stats from the report was that "44% of the iPhone applications that have been on sale lost revenue during the sale, and 23% saw a decline in revenue by more than 20%".

Distimo factored in how much of a price cut each app received, and put it into the above graph. As you might expect, the sharper the price cut, the greater the revenue. The graph shows that, among those that cut their price by 80%,  just as many apps lost 20% or more revenue as gained more than 100% revenue.  On the whole, putting apps on sale is still a good thing, though; the average iPhone app increased revenue by 22%, iPad apps increased by 19%, and Android app revenue went up by 29%. As you might expect, all three categories see a significant spike on the first day.

The report also examined the effects of having apps being featured. As it turns out, Android apps see a much higher boost in rank from being feature than on the iPhone or iPad. On average, an iPhone app has its rank bumped up 15 spots in the first three days of being featured, while iPad apps go up 27. Android apps? They climb 42 spots, on average. Only 11% of featured iPhone apps climbed more than 50 ranks, compared to 26% of featured Android apps.

Any app developers in the house reconsidering putting their app on sale now? I'm definitely more inclined to do my app shopping when cuts are down at the $0.99 range, but what about you guys?

Source: Distimo

Defense zone: Hold your defence with your turrets against the massive hordes of enemies. It is up to you, commander, how to spend the resources: restore and upgrade your veteran units or to purchase some new ones.

• $1.99 for iPhone - App Store link

Rewards - A reward tracker for parents: Add a reward when your child is helpful, does the dishes, helps put the trash out and many more! At-a-glance, you and your child can see how many rewards they have totalled up for the week.

• $0.99 for iPhone - App Store link

PDF Forms: A powerful software tool for work with PDF documents and forms which allows commenting on ready PDF documents, filling forms, signing legal documents such as contracts or notices and sharing processed PDF documents via email or Dropbox.

• $8.99 for iPad - App Store link

Favomatic: Provides you with an easy to use interface to create and manage launch-buttons for your favorites. Think of it as a to-do list that helps you in that daily routine. It not only reminds you to check out something you were about to forget but it also makes sure not to check it too often.

• Free for iPad - App Store link

Operation Math: Dr. Odd is on a global quest to eliminate the world’s even numbers. And it’s your job to stop him, by seeking out his secret bases, destroying his menacing mainframes and making the world a safer place for math. Complete each mission by solving the equations that lock the doors along your escape route in 60 seconds or less and earn all the uniforms and watches of a seasoned Base10 spy.

• $1.99 for iPhone - App Store link
• $2.99 for iPad - App Store link

Any other big app or game releases or updates today?

Have an app you'd love to see featured on iMore? Email us at iosapps@imore.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we'll take a look.

Apple has just seeded iOS 5.1 beta 3 to developers. If you're looking to get in the latest iOS beta and have a developers account, you can grab it via over-the-air (OTA) update or download from the developer site now.

The changelog hasn't fully been posted as of yet, so we're left wondering what all has changed but if you happen to spot anything -- by all means drop us a note in the comments and we'll update once we know some more.

Source: Apple

TeleNav, one of the largest back-end providers of GPS navigation services for smartphones and other in-car turn-by-turn navigation systems, has announced the upcoming release of a free HTML5-based voice-guided GPS navigation service that works on your iPhone through the Safari Mobile Browser.

“This is an enormous amount of added value for any mobile, location-based website or app focused on travel, shopping, local search, deals and more,” said Sal Dhanani, co-founder and vice president of products for TeleNav. “With one line of code, you can give your customers one-click access to premium, voice-guided turn-by-turn directions to any location, including hotels, restaurants, merchants or deal locations. Customers never need to leave your app.”

As mentioned, the service will be completely browser-based allowing it to run on just about any smartphone, including the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S. Developers will have the opportunity to add just a single line of code to their existing website or apps, which will allow users to jump directly into the browser for turn-by-turn navigation from within any app, or directly from Safari itself.

If all goes according to plan, we should start seeing it in apps come 2012.

Source: TeleNav

Apple has sent out their customer note to app developers that iTunes Connect, the web-based backend for managing app submission, updating, and reporting, will once again shut down for a week.

iTunes Connect will be temporarily shut down from Thursday, December 22 to Thursday, December 29 for the winter holidays.

During this shutdown, the following functionality will be unavailable:

• Access to iTunes Connect
• The delivery of any apps or updates
• Additionally, the following will be delayed:
• Releases scheduled to appear on the App Store for the first time
• Pricing changes scheduled through the interval pricing system in iTunes Connect

We strongly recommend that you do not schedule pricing changes through the interval pricing system in iTunes Connect that would take effect from December 22 through December 29. Pricing changes scheduled to take effect during this date range will not be reflected in the App Store and the app will become unavailable for purchase.

We also recommend that you do not schedule any apps to go live during the shutdown. Releases scheduled with a sales start date between these dates will not go live until after the shutdown.

Last year this resulted in week-long app sales for users, as developers wanted to lock in deals for the holidays.

Apple has announced that, as part of iOS 5.0.1 beta 1, they've added something that should eliminate the problems iOS 5.0 had with purging data -- everything from Instapaper pages to flight charts.

It introduces a new way for developers to specify files that should remain on device, even in low storage situations.

Previously, developers who wanted to keep data cached on the iPhone or iPad but not have it backed up to iTunes -- because it would create a long delay for their users -- put them into temporary storage. With iCloud and iOS 5, however, Apple became much more aggressive about purging data from that temporary storage, leading to users starting apps only to find them empty and their stuff gone. This was especially vexing when on an airplane or otherwise off the data network and the content couldn't just be re-downloaded.

While Apple doesn't always seem to realize the ramifications of their changes, in this case at least they're addressing it quickly. Hopefully this gives the best of both worlds -- persistent, non-critical storage that's there when you want it but doesn't slow down or eat up storage for your backups.

Source: Apple Developer News

Chris Stevens at Fast Company has written about the harrowing ordeal of being a small time developer in the big time App Store. It's nothing new, but it's something that hasn't been in the headlines for a while.

It’s this label “gold rush” that has been most often applied to the App Store. The potential for success, and risk of failure, is so great that in many ways the App Store has provoked a gold rush among developers. Although the successes are spectacular, the failures are apocalyptic. The mainstream press focuses on the glorious few and gives very little attention to the money being lost on the App Store--a problem compounded by the embarrassed silence of those struggling to turn a profit on their work. In a climate where approximately 540 apps are submitted for review every day, it’s easy to see why the Appillionaires are an exclusive and rare breed.

Knowing to get in on the ground floor was probably the first big gamble. Now it's trying to get noticed among hundreds of thousands of other apps and dozens of existing, entrenched competitors. Can you just make a better looking Twitter client, a more adorable and addictive casual game, or an easier way to share photos with filters and bank on success, or will there always be the element of a crap shoot?

Years ago we talked about the idea of a premium App Store to encourage big companies and game houses to invest in iOS and get higher prices in return, but what about the small, indie developers, the next great innovators in the making? Could Apple revamp the App Store format to give them a better chance as well?

Source: Fast Company

Google released their new Gmail for iPhone and iPad app today and due to some launch-time bugs involving push notifications, TiPb's getting a lot of questions about Notification Error "no valid 'aps-environment' entitlement string found for application, what it means, and what can be done about it.

Short answer: It means Google messed up Push Notifications and there's nothing you can do about it until Google fixes it and Apple pushes out that fix.

Long answer: We reached out to Paul Haddad of Tapbots and Tweetbot fame to get a better informed idea of what's going on, and this is what he was kind enough to share:

In the iOS Provisioning Portal you need to various different certificates. For all apps you'll normally generate a Development, AdHoc distribution and Store distribution certificates. For push enabled apps you also need to generate Development and Production Push certificates.

What I think happens is that most people start by generating and downloading the 3 standard certificates and at some later point generate the Push certificates. However when you create the Push certificates it modifies the standard certificates in some way that tells the OS that it can be used for push notifications. You'll often re-generate/download the Development and AdHoc certificates as you add new devices for testing, but you only have to re-genrate the Store certificates once a year when renewing with Apple.

So again what Google probably did is create the standard certificates, then create the Push certificates and didn't re-generate/download the Store certificate. It's a really easy mistake to make and there's no indication of a problem anywhere within the submission process to Apple. It's also a pretty trivial thing to fix and I'd expect Google to re-submit and Apple to expedite the release pretty quickly.

It does make me wonder why Apple didn't catch this issue, my guess is something about the way they run apps prevents this error from showing up.

As far as I know the only way to see if this is a problem or not is to run the following command

codesign -dvvvv --entitlements - .app

and look for the following two lines in the output

aps-environment production

Thanks Paul!

Marshall Bock has posted a set of iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 Photoshop templates on his blog. They include:

• Both 4 and 4S models
• Both black and white body colors
• Portrait, landscape, and angled orientations
• Every combination of the preceding bullet points
• Rendering that matches Apple’s product images as closely as possible
• Created at high res scale for Retina Display
• Made entirely of vectors and layer styles for scaling up
• Full alignment to a 2px grid for pixel precision at 50% scale
• Screen images as Smart Objects for inserting your own screenshots
• Clean, organized, color-coded, well-named groups and layers

Handy asset for both developers and designers.

Source: Marshall Bock via @flyosity

The Developers over at Pheromone Labs are working on a photography app for a client and one of their duties is to take ten to fifteen thousand test photos with the app. This is a time-consuming and daunting task, so the developers came up with a creative solution: a picture-taking LEGO robot!

The idea was simple: build a set of arms driven by a motor. The arms would then simulate a user taking photos with the iPad. After discussing the idea with our resident rock star and creative genius Mathieu Savage, we located a Lego Mindstorm set belonging to our champion story teller and master of analytics Tom Boutet.

I love the creativity of this idea! However, I can't help but wonder how much time was spent designing and assembling the robot. Regardless, even if it was equal to the amount of time it'd take to manually snap 10,000 photos, this was much cooler.

Check out the video of the robot in action, below!

[Pheromone Lab via TUAW]

The Robot (English version) from Pheromone Lab on Vimeo.

Apple has put up a post on their Developer News page tellings devs to start getting their apps ready for iCloud Backup and Restore:

iCloud introduces a smarter way for users to back up their info. It's important to read the new iCloud Data Storage Guidelines to ensure that your app works best with iCloud Backup and Restore, available on iOS 5.

We're getting closer.

[Apple Developer News]

Anthony Agius of MacTalk recently ran the One More Thing Conference down under and has just put up all the video for those of us who couldn't be there live.

There are videos from iOS developers such as Matt Comi (The Incident), James Cuda (Procreate), Marc Edwards (Sideways, Consume) and other leading developers, who tell their story of planning, developing and successfully selling their iOS apps. All of them are full time indie iOS developers, who make a living off the App Store. It's a goldmine of info for those wanting to become indie iOS devs!

Check them out via the link below. And while I can't put my finger on it, that Marc Edwards chap seems awfully familiar...

[One More Thing]

Marc Edwards (Bjango) - One More Thing Conference 2011 from One More Thing on Vimeo.

Apple has announced a few new features for iTunes Connect, their back-end iPhone and iPad app management portal, in an effort to provide better management and reporting for developers.

New Metadata Rejected App Review Status: You can now resolve metadata issues that have been identified by the App Review team without having to recompile and resubmit a new binary for review.

App Bundle IDs Now Editable Before Binary Submission: You can now edit your app's assigned Bundle ID in iTunes Connect as long as you have not submitted a new binary for review and your app is not using Game Center or the iAd Network.

Also added is a new auto-ingest tool for easier, automated retrieval of daily and weekly reports.

The auto-ingest tool is a Java-based script that will run on any operating system that supports Java 1.6 or later. Before you begin using the tool, we strongly urge you to read the App Store Sales and Trends Guide and note the following:

• Use of this tool is monitored.
• If your system will be set up to automatically pull daily or weekly reports, allow 15-minute intervals between pulls.

More information is available inside Apple's iOS developer portal.

[Thanks Jack!]

What's your name? Boyd Timothy

What's your company's name? Appigo

Where are you located? About 45 minutes South of Salt Lake City in Orem, Utah

What's your website address? http://www.appigo.com/

What's your Twitter name? @appigo

What apps do you make? Todo iPhone [App Store link], Todo iPad [App Store link] and Todo for Mac [App Store link], Corkulous [App Store link], Notebook [App Store link], AccuFuel [App Store link]

What apps, other than your own, are currently among your favorites? Dropbox [App Store link], Pandora [App Store link], iKlondike [App Store link],

How long have you been a developer? Professionally, since 1997.

How long have you been an iOS developer? Since early 2008 when the original iPhone SDK was released.

Do you develop for any other platform in addition to iOS? If so, which one(s)? Prior to Appigo I worked on the Linux Desktop Team at Novell with my focus being on .NET apps using Mono. At Appigo our primary focus is on Mac OS X and iOS although we do have a number of supporting online services we've written and also a utility on Windows to sync tasks into Outlook.

What primary computer setup do you use for your iOS development? 15" MacBook Pro, 8GB RAM, with 27" Apple LED Cinema Display

What iOS device(s) do you personally use most often? iPhone, by far … it's with me all the time. My iPad is extremely handy during outdoor music gigs since it stays put in the wind and has a very readable screen.

What mobile devices, other than iOS, do you currently use? None

What's your favorite thing about developing for iOS? Ideas come to life quickly we get immediate feedback from customers.

What's your least favorite thing about developing for iOS? The release process … not having full control of releasing apps as soon as they are ready. Fortunately Apple now lets us choose the release date once it's approved, so that helps with timing releases more appropriately (as opposed to 6 PM on a Friday, which happened frequently in the past).

What feature would you most like Apple to add to the iOS 5 SDK? Voice dictation as an OS feature for all apps that accept text input.

What feature would you most like Apple to add to the App Store? An easy way for developers to respond to specific customer reviews/feedback.

If we were to eavesdrop on you while you were coding, what curse word would we hear you use the most? When I go to debug a problem I think I've fixed and it doesn't work, more times than not, you'd hear me angrily say, "Pieces of crap for breakfast!" ("borrowed" from the movie Happy Gilmore)

What do you do when you're not coding iOS apps? Play bluegrass music (guitar, mandolin, banjo, etc.), fly fishing, yard work, and hanging out with my family.

What should we look for from you next? We believe it's important to provide people with different task synchronization options. File-based task sync is not only possible, it's very stable and working well.

Thanks Boyd!

Apple has released new iCloud-enabled betas for their iWork apps -- Keynote, Pages, and Numbers to developers. The betas, available exclusively through Apple's iOS developer portal, are universal apps for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, and no additional features other than iCloud support appear to have been added.

Documents in the Cloud was one of the key iCloud features announced by Steve Jobs at WWDC and the iWork for iOS beta apps are the first test implementation of that feature.

The beta apps come in a DMG file and need to be extracted, dragged to iTunes 10.5 beta 4, and then synced over to an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad running iOS 5 beta 4. (And yes, it's somewhat ironic the first iCloud enabled versions of iWork can't be installed OTA over iCloud, but this is a beta, right?)

Note: It looks like some people aren't having luck syncing the iWork apps over, or wait for them to sync only to watch them disappear immediately after syncing. We're not sure what's causing that, and what's allowing for successful syncs, but let us know how you fair in the comments.

We're getting a ton of email about apps showing up in the App Store that say they're compatible with iOS 5, and readers/listeners wondering how that could be since iOS 5 isn't public yet. Here's the thing -- developers are not currently allowed to upload anything to iTunes Connect (the App Store backend) that uses the iOS 5 SDK and iOS 5 APIs. However, they may be able to make changes within the iOS 4.x SDK, using iOS 4.x API, that also just so happen to fix compatibility issues with iOS 5. In other words, they might be able to code around problems in iOS 5 for existing apps, but they can't code new iOS 5-specific functionality.

There will likely be cases where devs can't fix something using the iOS 4.x SDK as well, regardless of how clever they are. So we'll once again remind you, if you're using iOS 5 and a specific app doesn't work right, not to leave a bad review. iOS 5 is only available to developers testing apps, not to users complaining about them. Wait until after iOS 5 is released to the public this fall before you start getting on anyone's case.

Amazon has released an update to its Kindle app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. The update removes the Kindle Store button from the app to meet Apple’s terms and conditions. What is more interesting is that you can now read over 100 newspapers and magazines with high resolution color images.

• This update removes the Kindle Store button from the app.
• Read over 100 newspapers and magazines including The Economist and Reader’s Digest with high resolution color images. Visit the Kindle Store to subscribe to a newspaper or magazine and have each edition automatically delivered, or purchase individual issues.
• Customers who receive newspapers and magazines on Kindle can download recent editions to their iOS devices from Archived Items. Many newspapers and magazines are supported, and more are on the way.
• Share quotes and passages with your friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter while reading.

[Free – iTunes link]

UPDATE: Nook and Google Books apps have also been updated to remove links to their external stores.

Facebook for iPad has been uncovered in the recently updated Facebook for iPhone. A twitter user discovered a hack to make it visible -- editing a file on your iPad to change the UIDeviceFamily ID in the apps plist file to get the iPad interface up and running app, but you do need to have a jailbroken iPad to be able to do this.

It is not just the iPhone version blown up to fill the iPad’s screen either. This is a totally different interface with slide out navigation menus and a separate chat menu too. Techcrunch has spoken with one of its sources who claim that this is the actual Facebook app for iPad and it will be officially launched soon.

I have tested the app with my iPad and it does seem to work very well. It looks and feels totally different to the iPhone version of the app and navigation is very well done. I also tested uploading photographs and it is seamless and offers access to your photo library as well as the camera on the iPad 2. It does have a few little rough edges that will need to be ironed out but that, sadly, won't come as a shock to users of the beleaguered Facebook for iPhone app!

It will be interesting to see if Facebook expedite the launch of its iPad app now that this has leaked out.

[@AeroEchelon via Techcrunch]

It looks very likely that Apple will be delivering a fully integrated voice recognition service into iOS 5 when it is released in the fall. 9to5 Mac has uncovered a setting screen which clearly shows a toggle switch for a service called Assistant. The Assistant service will supposedly take voice input to a whole new level, allowing you to control all the core operating system actions with voice. This is not the first time we have seen information pointing to system wide voice recognition and control.

“Assistant” does not work only based off a user’s voice inputs, but Apple will take information – securely – from user’s devices like location, contact’s information, and music metadata to formulate the best information to serve a user’s request. Since Apple will be taking information such as phone contacts and location, we truly think that “Assistant” will work just like the Siri iPhone application does; but fully integrated into the operating system.

Guess we will just have to wait and see. I am really not that excited by the prospect of voice control. Unless it is done perfectly and works every time, it just takes longer to do things and becomes a constant source of frustration!

[9to5 Mac]

Apple has sent out a note to developers telling them they can now peddle their iTunes App Store wares in an additional 33 countries, namely:

Algeria, 
Angola, 
Anguilla, 
Antigua and Barbuda, 
Azerbaijan, 
Bahamas
, Bahrain, 
Barbados, 
Belarus, 
Belize, 
Bermuda, 
Bolivia, 
British Virgin Islands, 
Brunei
, Cayman Islands, 
Cyprus, 
Dominica, 
Ghana, 
Grenada
, Guyana
, Iceland, 
Montserrat, 
Nigeria, 
Oman
, St. Kitts and Nevis, 
St. Lucia
, St. Vincent and The Grenadines, 
Suriname, 
Tanzania, 
Trinidad and Tobago
, Turks and Caicos, 
Uzbekistan, 
Yemen

I believe Apple previously announced the App Store in 90 countries, so this would make 123. It will be interesting to see what type of app availability (especially games, which still aren't available in some existing countries due to local ratings and content rules). It will also be interesting to see, in light of how much money Apple is making internationally, whether any of their competitors will start raising their own outside-the-US-of-A games.

What should we call you? Jonathan George, Josh Viney

What should we call your company? Boxcar (App Remix Corp.)

Where are you located? Wichita, KS and NYC

What's your website address? http://boxcar.io

What are your Twitter handles? @boxcar, @jdg, @joshviney

What apps do you make? Boxcar

What apps, other than your own, are currently among your favorites? Jonathan: iA Writer, Tumblr, Alien Blue (unofficial Reddit client), Instapaper, Calendar. Josh: Foursquare, Calculator, Netflix, Instagram, Words with Friends

How long have you been a developer? Jonathan: Developer / 16 years, Entrepreneur / born with it. . Josh: Product Manager / UX Designer 12 years

How long have you been an iOS developer? Jonathan/Josh: ~3 years

Do you develop for any other platform in addition to iOS? Jonathan/Josh: Web

What primary computer setup do you use for your iOS development? Josh: Macbook Air. Jonathan: MBP 15" + 27" Dell Monitor

What iOS device(s) do you personally use most often? Josh/Jonathan: iPhone 4 and iPad

What mobile devices, other than iOS, do you currently use? None.

What's your favorite thing about developing for iOS? Josh: Mobile interfaces that don't suck, and being able to reach a wide audience. Jonathan: Being able to immediately show (and relate what you're doing) to people you interact with everyday.

What's your least favorite thing about developing for iOS? Josh: It can be tough to QA and changes can't be made as quickly as on Web. Jonathan: Apple's draconian, yet understandable, policies around the app store.

What feature would you most like Apple to add to the iOS 5 SDK? Josh: Make call and sms data available via API. Jonathan: Greater flexibility around notifications

What feature would you most like Apple to add to the App Store? Josh: Better ways for people to tell their friends about their favorite apps. Jonathan: More insight and analytics into where your users are coming from.

If we were to eavesdrop on you while you were coding, what curse word would we hear you use the most? Josh: The usual, but louder and with more frequency. Jonathan: "What the f--k?"

What do you do when you're not coding iOS apps? Josh: Designing UX and thinking up new ways to get people to connect. Jonathan: Race motorcycles and practice putting my pants on.

What should we look for from you next? Jonathan: Boxcar 5. Just guess.

How do you use Boxcar? Josh: I use Boxcar for two things. For work, I use it to quickly reply to and manage customer service for Boxcar, and check out the newest Github commits. Socially, I use it as a replacement for RSS readers, and as a way to keep track of social happenings on Twitter and Foursquare

Jonathan: I use Boxcar to follow people. Using our Twitter @anyone service, I follow the people I care about, and know when they do something.

Thanks Josh and Jonathan

As expected Lodsys was but the first highly publicized patent troll to try its hand at getting licensing fees from small, independent iOS developers, and as more come creeping out of the woodwork, some international devs are considering leaving the US App Store to avoid the costs and potential legal nightmares.

Simon Maddox on Twitter:

All my apps removed from US app stores (all platforms). 0.575% of total revenue put in a spare bank account. Screw you, Lodsys.

While leaving the US market now may not prevent claims of past infringement, it certainly shows the increasing frustration experienced by developers whose livelihoods are threatened by an increasingly incomprehensible and irreconcilable system. Basic concepts of patent law, like obviousness and prior art, seem not longer to be consider when patents are granted, only when they're litigated. Expensively.

Florian Mueller on FOSS Patents:

The patent troll problem gets worse by the day, and it's turning into a think-global-sue-local business. Today, an Indian company named Kootol distributed a press release announcing that it sent "a notice" to a long list of companies large and small, claiming that they sell products and operate services on which a patent application pending in different jurisdictions around the globe reads.

At what point will Apple (and Google, among others) have to step up and offer support, perhaps even indemnification for code included in their SDK, or bend their billions towards reasonable patent reform in the US, or face the decimation of the app ecosystems that are at the heart of their collective mobile profit centers?

[@simonmaddox via The Guardian, FOSS Patents]

TapBots has announced that it has submitted an updated version of TweetBot, their beautifully designed Twitter app, to Apple for approval and the good news is it will now include push notifications. The downside is that the push notifications are classed as experimental and will be rolled out initially to the first 1000 users.

For launch, we are allowing around 1000 twitter accounts to access push notifications. We’ll be carefully monitoring performance and adding more users as fast as we can. To register your device for push, turn on at least one of the switches in the push notification settings. It’s all on a first-come-first-serve basis and if you have access to push and turn them all off, someone else may take your spot. We want to ensure that push works well for everyone and, while it may seem frustrating, we are working as hard as we can to make sure that everyone will eventually have access to push notifications.

The update will also have some other additional features like the ability to publish text notes with tweets, selected tabs remembered when switching between accounts, the ability to view someone else’s lists as tweets and various bug fixes.

The update has not been approved yet, we will let you know as soon as it is available; so you can get an opportunity to try out the experimental push notifications. I personally applaud Tapbots decision to take this slow roll out approach. There is nothing worse than launching a new feature in an app that relies on third party servers. If they get overloaded it becomes a huge can of fail for everyone.

[Tapbots Blog]

Apple has sent out a notice to developers that they're introducing volume purchasing for business. This is something I asked about recently, after Apple mentioned that Final Cut Pro X would be available in volume, and it's good to see Apple's not keeping it for themselves. In fact, it looks like they're going even further.

Get ready today. Business customers will soon be able to buy your apps in volume. Click through the latest Paid Applications Agreement so that your apps will be offered for sale when the Volume Purchase Program is available to businesses.

Custom B2B Apps

Through the Volume Purchase Program, you'll be able to sell custom B2B apps to your business customers. Custom B2B apps provide tailored solutions to address specific business needs. Get a head start on developing custom B2B apps today.

While we don't know how this will work yet, based on previous information Apple will likely do something along the lines of providing a set of redemption codes for any purchase of 20 copies or more of a given app. It's also possible that discounts might be on the table (though whether those will be discounts based on volume, or just educational discounts, I don't know.)

Customization options apparently include branding, configuration, and security, but also require a minimum price tag of around $10.

Once again, it's great to see Apple experimenting with new and better App Store models.

iOS 5 beta 3 has an interesting new addition -- Accessibility has been augmented with a gesture based control panel inside “AssistiveTouch” that can reproduce all the functionality of the existing hardware buttons, and much more.

Once turned on in Settings, the control panel can be activated by tapping the overlay on screen. It pops up with a menu containing Gestures, Favorites, Devices, and Home. Gestures has a sub menu for 2, 3, 4, and 5 finger gestures, and once you choose a quantity, blue circles in the appropriate amount appear on screen. Favorites contains defaults like Pinch and Swipe, and any custom gestures you've created. Device replicates the hardware features such as Rotate Screen, Lock Screen, Mute/Unmute, Volume Up/Volume Up, and Shake.

While some may think this heralds Apple ditching hardware buttons, remember, you would still need a way to reset your device if it locks up, to turn off the ringer or change volume if it's in your pocket or purse, and to keep iOS accessible for children and people form whom complex UI and gestures are a barrier to entry.

Still, this could turn out to be a very interesting addition to iOS 5, especially for advanced users who want to have a software-based interface. Most importantly, it shows that Apple -- who is already incredibly far ahead of the competition when it comes to accessibility -- is not slowing down.

[Thanks @kyledziekan]

Apple has just released iOS 5 beta 3 (9A5259f) for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Apple TV, along with iTunes 10.5 beta 3 for Mac, and Xcode 4.3 Preview 3 for developers.

While in previous years Apple had stuck fairly closely to an every-second-Tuesday beta release schedule, iOS 5 beta 2 hit on a Friday just over two weeks after beta 1, and now beta 3 is on a Monday just under 2 weeks after beta 2. On average, the pacing remains similar, however, and Apple has previously said the release version would come this fall. (Likely September/October to coincide with iPhone 5 and perhaps other new devices.)

Interestingly, they're once again doing a traditional, tethered release. No signs of them testing the bit-differential/delta file update system yet.

If you're a paid, registered developer with Apple, go get it. What if any changes have been made in iOS 5... we'll have to wait and see. As always, we have comments below and a special iOS 5 Forum for your discussion pleasure.

(Reminder: if you're not a paid developer, stay away. Buying slots can get you scammed, and running beta software on your main device can leave you stranded. Wait for fall.)

[developer.apple.com]

What's your name? David Ashman

What's your company's name? dba Technologies

Where are you located? Washington, DC

What's your website address? http://www.dba-technologies.com/

What's your Twitter name? @Stimpy5050 for general rambling, @LockInfo for LockInfo specific support and @dbaTechnologies for other dbaTech projects.

What apps do you make? LockInfo (+Plugins), Popup Blocker, WeatherIcon

What apps, other than your own, are currently among your favorites? TweetDeck, biteSMS, Reeder, WeekCal

How long have you been a developer? I started tinkering with programming on the Apple II with basic. I studied computer science in college and have been a working developer for the past 15 years.

How long have you been an iOS developer? I've only been developing in Objective-C and specifically on iOS for the past three years.

Do you develop for any other platform in addition to iOS? If so, which one(s)? I've been a Java developer for the last 15 years, mostly server-side, but some applets in the past. I also tinker in PHP (enough to be dangerous).

What primary computer setup do you use for your iOS development? My primary setup is a MacBook Pro i7 with 8GB of RAM. I generally plug that into a 30" Apple Cinema Display but I like the portability of the laptop when I want to sit in front of the TV instead.

What iOS device(s) do you personally use most often? I use an iPhone4 as my primary personal device (also for development). I use an iPad (1st gen) nearly daily for watching videos, note taking and general web surfing. I have another 4 iPhones that I use for development. I also have an AppleTV at home (does that count? ).

What mobile devices, other than iOS, do you currently use? I don't. Everything I have is iOS at this point.

What's your favorite thing about developing for iOS? The challenge of a tough problem to solve and the adrenaline rush from solving it. That holds true for any language or platform, but iOS has been particularly rewarding because it's new and different from the server-side work I've done in the past.

What's your least favorite thing about developing for iOS? Non-deterministic memory bugs. These are the bugs that are nearly impossible to reproduce, but when they happen, all hell breaks loose.

What feature would you most like Apple to add to the iOS SDK? I'd love to see Apple open up the Mail database APIs. The iOS mail app is fine, but I think that other developers could really come up with some great apps if they could get into there. I'd also like to see a widget API that would allow for more than static app icons on SpringBoard and a more usable lock screen natively in AppStore apps.

What feature would you most like Apple to add to the App Store? I'd like to see alternate profit-sharing models. The flat 30% Apple cut doesn't work for some projects.

If we were to eavesdrop on you while you were coding, what curse word would we hear you use the most? I prefer the f-word, personally.

What do you do when you're not coding iOS apps? When I'm not working on projects, I like to spend time with my family. I'm a bit of a TV addict and also like to go to concerts.

What should we look for from you next? I'm going back to my roots and spending some time on weather tweaks again. There's also quite a bit still to do with LockInfo. I'm also thinking about some official AppStore app ideas, but nothing concrete enough to really talk about at this point.

Thanks David!

Florian Mueller from FOSS Patents has put up a heart-breaking yet pragmatic set of recommendations for developers on how to cost-effectively deal with Lodsys and other patent trolls who target small, independent app makers. (If you're a mega corporation with billions of dollars in the war chest this obviously doesn't apply to you.) While Apple has filed a motion to intervene, there's no guarantees that it'll work, and it's unknown what, if any, support they're providing iOS developers beyond that. Google has yet to do or say anything, leaving Android developers entirely in the lurch. So...

1. Get legal counsel
2. Keep legal counsel on a tight leash: finding out what, if any coverage Apple or Google will provide you, and potentially working out the licensing agreement with Lodsys (or other patent troll)
3. Pooling resources and sharing legal fees with other developers, where there's overlap and it makes sense
4. Patent litigation is incredibly expensive
5. Future patent trolls may show up, Lodsys is the problem now.

Mueller breaks it down in a lot of detail and sites a lot of examples, so if this is an area of particular concern, hit the link below and start reading.

[FOSS Patents]

Note: This interview was conducted a few days before WWDC 2011.

What's your name? Alexander Tsepko. Some people call me AT.

What's your company? MacPhun LLC.

Where are you located? USA and Ukraine (Europe). Most of MacPhun people are located in these two countries. But we also have freelancers (developers, beta testers, designers) in some other countries around the world. These people give us great input on what features to include in apps. For example we collected suggestions on what filters to include in FX Photo Studio from all continents and it is absolutely amazing how tastes differ.

What's your website address? www.macphun.com – corporate home page, which is now in the process of remaking, but you can get an idea about what applications we have developed. Also we have www.fxphotostudioapp.com, www.perfectphotoapp.com, www.silentfilmdirector.com and www.cartoonaticapp.com for our most loved apps.

What's your Twitter name? Mostly I use @fxphotostudio where I share news about our photo applications, iPhoneography and all fun things. You can say it is both personal and business; I am not a type of person to keep several accounts for different purposes. Don’t have that much time. Also there is @silentfilmdir, where we tweet about things related to video with iPhone and iPod touch.

What apps do you make? We have a photo processing application FX Photo Studio for iPhone and FX Phone Studio HD for iPad. There is a version for iOS and newly released version for Mac OS, which is called FX Photo Studio PRO. Then we have Silent Film Director for iOS. This app lets you create awesome retro movies. Photo editor for iPhone Perfect Photo and photo editor for iPad PhotoPal. Also fresh and free video app Cartoonatic for shooting animated videos. This is by far my favorite app. I am a big A-HA fan and this app lets you create music video which will look almost like that famous “Take on me” clip. We have developed more apps, but these are the titles which people and us love and use most.

What apps, other than your own, are currently among your favorites? As a photo and video fanboy I really love Instagram for sharing and innovations, QuickPix for speed, Super 8 for style and LensFlare for almost everything about it. Also I am greatly enjoying the app, called SkyView, it lets you see some mind blowing things around you. And I play Infinity Blade quite often: have spent lots of money on in-app purchases, so I am not surprised they are among top grossing apps. Wondering if guys from Chair Entertainment Group ever purchased in-apps in FX Photo Studio☺

How long have you been a developer? How long have you been an iOS developer? Almost from the day Steve Jobs went on stage and showed iPhone to the world. We were sure and we still are that this big little (or little big) device changed everything. Right now I don’t do much of development and mostly take care of marketing and corporate relations.

Do you develop for any other platform in addition to iOS? If so, which one(s)? We have recently released FX Photo Studio for Mac and therefore made our way into software business. Enjoying it, getting good feedback from Mac users, learning things… Not a secret we are looking at other platforms, including Android, Bada, Symbian, etc. Looks promising and challenging; we will introduce our apps to those markets pretty soon. And since we have developed FX Photo Studio PRO for Mac, why not making a version for Windows as well. All users should have equal opportunities, shouldn’t they?

What primary computer setup do you use for your iOS development? I have MacBook Pro with latest software just to be on top of things. iPad 2 arrived recently. Plus the one and only iPhone 4. Just enough not to miss important things and make sure no one important misses you. If you visit our offices, you will find about a dozen of different iPhones for testing, same with iPads and a variety of different Macs. We even have those toy-looking iBooks. Not to mention few Android and smartphones to know what’s new among Android apps.

What mobile devices, other than iOS, do you currently use? None at the moment, but thinking of getting few Samsung and Nokia devices to test some of the apps they offer. I am a big Apple fan, can’t imagine what can make me move to other device, though I tried many.

What's your favorite thing about developing for iOS? First thing that comes to mind is that practically anyone can learn how to do this. But the most favorite thing is no doubt a possibility to meet new people. You won’t believe how many people inspire me and they are all connected with Apple (I mean the brand, not necessarily Apple Inc). I have been working in different markets, but for some reason people who are connected with Apple are the friendliest, smartest and most innovative I ever met. Glad to be among them.

What's your least favorite thing about developing for iOS? That practically everyone does it and the number is growing, thus you see lots of apps, which I wish I’ve never seen in my life. They are that bad.

What feature would you most like Apple to add to the iOS SDK? Frankly speaking, I am ok even with current features. I mean lots of people were fine without web search until Google came and now they can’t live without it. I am pretty fine with current iOS SDK, but am sure that next version will bring something I won’t be able to live without as time passes. This is what I like most about everything Apple makes.

What feature would you most like Apple to add to the App Store? It could be cool to let developers contact users who leave comments about apps. Quite often you get some feedback and you know you have to reply to it with a suggestion or additional question and you just can’t do that. Would be cool to let developers leave comments, which are highlighted with a different color, so people know that a developer left it. A developer will be given a limited number of such comments (2-5 per app), not to turn the feedback section into chat room, but reply to a particular comment or discussion.

Also I really love the idea of showing people up to 300 top apps, not TOP 50 only. FX Photo Studio is in TOP 50 and our other apps are among category tops, so we should not worry, but I know how many awesome apps were left unnoticeable just because the users could not see them. And the last, but not least, Apple should do something with iPad App Store, the navigation is quite confusing. Or is it just me?

What do you do when you're not coding iOS apps? I learn how to drive a small single engine plane (not mine☺), take pictures with iPhone, try to get in touch with tech bloggers to let them have our apps, beta test apps by other developers, watch Lie to Me and (most of the time) plan the birth of our first kid with my awesome wife.

What should we look for from you next? Definitely more apps and updates. MacPhun stays in this business. First of all new versions of FX Photo Studio both for iOS and Mac OS. We are now looking for iPhoneographers and Photographers who will help us to develop new filters and frames. So, if you are one of those people, or know anyone, feel free to contact me for details. Also, new features for Silent Film Director App. The app has almost 300 000 users now, so it would be good to give this army of retro fans something new to play with. And so on and so forth.

Thanks Alex!

It looks like Facebook is working on a massive photo sharing application for the iPhone. TechCrunch got their hands on documents, photos, and screenshots outlining the features: location elements, likes, comments, multi-picture mode, filters, multi-user albums, face-tagging, and more. They say it's almost like a mashup of Instagram, Color, Path, and Path's upcoming With. And though it might seem to be a reaction to iOS 5's new Twitter integration, they say it's been in development for a while now.

Since Facebook has nearly 1 billion photos stored to their service, it is reasonable for them to create an app with a focus on photos. It's unclear whether this new app will be separate from the current Facebook app, a complete overhaul of the current app, or some combination of the two. What we do know is that Facebook is working on a photo sharing app - and it's huge.

Check out all the pictures via the link below. All I ask is that this new app be a lot less buggy than what Facebook currently has available. What about you? Excited?

[TechCrunch]

Here is a tip for developers on how to install a beta for iOS using XCode or iTunes. One of the coolest things about being an iOS developer is being able to check out new versions of iOS before they're publicly released. With WWDC 2011 upon us, we should see a beta of iOS 5 soon. If you're a new developer, or you're testing for a current developer, you'll want to make sure you install beta firmware correctly. If you don't, this can lead to problems when upgrading to official or later versions of iOS.

As a forewarning, betas are only intended for developers and testers. Don't expect a beta to be flawless, expect the opposite. I also recommend installing betas on a test device when you can in case something goes wrong.

So if you're new to this process, hit the jump for a walkthrough of how to provision your device and install a beta version of iOS. And obviously, betas are Mac only.

Download the SDK, XCode, iTunes beta, and iOS firmware

1. Log in to your developer account on Apple's Developer Site.
2. Next you'll need to go into the dev center for iOS.



3. Under downloads, you'll see a link for the SDK, iTunes, and beta firmware IPSWs.
4. Download everything you need and then move on to the next step. (Note: If you're installing via iTunes beta, you don't "have" to install the SDK if you don't want to.

Provision your device's UDID within the the Apple Developer Portal

There's a couple ways to add your UDID to the provisioning portal. The easiest is with XCode (which is what you should be using anytime you are installing beta firmware).

1. Simply open XCode with your device plugged in. It should bring up your device in the side bar. Right click and choose to add it to the provisioning portal. XCode should ask for your developer login.



2. Alternately, you can also log into the developer portal and add a UDID via the provisioning portal as well. The XCode option is just a lot easier as it does it for you. You can pull your UDID from XCode or from iTunes (simply click your serial number until it changes to the longer 40 digit number, that is your UDID and what you need to enter into the provisioning portal.

Install the beta version of iOS via XCode

If you're installing via a beta version of iTunes, skip this section and jump down to the iTunes install instructions below.

Once you've provisioned your device with the developer portal and downloaded the newest beta of iOS, you're ready to install it via XCode. It is always a good idea to back up your iPhone and restore it clean before installing a beta as well. Not required but I recommend it. If you are jailbroken, it is especially a good idea to restore stock before attempting this.

1. In XCode, under software version, you'll need to choose Other version...
2. Then you will need to navigate to the .ipsw file that you earlier downloaded (the beta firmware file). I typically save them on my desktop or somewhere in a folder that I can easily find.
3. Select it and click Restore iPhone
4. A warning will pop up telling you all data will be erased. Agree and your device will be restored to the beta version. You can then restore from a backup in iTunes like normal.

Install using a beta version of iTunes

If you've already installed using XCode, no need to go any further, you're done!

Almost all betas will need to be installed using a beta version of iTunes. In the case of iOS 5, you'll need iTunes beta 10.5.

1. Open iTunes and click on your device. (Always back up before installing ANY new firmware, beta or not.)

2. Under the main Summary tab, you'll see the normal restore button. Simply hold down the alt+option key on your keyboard and click restore.
3. A window will pop up that will let you navigate to the saved beta firmware. Simply select it and click Open.
4. Let iTunes do it's thing. Once it's done, it will prompt you to Set up as new iPhone or Restore from a backup. You'll probably want to restore from your backup. But you can choose which one you'd prefer.
5. Let your stuff sync back over and you're done!

And again, I can't say this enough times - beta software is just that, beta. It is meant for developers and testers only. Please do not attempt to install beta firmware without a developer license or permission. And I strongly urge developers to not "sell" UDID spots under their account to people who just want early access to the beta. The purpose is for Apple to get legitimate feedback from developers before a final release. If you do not intend on submitting crash logs and bug reports, please wait for an official release.

Lodsys has decided to ignore Apple's strongly worded demand they cease harassing iOS developers, and instead decided to file suit against 7 of them, including Combay Inc. (Mega Poker Online Texas Holdem), Iconfactory (Twitterrific), Illusion Labs (Labyrinth), Shovelmate (69 Positions), Quickoffice, Richard Shinderman (Hearts), Wulven Games (Shadow Era). Says Lodsys:

Apple and Lodsys were in confidential discussions and there was clearly disagreement on the interpretation of the license terms of Apple’s agreement. Before, during and after these interactions, Lodsys has carefully considered this issue and consulted several legal experts to consider Apple’s claims. We stand firm and restate our previous position that it is the 3rd party Developers that are responsible for the infringement of Lodsys’ patents and they are responsible for securing the rights for their applications. Developers relying on Apple’s letter do so to their own detriment and are strongly urged to review Apple’s own developer agreements to determine the true extent of Apple’s responsibilities to them.

In a private communication, simultaneous to this posting, Lodsys has sent a detailed legal position on the license interpretation issue, in writing to Apple that has been previously only verbally communicated. Apple has our permission to publish that letter, in its entirety, should developers wish to review our dispute and evaluate the risks with their own counsel. While we have nothing to hide, we cannot unilaterally publish the letter because it refers to information that was obtained with an obligation of confidentiality to Apple and we do not have their permission to do so.

They've also promised $1000 to each developer if they're in the wrong. Says Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents:

Obviously, $1,000 is not much to gain considering that even an initial analysis of a patent assertion letter by a qualified attorney will typically cost much more than $1,000. And a lawsuit can cost millions. However, the fact that Lodsys publishes such a promise shows that it really doesn't believe in Apple's representations (concerning the scope of the license) at all.

The ball is now back in Apple's (and Google's, as one developer is being sued for the Android version of his app as well). Will they indemnify developers, offer to take on the litigation on their behalf, counter sue Lodsys to invalidate the patent, or all or none of the above?

[Lodsys, FOSS Patents]

Twitter has put up a blog post ostensibly to inform users that, in order to better secure and keep our direct messages (DMs) private, 3rd party apps will now be forced to use the clumsier, web-based OAuth login method rather than the slicker, more native-feeling xAuth most of the use today.

When you first connect an application to Twitter, we’ll give you more detailed information about what you’re allowing the app to do with your account. These activities may include reading your Tweets, seeing who you follow, updating your profile, posting Tweets on your behalf, or accessing your direct messages. If you’re not comfortable with the level of access an application requests, simply say “No, thanks”.

So what this boils down to is, when you get a new Twitter app -- anything from a full client like Twitterrific or TweetBot down to apps that simply allow you to share content via Twitter, such as games and Instagram -- you won't be able to simply enter your username and password in the fields like you do today. Instead the app will have to call up an embedded browser window (UIWebView) and load up a Twitter.com page which then presents the more complex screen shown above.

That could be just a little extra mental work for games, where maybe the advantages in making sure a developer doesn't have permission to see anything they don't need, like you're DMs, but for proper Twitter clients, which are supposed to read and write DMs, which power users might have multiple accounts to setup and maintain, it quickly becomes a pain in the butt.

Except for Twitter for iPhone, Twitter for iPad, and likely the newly acquired TweetDeck. Since they're considered 1st party, since Twitter considers your signing up for their service as granting them all applicable permissions, they still get to use the kinder, gentler, xAuth.

So, by way of dramatic parallel, imagine Apple forced every non-Apple App Store app could only be synced via iTunes, and only Apple apps could be downloaded directly on-device. It would be just as annoying and just as seemingly greedy and unfair.

And that's what rankles about this. It feels greedy and unfair. Greedy and unfair to the 3rd party developers who created the clients that helped make Twitter what it is today, greedy and unfair to users who get a more hostile experience, and ultimately greedy and unfair to Twitter which had such a good reputation among developers and users, until they started clamping down on 3rd parties and introducing things like the #dickbar.

In iOS when an app wants to use location services or send you push notifications, it gives you a simple yes/no popup. If Twitter is really concerned about user privacy and security -- even when users are expressly opting for the convenience of a full on Twitter client -- do what Apple does, not what web sites had to do years ago.

Or just ask your Twitter's own Loren Brichter, who created Tweetie which became Twitter for iPhone. He had OAuth's number years ago on his Atebits blog (see link, below).

Hopefully Twitter finds a better way to handle #dickauth, and a better way to handle their user and developer relations again soon.

[Twitter, Daring Fireball, Atebits]

FOSS Patents has put together an excellent write up on what iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad developers need to know about patent litigation threats, like those Lodsys began making last week against apps like PCalc and expanded upon today, sending letters to Icon Factory among others.

Lodsys has explained their side of the argument, and according to The Guardian, Apple's legal department is actively investigating the situation. But to be clear Lodsys is just an example -- there are many, many patents floating out there and many companies assembling portfolios with perhaps the exact same intentions.

While users shouldn't be worried about patent companies suing anyone for using apps, users should be worried that it could become prohibitively expensive to produce the apps users if every holding company under the sun suddenly wants a cut of every app in the App Store. (Insert your own "first they came for PCalc's upgrade button, then they came for..." cautionary cliché here.)

Read the entire breakdown via the link below, it's a good one.

[FOSS Patents, The Guardian]

Developer Codenrama has released a free tech demo which again shows off the free wandering, graphically stunning Unreal Engine for iOS devices. The demo which is very similar to Epic Citadel, takes you on a stroll through a beautifully detailed and accurately lit 3D setting based on the Italian town of Assisi.

So far we have seen a few tech demos but very few games using the Unreal Engine. Codenrama shed a bit of light on what the problem may be.

While developing Castlerama, we had to face the fact that newer devices such as iPhone4s and iPad2s are very different from their predecessors, iPhone3GSs and iPads, in that the former have twice as much memory. In order to have the app run on all devices, we had to compromise quite a bit, pushing the old devices to their limits (risking crash if other applications are left running) while keeping the new devices well behind their capabilities. In the future we believe we will have to develop two versions for each application.

Take a look at the video after the break then pop back and let us know what you think in the comments!

[iTunes–Link via Touch Arcade]

Developer James Thomson reported on Twitter this morning that he's been threatened with patent infringement for his use of in-app purchases in PCalc Lite.

Just got hit by very worrying threat of patent infringement lawsuit for using in-app purchase in PCalc Lite. Legal docs arrived via fedex.

No idea what to do... They seem to be effectively claiming the rights to in-app purchase, but going after me, not Apple.

Talking to Apple now, may go quiet on this for the short term until I know what's happening.

So, have talked to Apple contact - currently scanning everything in to send. Sorry folks, no PCalc 2.4 happening today.

To be clear, I haven't been sued yet - I've been told that I am infringing their patent, they want me to license it, and I have 21 days.

Thomson isn't the lone target of these threats, his UK timezone might just have gotten them to him sooner. Already Patrick McCarron has reported the same thing.

Anyone else get a patent threat via FedEx for in-app purchase use in their iOS app? So far @jamesthomson and I got hit.

I can now check off being threatened by a patent troll off my bucket list.

There are likely other developers who simply haven't chosen to come forward yet. If you've gotten a FedEx patent threat today, let us know.

UPDATE: The company claiming infringement is Lodsys and they seem to be targeting iOS apps that have free/lite versions and full versions, and link to or allow updating within app from free/lite to full. Rob Gloess of Computer LogicX was hit yesterday [MacRumors]

Our app, Mix & Mash, has the common model of a limited free, lite, version and a full version that contains all the features. We were told that the button that users click on to upgrade the app, or rather link to the full version on the app store was in breach of US patent no 7222078, we couldn't believe it, the upgrade button!?!

UPDATE 2: Apparently, according to the iOS SDK license, developers are not allowed to settle these kinds of lawsuits. [TidBITS]

In no event may You enter into any settlement or like agreement with a third party that affects Apple’s rights or binds Apple in any way, without the prior written consent of Apple.

[@jamestomson, @McCarron]

A bunch of print newspapers and magazines seem to be finally jumping on board the iPad subscription train, including The Telegraph (UK), Heart properties including Esquire, Popular Mechanics, and O, The Oprah Magazine, and Time has somehow swung a deal to get existing Time, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated readers free access via iPad.

And, of course, Playboy is coming uncensored (my guess is web app, no iOS-handled subscriptions).

Meanwhile the launched-with-much-todo The Daily has reportedly gotten 800K downloads but is losing $10 million a month.

The big stumbling block was, is, and remains Apple's insistence that users opt-in to sharing their demographic data with publishers (while the publishers would prefer opt-out since they figure -- probably rightly -- few users will actively choose to share). Publishers have historically relied on demographics and marketing against them as a key revenue source. Another problem has been getting users to pay for content that they've gotten used to getting free on the web -- especially when publishers have asked fairly high prices (sometimes higher than print!)

So with more and more heavy hitters hitting the platform, but with everyone still struggling to figure out the business model, what does the future hold for iPad subscriptions? Do we need an iMags/iNews store like iBooks? Or is it just the wrong medium for an outdated message?

What will it take to get you to subscribe?

[FT, WSJ, WSJ, MediaMemo]

A while back on iPad Live, we got to talking about how we often judge and app by its icon -- if the icon is bad, or even just not great, we don't buy it (ahem, Chad!). There are just so many apps in the store it becomes an easy way to eliminate some. If the developer doesn't care enough to make a fabulous icon -- the thing everyone sees when buying and launching their app -- what else don't they care about?

Are we being snobs? Superficial much? Missing out on great apps just because the developer was better at coding than they were design? Or do great icons sometimes hide crappy apps?

How important is the icon to you when deciding whether or not to spend your money on an app? Do you judge an app by its icon? Be truthful now!

[Image via Cocoia icon resource PSD]

Patently Apple has uncovered another very interesting Apple Patent application. This time it is an integrated Fitness Center app that it has been working on for quite some time. Nike also appear to have had some involvement in the development as one illustration lists "The Nike Training Club Class”.

The app covers all aspects of a workout including stats gathered from smart equipment as well as a unique social networking element that works within a particular fitness center or city limits. The app will help you find workout buddies or work as a motivational tool.

Apple's patent describes the possibility that the iPhone will one day include a single, seamless application that will introduce new customers to a fitness center and motivate these new customers to keep returning to the fitness center as active members.

[Patently Apple]

What's your name? Graham Clarke

What's your company's name? Glasshouse Apps

Where are you located? Central Coast NSW in Australia (but Nick Takayama, the other half of Glasshouse Apps is located 4,000km / 2,500 mi away on the other side of the country).

What's your website address? http://www.glasshouseapps.com

What's your Twitter name? @glasshouseapps

What apps do you make? The Early Edition for iPad, Gift Plan, Barista and Cellar for iPhone

What apps, other than your own, are currently among your favorites? Tweetbot, Twitterrific (yes, both!), IMDb

How long have you been an iOS app designer? I've been designing apps for just over two years now. Barista hit the App Store in early 2009, when there were just 15,000 iPhone apps available.

What's your background? I was born in Sydney Australia, but I lived in a very remote village in the middle of Papua New Guinea for the next 8 years. Our family moved back to Australia and I lived on the family farm until I went to university in Sydney to study design. When I graduated I worked for a few years and after being retrenched I tried my hand at self-employment, which is what I've been doing ever since (10 years and counting!).

Do you develop for any other platform in addition to iOS? Just iOS. We're only a two-man band so supporting other platforms and devices wouldn't be practical (or enjoyable!) for us.

What primary computer setup do you use for your iOS development? Mac Pro with 15Gb Ram, and two displays (27" and 24" ACDs).

What personal iOS device(s) do you personally use most often? Probably my iPhone, simply because it's always there with me. The iPad comes a close second.

What mobile device(s), other than iOS, do you currently use? Ummm, that's difficult! My car's a mobile device right? It's a 2009 Honda Odyssey.

What's your favorite thing about developing for iOS? It's just exciting. Apple make it exciting. I now look forward to getting up on a Monday morning to start work and that blows my mind.

What's your least favorite thing about developing for iOS? Visibility on the App Store is getting harder and that's a challenge. A huge App Store is great for customers, but it makes standing out more and more difficult for developers.

What feature would you most like Apple to add to the iOS 5 SDK? Cloud syncing of app data through MobileMe would be nice. And background, timed events for apps (fetching news for instance!) would really useful - how many iOS devices are sitting there plugged in at night, not doing anything? As a consumer, it would be cool to see a redeveloped home screen.

What feature would you most like Apple to add to the App Store? Whenever Apple introduce new ways of promoting and flagging great apps, it benefits both developers and consumers. I'd love to see an even more comprehensive way of filtering the good stuff from the rest - there's a lot of attention given to the front page of the App Store but still a lot of potential for improving Category views.

If we were to eavesdrop on you while you were designing, what curse word would we hear you use the most? Hmmm, 'bugger' or 'crap' is about as colourful as it gets!

What do you do when you're not designing iOS apps? If I'm not in front of my computer or iPad you'll see me drinking plenty of coffee, riding my Vespa or hanging out with my wife and kids.

What should we look for from you next? (Tease away!) Something big! (well big enough to keep two guys busy for 6 months anyway).

Thanks Graham!

We often get asked about a TiPb app for iPhone and iPad. We've been thinking about it for years but here's there thing -- TiPb is a website and the iPhone and iPad have great mobile web browsers already, and we even have an an iPhone optimized website. For TiPb to make an app, we'd need a really compelling reason. We'd want to offer you something way beyond just a website in an app wrapper.

So turn about being fair play, we're now asking you -- what would you want to see in an official TiPb app? What features would make it absolutely killer for you?

Sony is working on an iOS app to provide access to its online streaming site Crackle. Crackle has a ton of free movies and TV shows which you can stream to Mac or Windows PC’s; or any browser that can support Flash. Unfortunately, as we well know, iOS devices don’t support Flash.

When you try and access a stream on an iOS device, you now get a message telling you that the Crackle app is coming soon for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

Crackle is one of the fastest growing entertainment destinations today, featuring only the genres you love -- comedy, action, drama, sci-fi, horror -- anywhere you are.

[Crackle via 9to5 Mac]

Adobe is releasing an official SDK for Photoshop and kicking it off with a trio of new iPad apps, Adobe Color Lava for Photoshop, Adobe Eazel for Photoshop and Adobe Nav for Photoshop. iPad links to Photoshop on the desktop via Wi-Fi and passes scripts back and forth, enabling a very impressive environment for interactivity.

Adobe Color Lava lets you create color palettes using your fingers as mixers and any photo stored in your Photos gallery as sampling source. Colors can be beamed back and forth to Photoshop on your desktop. Adobe Eazel is their take on a finger painting program with an interesting dynamic UI that springs out from each touch point. Adobe Nav lets you see thumbnails of all currently open image windows, get info on them, and arrange your toolsets.

While the Photoshop SDK is debuting on iPad, BlackBerry PlayBook, Android, and other apps should follow suit. Likewise, while the first three apps are more proofs of concept. Phil from Android Central and I got a sneak peak last week and suffice it to say, I was impressed. They provide a hint of a future I'm really interested in -- carrying around my iPad, PSD files stored in the cloud, having any local instance of Photoshop I connect with automagically adopt my preferred working environment, have any changes I make synced back to the cloud... Designer bliss to say the least.

This is exactly the kind of stuff I hope we see more of from Adobe. Creative tools have always been the forte and it's great to see them bringing those tools to a new generation of devices. Kudos.

(At the same time, Adobe has announced an update to their cross-platform developer environment, Adobe Flash Builder, allowing Flash apps to be more quickly and easily deployed to a wide range of devices, including iPad, iPhone, Android, and more.)

[Adobe]

Apple has rejected the first game out of PopCaps' new 4th and Battery studio, Unpleasant Horse, for mature content. It's unclear exactly what content Apple objected to but apparently it involved meat grinders. According to the New York Times:

The company went public with its rejection on Twitter with a tweet that read: “WTF? Apple rejected Unpleasant Horse cuz of ‘mature content?’ We thought horses dying in meat grinders was wholesome family entertainment!” The tweet was later removed. Since then, the studio has taken a more upbeat approach saying it would appeal the ruling and resubmit with a higher rating.

Plants vs. Zombies is currently rated at 9+ and is unliving happily in the App Store. If PopCap resubmits with a higher age rating, is it possible Apple will approve Unpleasant Horse?

[NYT via TUAW]

US developer eyesee360 is working on a lens that will allow iPhone 4 users to create video in a panoramic 360 degree format. The lens is in a prototype stage at the moment but it has not stopped them releasing a video showing what this accessory is capable of; it is well worth watching.

The GoPano micro is a lens for the iPhone 4 to make 360º panoramic videos! Just snap the lens to your iPhone 4 and press record to make cool interactive 360º videos. Use it to record all the action of your favorite sport, record your next meeting in 360º or just as a fun toy for the summer.

Eyesee360 are currently seeking support through Kickstarter to enable them to make this prototype into a mainstream product.

Take a look at the video after the break. Would you use an accessory like this? Let us know in the comments!

[designboom]

GoPano micro - A 360 lens for making panoramic video with the iPhone4 from EyeSee360 on Vimeo.

During the Photoshop World 2011 keynote, Adobe showed off a version of its popular PC and Mac application, Photoshop -- running on an iPad. This is a totally different version to the Photoshop Express app which is already available. The new Photoshop app was given a short demo, which showed off the use of layers and a few other new features

There was no mention of when this app will be released or if it will be iPad only (or iPad 2 only due to the power needed to run it) but we will keep you in the loop as soon as we hear. If you want to catch a short video of the app in action, head over to Photography Bay.

[Photography Bay]

Manton has an interesting post up where he theorizes that a lot of the problems we've seen in the App Store, from the across the board 30% revenue cut Apple requires for paid apps, to in-app purchases, to iAds, and now subscriptions can all be traced back to Apple's decision to host free apps for free. In other words, that the cost of approving, hosting, marketing, and delivering free apps is high enough that Apple is struggling and stumbling to make enough off paid apps and content to cover it.

When Steve Jobs said it, offering free apps for so little seemed almost foolish, like Apple was compensating for the high 30% by giving too good a deal to free apps. Why not charge some hosting fee? Or why not give up exclusive distribution and let free apps be installed directly by the user without forcing everything through the App Store? Unlimited bandwidth, promotion in the store, and everything else just for the $99 dev program fee was a pretty good deal. And now I wonder if Apple hasn't been backpedaling ever since, trying to make up for that mistake.

So in order to run the App Store at just over break-even -- as Apple reports they during their financial results -- they need to earn enough off paid apps to defray the cost of free apps. They also have to make sure they don't lose revenue -- they can't let developers offer free apps, shouldered by Apple, with ads that make money for Google or that use subscriptions or other forms of outside payments as a way to circumvent the revenue sharing. (Which is why we said from the beginning Apple couldn't charge less than 30% for subscriptions or every paid and in-app purchasing app that could would just switch to subscriptions in order to keep more of the revenue.)

Are free apps a burden? Apple doesn't say so it's difficult to tell. It's possible the cost of approving, hosting, marketing, and delivering all those free apps while not insignificant is easily covered by paid app purchase. (I'm not counting profits from hardware sales because Apple is going to want App Store to be profitable, if only barely, on its own.) If it is, then Apple certainly didn't make a mistake and their platform has benefited tremendously from having free apps in the ecosystem. If free apps are costing Apple significant money and resources, however, and if that cost is increasing as they reach milestones like hundreds of thousands of apps and billions of downloads, then what does Apple do?

Manton's answer is for Apple to allow side-loading of apps -- to allow developers to sell and users to install apps from outside the App Store on iOS the same way they do now on the Mac. That would take the hosting burden away from Apple... but it would create a new burden on consumers.

Sure, it would be a good answer for some developers and power users but certainly not for all of them -- even most of them. Many developers value the trust relationship Apple has created for users. Successfully creating a place where users feel safe and secure enough to buy an app and know they won't get malware or be defrauded, and can delete it easily if they don't like it is invaluable (even if not always valued.) That simply didn't exist before the App Store (it certainly wasn't the case with Palm OS and the Treo, which was side-load heaven and mainstream user hell.)

And not to be too cliched about it but if my mother couldn't find an app on the App Store she would either simply not realize it existed or bug me to help her side load it. (Or she would call me asking if "Amazon Kandle" was safe to buy via "PayPul".) That's not an Apple solution, and it's a crummy mainstream experience overall.

So what is the answer? Getting rid of free apps and creating a baseline of $0.99, like iTunes music of old, doesn't seem realistic. The genie is out of the bottle. Given how Apple has added in-app purchases, reversed their policy and allowed in-app purchases in free apps, added iAds, added subscriptions, they certainly don't seem to have found it yet.

[Manton via Daring Fireball]

Been missing those iAds on your iPad? Well, maybe if you were a developer you were. If so, Apple has let it be known that your wait is over:

Ad Rich Media Ads. Now Being Served to iPad.

iAd rich media ads are now being served to iPad apps on the U.S. App Store, redefining mobile advertising with rich, immersive ads that take advantage of the 9.7 inch LED-backlit display.

Make the most of this growing opportunity now. Learn how you can join the iAd mobile advertising network and generate more revenue with iAd.

Anyone taking them up on it?

Apple has released the final version of the all new Xcode 4 -- the go-to tool for iOS development -- and they've released it via the Mac App Store!

Here's the link to go grab it, and the massive feature list is after the break! Anyone trying it out yet? If so, what do you think? Going to make me some great apps with it?

[$4.99 - Mac App Store link]

Xcode 4 provides everything developers need to create great applications for Mac, iPhone, and iPad. Xcode 4 is also available to members of the Mac and iOS Developer Programs from the Apple Developer website.

Xcode 4 has been streamlined to help you write better apps. It has unified user interface design, coding, testing, and debugging all within a single window. The Xcode IDE analyzes the details of your project to identify mistakes in both syntax and logic, it can even help fix your code for you.

Xcode 4 runs on Mac OS X Snow Leopard and includes the Xcode IDE, Instruments, iOS Simulator, the latest Mac OS X and iOS SDKs, and hundreds of powerful features:

Innovative tools to help you create great apps - Interface Builder is fully integrated as a design canvas within the Xcode IDE - The Assistant shows files related to what you're editing, such as the header, superclass, or controller - The Version editor shows a live source code comparison through Git or Subversion history - Live Issues display errors as you type, and Fix-it can correct the mistakes for you - Apple LLVM compiler now includes full support for C++, in addition to C and Objective-C - The new LLDB debugging engine is faster and more memory-efficient than GDB - Instruments adds System Trace and new iOS instruments including OpenGL ES

Streamlined interface that is faster and easier to use - Design your interface side by side with the backing source code - Create connections from your GUI design directly to the related source code - Use tabs to organize your workspace, or double-click to open files in a new window - Schemes let you customize exactly how your app will build, run, profile, and deploy - Debugging and console views slide in without disturbing your place in the editor

Professional editor keeps you focused on your code - Click the Jump Bar at the top of the editor to instantly go to another file - View message bubbles to see errors, warnings, and other issues right beside the code - Use the ribbon on the left of the editor to fold your code, or highlight scope

Embedded Apple LLVM technology finds and fixes bugs for you - Analyzer travels countless code paths looking for logical errors before they become bugs - Live Issues underlines coding mistakes as you type with no need to build first - Fix-it can confidently correct mistakes for you with just a keystroke - Code completion for C, C++, and Objective-C is incredibly fast and accurate

Instruments for visual performance analysis - Compare CPU, disk, memory, and OpenGL performance as graphical tracks over time - Identify performance bottlenecks then dive deep into the code to uncover the cause - Monitor your app directly, or sample the entire system, with very little overhead

To test or deploy applications on an iOS device you must be a member of Apple's iOS Developer Program. To submit your Mac or iOS apps to the App Store you must be a member of the Mac or iOS Developer Program. Some features may require Internet access.

Gameloft has announced that they'll be bringing Epic's pixel-popping 3D rendering engine, Epic Unreal 3, to four iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad titles:

Gameloft penned a long-term, multi-platform licensing agreement with Epic Games, Inc. Whew! This agreement enables Gameloft to incorporate Unreal Engine 3 in four new games, two to be released in 2011 and two in 2012.

You can currently see the Epic Unreal 3 Engine in the free Epic Citadel demo and the Infinity Blade game. So which Gameloft games do you want to see get the Unreal treatment? NOVA, Asphalt, Modern Combat, Dungeon Hunter... or something new?

[Gameloft]

A MacRumors reader emailed Steve Jobs about recent fears that Apple's new App Store subscription policy would hurt Software as a Service (SaaS) apps, and Jobs' purported response is -- no it won't.

The question:

As a full time iOS developer, I am concerned (and confused) withe the new App Store guideline regarding "Apps offering subscriptions" (section 11.12).

Most of the iOS apps I have developed, as a contractor for other businesses, have been free apps that had login screens to allow the user access to some amount of private data. and/or service. These businesses have all been well established companies that sell some kind of service to their customers (Software As a Service companies) and the iOS app was merely another "portal" for their users to access their data/services (in many times, in a limited i.e. "mobile" fashion).... for example; SalesForce. I am concerned that most of these businesses will choose to not develop an iOS app for their customers if the IAP & subscription policy was in place.

Would these type's of free apps be still be allowed in the App Store or will they now be expected to use IAP?

The Steve Jobs response:

We created subscriptions for publishing apps, not SaaS apps.

Sent from my iPhone

Apple has been typically tight lipped about what does and does not qualify as subscription so the confusion is understandable but is a Steve Jobs email enough to clarify?

[MacRumors]

Readability, the service that takes the cruft out of online articles and gives you pure, gloriously legible text, has been rejected from the iPhone and iPad App Store due to Apple's new subscription service and its policies. If you're not familiar with Readbility, think Instapaper or the Reader button in the latest version of Safari (which ironically uses Readability's technology!) However, this has far wider ramifications as it suggests all iOS software-as-a-service (SaaS) front ends might likewise be rejected. SalesForce anyone?

Readability, like the App Store's own business model, takes 30% of subscription fees to pay their bills and gives 70% to publishers in payment for the content read. (Because Readability strips out ads, this still allows publishers to make money off their content). Since Apple requires a 30% cut of subscription revenue... well, you do the math. Readability would have to reduce the publisher's cut to 40% or reduce their own cut to near zero. Neither is a workable solution for them.

To be clear, we believe you have every right to push forward such a policy. In our view, it’s your hardware and your channel and you can put forth any policy you like. But to impose this course on any web service or web application that delivers any value outside of iOS will only discourage smaller ventures like ours to invest in iOS apps for our services. As far as Readability is concerned, our response is fairly straight-forward: go the other way… towards the web.

Part of the problem here is that Apple, no doubt purposefully, hasn't clarified what's subject to in-app subscription policies and what's not. If everything is subject to them than Apple needs the rate to remain 30%, same as app and in-app purchases. If subscriptions are only 10%, for example, almost every app will simply become free and offer a low-share subscription option instead (subscription Smurfberries, as we discussed on the podcast last night).

What this shows, however, are that there are clearly flaws in the current system that either Apple has to address or the market will with more apps like Readability abandoning native iOS apps for the web or other platforms. (Unless a new business model emerges that better leverages iOS' distribution system). Bottom-line content creators, content distributors, and platforms all need to remain financially viable. Readability thinks Apple should split their own 30%, giving content creators 70% of that as well. (Sharing the pain, so to speak.)

What's your solution?

[Readability blog via TechCrunch]

Developer Loren Brichter, best known for developing Tweetie as Atebits and now the official Twitter clients for iPhone, iPad, and Mac decided to spend an evening doing what News Corp didn't previous to launch -- fix The Daily's horribly implemented Carrousel UI.

Evening project - The Daily, less slow: http://t.co/DVmLKHO 60 fps, full AA, physically correct reflections, (different stacking style).

Hopefully he shares his techniques with The Daily's development team but it just goes to once again show what a difference a great iOS developer can make, even against a huge (old) media empire.

Are you still using The Daily? Video after the break!

[@lorenb via Daring Fireball]

Japanese blog Macotakara claims that Adobe is about to update their Flash Packager soon so that developers will be able to cross-compile Flash apps for iPad as well as iPhone. (This following a long battle between Apple and Adobe that ended when Apple relaxed its cross platform compiler restrictions back in September of last year.)

Supposedly Adobe's next update for Packager will include not only support for the iPad but also more gestures such as pinch-to-zoom as well.

REMINDER: Flash -- the development platform -- makes Flash content and cross-compiles it for other platforms. It doesn't play Flash videos. That's the Flash player/plugins job, and this has nothing to do with that. iOS still doesn't support native Flash video.

Anyone using Flash Packager excited about this news?

[ Macotakara via 9 To 5 Mac ]

Playboy founder Hugh Hefner announced on Twitter today that Playboy magazine would be hitting the iPad this March and followed up with replay saying it would be uncensored (we take that to mean the nude centerfolds will indeed be present in the app).

Big news! Playboy--both old & new--will be available on iPad beginning in March.

@hughmcook Playboy on iPad will be uncensored, Hugh.

Back in August Hefner tweeted that Playboy would be on iPad Playmate-free because Steve Jobs had a "things about nudity". If his tweet to day proves to be true, this would mean Apple is either relaxing or removing their current restriction against nudity (part of their broader adult content restrictions). How much and how far that relaxation or removal might go is unknown -- though we doubt Apple will allow the App Store to turn into a porn store given Steve Jobs' past comments. They might, however, once again be testing the possibility of an explicit section?

Also unknown is whether or not Playboy magazine will use the rumored iTunes subscription service which is supposed to debut alongside Rupert Murdoch's centerfold-free The Daily iPad app at some point in the not-so distant future.

So what do you think, did the Playboy patriarch just reveal a huge change coming to the App Store or is he just trying to get some buzz for his app, and no changes are being planned?

[@hughhefner x2 via TechTrackr]

Camera+, the iPhone photography application that was pulled from the App Store after tap tap tap programmed an easter egg which allowed the the volume buttons to be used as a shutter release, is on its way back into the App Store.

For those of you who’ve been clamoring to hear some news on the ultimate photo app, Camera+, we’ve got some great stuff for you… our newest version is now finished and in review in the App Store, so it should be available anytime now.

tap tap tap goes goes on to say that this is the biggest update for Camera+ yet and that it will not disappoint.

Who's looking forward to what the new and improved Camera+ has in store for us?

UPDATE: The update is out. Go grab it and let us know what you think!

[$0.99 - iTunes link]

[tap tap tap, thanks Arnab!]

Apple has released and HTML 5 authoring tool called iAd producer aimed at developers and creative houses that wish to build interactive advertisements for Apple's iOS based iPhone and iPad platform.

iAd Producer makes it easy for you to design and assemble high-impact, interactive content for iAd. iAd Producer automatically manages the HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript behind your iAd to make creating beautiful, motion-rich iAd content as easy as point and click.

For advanced developers, iAd Producer offers sophisticated JavaScript editing and debugging, along with a powerful extension mechanism that enables them to create and re-use their own page templates and components.

Rumors have persisted that Apple would release some type of HTML 5 authoring tool for a while now, perhaps a replacement for iDVD as part of iLife or an extension to iWork's pages. While this tool doesn't address things like iTunes Extras or iTunes LP creation, it at least shows Apple is rolling out next generation web and standards-based production tools. Hopefully more will follow.

[developer.apple.com]

Does it bother you that some apps running on your iPhone (or Android phone), that know all your contact information and perhaps even your current location, could be spying on you? The Wall Street Journal says:

An examination of 101 popular smartphone "apps"—games and other software applications for iPhone and Android phones—showed that 56 transmitted the phone's unique device ID to other companies without users' awareness or consent. Forty-seven apps transmitted the phone's location in some way. Five sent age, gender and other personal details to outsiders.

It seems like we've been talking about this since Apple added a GPS and the App Store to the iPhone 3G and iOS 3 back in 2008 and everyone from tiny, unknown developers to giants like Google began taking advantage of the features -- in both senses of the word.

Sometimes it can be beneficial -- Google's web search, Gmail, and mobile AdMob adds try to give us ads that better reflect our interests so they're less likely to annoy us and, of course, we're more likely to click on them. Apple's now in that game as well with iAds. But what about those tiny, unknown developers using their free or cheap apps to extract your information?

Apps sharing the most information included TextPlus 4, a popular iPhone app for text messaging. It sent the phone's unique ID number to eight ad companies and the phone's zip code, along with the user's age and gender, to two of them.

Pandora is also cited as an app that transmits lots of demographic information. Apple claims they police the apps and make sure they fall within proper guidelines but the WSJ believes some, like Pumpkin Carver, can skirt the rules, and many of the developers claim they anonymize data before aggregating it and transmitting it on to advertising networks.

While permission is required to share location, no permission is required to share your iPhone (or iPad or iPod touch) UDID -- the unique identifier, effectively a fingerprint or "super cookie* that can be used to correlate and track all your activities. Angry Birds, according to the WSJ, sends both UDID and location data back to its publisher (who says they don't use it to advertise and don't share it with anyone else).

The entire article is fascinating reading especially for those concerned with privacy in the mobile information age. Personally I trust Apple and Google but I'm not sure I trust every little developer who has the same access to my data or who uses Apple's and Google's networks and systems.

What about you, any alarm bells ringing?

[Wall Street Journal, thanks Dominick!]

iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad users outside the US rejoice, for Apple has raised its countenance and finally blessed us with Promo Codes that work in international App Stores. UK? Yup. Canada? You betcha. Corto Maltese? Uh... we'll get back to you.

Promo codes are a great way to offer your app to the media for promotional purposes or for them to review and test your app. Your promo code distribution is no longer limited to U.S. customers. Promo codes can now be redeemed through any App Store around the world. You can request 50 promo codes per version of your app from iTunes Connect.

To learn more about requesting promo codes, see the Requesting Promo Codes section of the iTunes Connect Developer Guide.

Good news for developers who'd like to encourage international reviews and give-aways, and good news for international users tired of "Promo Codes only work in the US App Store, Apple's rule, not ours!" at the end of every post.

Bad news for developers is that 50 promo code limit, so while there's now a bigger audience, there's no bigger supply to match. Little help there Apple?

[Makinado via 9to5Mac]

Apple has just released iOS 4.2.1 GM (gold master) for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad (build 8C148) to developers.

iOS 4.2 GM was originally released a couple weeks ago leading to speculation that a general public release was coming soon. However, last Friday Apple instead released a second iOS 4.2 GM for iPad, and now with a 4.2.1 GM it's anyone's guess what the internal schedule looks like (or why the update servers are going up and down today!).

If you're a registered developer go grab it now. If you notice any changes, drop us a line or let us know in comments!

For more see our complete iOS 4.2 for iPad and iOS 4.2 for iPhone walkthroughs.

[developer.apple.com, thanks @daveizzle]

While Apple's iTunes App Store for iPhone and iPad has improved in countless ways since its introduction in 2008 -- including the recent reversal of the cross-compiler ban and the publication of the app review guidelines -- several major problems persist for both develops and users, especially the lack of trial apps, paid upgrades, and subscriptions. While the mobile app ecosystem is the new frontier and arguments can be made about how closely guarded it needs to be, Apple is about to bring the App Store concept "Back to the Mac". That's an environment where developers and users are not only accustomed to, but expect features like trials and upgrades.

So while we're all still waiting on iOS 4.2, I'm going to leap ahead a little and start thinking about what I want in iOS 5, and right now I'm hoping Apple takes the opportunity to bring some of the Mac back to the iPhone and iPad.

Note: Chad, Bjango's Marc Edwards, and I discussed some of these issues on the last iPad Live! podcast so give that a listen as background.

Trials

There is still, some 2+ years later, no way to try out or demo apps on the iTunes App Store. With Mac software many developers choose to provide time-limited demo modes with the option to pay later and transform them into the fully functional versions. "Try before you buy." On the iPhone and iPad App Store, developers are not allowed to time-limit their apps, so that kind of demo is not possible. Unlike some other platforms, Apple doesn't allow for refund periods either. So, if you buy an app and hate it, you can't uninstall it within 24 hours (for example) and get your money back. That's bad for users because it makes them hesitate when shopping and its bad for developers who can end up with customers, for whatever reason, unhappily stuck with their app. (Or it forces prices down to make everything an impulse buy, lowering the market and potential for premium apps.)

The App Store does allow for in-app purchase, and after a previous policy change Apple now allows free apps to charge for in-app purchases, so that can be used as a pseudo-demo mode. For example, Twitterrific is free but if you make the in-app purchase, it removes the adds and enables multiple user accounts. PCalc offers additional functions and themes. Games allow for the purchase of additional levels. There are many examples. However, not all types of apps have features modular enough that they can be easily broken down and divided into a free app with discreet packages available for in-app purchase. It also forces developers to provide a free version, costing them sales from users for whom the free version is enough.

Free or Lite versions are another common work around but they come with their own mixed bag of hurt. Users who start with the free version and decide to buy the paid version have no way of moving their data over form the former to the latter. That's annoying when it's game levels that need to be replayed. It's a royal pain when its important personal or business data that needs to be re-entered or re-generated. Also, for developers, it means having to maintain two closely related yet separate apps. Messy.

Time-limited apps are more elegant. iTunes already handles time-limited movie and TV show rentals for Hollywood, why not for the App Store? Or why not simply provide that 24-hour refund window the way other app marketplaces do. There would be transactional and administrative overhead for Apple, of course, but there's transactional and administrative overhead now for free apps. And the benefits in terms of customer experience -- typically a focus of Apple's -- could make up for it.

Upgrades

When Atebits rewrote Tweetie 2 (now Twitter for iPhone) from the ground up, the only choice was to give it away as a free upgrade to all existing Twitter users (of which there were many) or submit it as a new app and charge everyone full price, existing and new user alike. That's because Apple doesn't provide a mechanism for paid upgrades -- i.e., to charge existing users less than new users. If you upgrade Mac software, developers almost always choose to reward customer loyalty by charging less than they would for a new license. On iPhone or iPad, it's literally all or nothing. That's bad for users because they're out a few extra dollars and that's bad for developers because they suffer push-back from angry users.

iTunes knows what apps we've bought. We know it knows because when we try to buy a paid app we've already bought, iTunes tells use we've already bought it and that we can download it again for free. Why can't the same system be used to determine, for example, that we've already bought Tweetie 1 and hence we can download Tweetie 2 at an upgrade price. Apple could allow developers to set that upgrade price in iTunes Connect, an extension of how they can set universal sale prices today. We've seen some strange screens pop up that seem to indicate Apple is at least experimenting with the idea, but why not pull the trigger? Again, it's more overhead for Apple but the customer experience boost would be enormous.

Subscriptions

Before Apple announced iBooks, rumor had it they would announce not only eBooks but electronic magazines and newspapers as well. Going back to the iOS 3 (then iPhone 3.0) Sneak Preview Event, Apple mentioned subscriptions as one of the new App Store features, alongside in-app purchases. Nothing much had come of them, so magazines and newspapers seemed like a perfect fit. But then came the iOS 4 sneak preview event with no mention of either newspapers or magazines, or subscriptions.

Technologically Apple has show with iTunes TV show season passes that they can handle subscriptions. So what's the hang up? Conventional wisdom says there's a battle going on between Apple and the big media companies over who gets ownership of customer data. Media isn't just about selling content it's about collecting marketing data that can be monetized. Apple wants our names, demographics, and card numbers. Big media wants our names, demographics, and card numbers. And we just want our magazines and newspapers.

Apple should offer subscriptions and just let those businesses and developers who want to use it, use it. Customer experience. Again.

In 2008 the App Store revolutionized mobile software. iPhone and iPad users confidently and effortlessly buy and use tons of apps. For those who remember the mobile software space before the App Store, that in and of itself is remarkable. Since then Apple has steadily improved it with in-app purchases, integration with accessories, and now mobile advertising. But there are still a few hurdles that need to be overcome. We've seen hints and heard rumors that Apple is working on almost all of these things. With the Mac App Store on its way, the need is only going to get greater. Hopefully Apple will rise to the occasion come next March/April and the iOS 5 Sneak Preview Event.

Apple sent out an email to developers today reminding them to get their apps ready for the impending arrival of iOS 4.2:

iOS 4.2 will soon be in the hands of millions of customers around the world. Make sure that your iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch apps incorporate all the exciting features in iOS 4.2, including:

Multitasking - Multitasking services allow your apps to perform tasks in the background including playing audio, push notifications, receiving location change events, and more.

Game Center - With the Game Kit API, you can implement Game Center functionality such as submitting and displaying achievements, scores, and leaderboards, and establishing multiplayer games.

AirPrint - iOS 4.2 allows you to easily enable instant wireless printing from your iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch apps.

Submit Your Apps Today

Build, test, compile, and submit your apps for review using iOS 4.2 SDK GM seed so they can be ready when iOS 4.2 is available to users around the world.

So any day now, we hope!

Is Apple hosting a secret iPhone and iPad developers summit in Cupertino, starting next Tuesday and running for 3 days? So Business Insider and their industrious industry sources would have us believe.

We are short on details, and we have not seen any public information about it, but it sounds like this will be a more intimate version of the iPhone Tech Talks that Apple hosted around the world last year.

Since it's iOS-specific, it's not about the just-announced Mac App Store or the still unannounced Apple TV App Store (grrr!), but rather something designed to improve the quality of iPhone and iPad apps in the face ever growing app competition from the likes of Google's Android platform. And with iOS 4.2 coming sometime in November, along with AirPlay goodness, the timing could just be right.

Then again, a stealth summit would mean invitation only, so Apple would likely target just the kind of developers who already make some of the best apps on the platform anyway. Should they be trying to make the best even better, or is there some way they could improve those 290,000 less-than-great apps that currently clog up the store?

[Business Insider]

Developer Steve Troughton-Smith has discovered that you can install iOS apps on the new iOS Apple TV, you just can't launch them yet because Apple TV lacks the capacity to do so.

So, not only is the AppleTV set up for installing applications (of UIDeviceFamily 3), but the installation actually works

Of course, adding that capability will no doubt be high on the jailbreak to-do list... if Apple themselves don't do it first. (Fingers crossed).

[@stroughtonsmith via Gizmodo]

When contacted Monday by Apple Insider, Google declined to comment on whether it would resubmit its native application, which Apple refused to accept into the App Store last year.

"We currently offer Google Voice mobile apps for Blackberry and Android, and we offer an HTML5 web app for the iPhone," a Google spokesperson said. "We have nothing further to announce at this time."

Just in case you missed the big headlines recently, Apple relaxed their strict App Store guidelines and now have been approving apps that were previously rejected for replicating the phones built in capabilities. Google Voice apps were just about the first ones back in action and making their presence known in the App Store over the weekend including GV Connect and GV Mobile +.

So with both of those already available, how do you feel about Google possibly not releasing an official app for the iOS platform? Sound off below!

[AppleInsider]

This is an official entry by BrianT in TiPb's next top blogger contest. Think you have what it takes to join Team TiPb? Bring it!

A Google Voice app, GV Connect, and a Basic Interpreter, by way of Commodore 64, have both been approved and are now in the iTunes App Store.

These types of apps have been rejected, left in limbo, pulled in the past, and the subject of government investigation in the past. Following Apple's recent change of developer license and publication of plain-language approval guidelines, they're in the store.

[GV Connect on iTunes - $2.99, Commodore 64 on iTunes - $4.99]

iOS 4.2 isn't installing on iPhone for some developers if our email box and a quick search of Twitter are any indication.

It sounds like the install starts fine but then has problems during the baseband update and spits out an error code 10. That's hook it up to Xcode and restore to 4.1 language.

That's also why it's a beta for developers, folks, not for production devices.

UPDATE: @Justin_Horn from WhenWillApple and the TiPb iPhone Forums gives us the answer:

There are issues updating iPhone 4 with iTunes, need to use new SDK and non-preview version of Xcode to update.

So update those first.

[Twitter search, thanks angry complaining devs!]

Get your apps ready for iOS 4.2, developers! That's what Apple's new information page says:

iOS 4.2 is coming this November. With iOS SDK 4.2 beta, you can add exciting, new features to your apps including the capability to print directly from iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. iPad apps can now take advantage of multitasking, Game Center, iAd, and more.

There some additional information about AirPrint as well:

Adding printing support to your app is easy. Simply provide a button for the user to initiate printing, prepare your content in an appropriate format, and then create and send a print job to the iOS print system when the user requests it.

Test with a printer that supports AirPrint

HP ePrint printers are the first to support AirPrint. You can test printing from your app to one of these printers:

• HP Photosmart Premium Fax e-All-in-One Printer series - C410
• HP Photosmart Premium e-All-in-One Printer series - C310
• HP Photosmart Plus e-All-in-One Printer series- B210

Or, test printing with one of these options:

• Print to a Mac running Mac OS X 10.6.5 beta
• Print to the Printer Simulator from iOS 4.2 beta

Getting excited for iOS 4.2 yet? Apple, you tease!

[Apple.com]

According to noted Windows pundit, Paul Thurrott, Microsoft is indeed prepping some iPad apps:

Shhh.... It's true: Microsoft is working on iPad apps.

Whether that's Sea Dragon or Bing or MS Messenger, or something wonderful like Office is unknown, of course.

[@thurrott]

Unreal development kit (UDK) is coming to iOS according to an announcement made by Epic Games at the Korean Games Conference.

What this means is that any iOS developer can download the free UDK and potentially start making worlds as breathtaking as Epic Citadel for iPhone and iPad. Once they've gotten accomplished at it, it sounds like it's a short jump -- and business decision -- to becoming an Unreal Engine 3 licensee and exploding across our iOS devices.

Jobs of War, Cupertino Vice, what Unreal Engine games would you like to see?

[Joystick via TUAW]

The most common words used uniquely in 1-star and 5-star App Store reviews, according to Instapaper and Tumblr developer Marco Arment who wrote a script to collect the data:

5-star: awesome, worth, thanks, amazing, simple, perfect, price, everything, ever, must, ipod, before, found, store, never, recommend, done, take, always, touch

1-star: waste, money, crashes, tried, useless, nothing, paid, open, deleted, downloaded, didn’t, says, stupid, anything, actually, account, bought, apple, already

His analysis is well worth the read.

[Marco.org]

While Apple's newly published App Store review guidelines are locked up nice and tight behind the iOS developer login, Engadget is hosting a copy in the clear. They've also broken out some highlights:

• "We have lots of kids downloading lots of apps, and parental controls don't work unless the parents set them up (many don't). So know that we're keeping an eye out for the kids."
• "We have over 250,000 apps in the App Store. We don't need any more Fart apps."
• "We have lots of serious developers who don't want their quality Apps to be surrounded by amateur hour."
• "If your app is rejected, we have a Review Board that you can appeal to. If you run to the press and trash us, it never helps."
• "This is a living document, and new apps presenting new questions may result in new rules at any time. Perhaps your app will trigger this."
• "If it sounds like we're control freaks, well, maybe it's because we're so committed to our users and making sure they have a quality experience with our products."

Steve Jobs has rallied against porn before, but it would be nice if the App Store could provide the same, appropriately rated content as, say, iTunes movies. As to fart apps, we won't make any jokes or point out any irony there.

However, I'm curious if "amateur hour" is Apple's new passive-aggressive (aggressive-aggressive?) battle cry against Google/YouTube/App Inventor and Android?

Go read Engadget for more, and grab the download if it interests you.

Apple announced today that they're revising controversial sections of their developer program license and for the first time publishing their review guidelines:

We are continually trying to make the App Store even better. We have listened to our developers and taken much of their feedback to heart. Based on their input, today we are making some important changes to our iOS Developer Program license in sections 3.3.1, 3.3.2 and 3.3.9 to relax some restrictions we put in place earlier this year.

In particular, we are relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps, as long as the resulting apps do not download any code. This should give developers the flexibility they want, while preserving the security we need.

In addition, for the first time we are publishing the App Store Review Guidelines to help developers understand how we review submitted apps. We hope it will make us more transparent and help our developers create even more successful apps for the App Store.

The App Store is perhaps the most important milestone in the history of mobile software. Working together with our developers, we will continue to surprise and delight our users with innovative mobile apps.

So 3rd party cross-compilers like Adobe Flash CS5 are back in, but perhaps more important the cross-compilers used to create games are less nebulous as well. Oh, and maybe the FTC and EU can now switch gears from policing app markets to, you know, looking into SMS rates?

Registered iOS developers can find the newly published guidelines at https://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/guidelines.html

[Apple PR]

Apple has begun seeding iOS 4.1 Gold Master to developers, the final step before the general availability release promised for next week.

In addition to fixes for proximity sensors, Bluetooth, and iPhone 3G performance, it includes Game Center, HD photos, HD YouTube uploads, and TV rentals.

If you're a developer, head on over to developer.apple.com and start downloading. No doubt the App Store will start taking iOS 4.1 compiled binaries any time now...

[BGR]

Wired did some poking around and discovered Phillip Shoemaker, Apple's director of App Store -- the man purportedly in charge of App Store approval and rejection -- was or is the developer of fart and urination apps.

Shoemaker apparently had or has a company named Gray Noodle, whose titles include Animal Farts and iWiz. Although the social networking profiles and posts that led Wired to the discovery have subsequently been removed, they've retained archive copies. An Apple spokeswoman gave them the following comment:

“Phillip’s apps were written, submitted and approved before he became an Apple employee,” an Apple spokeswoman said in a statement. “His experience and perspective as a developer is one of the valuable things he brings to Apple’s developer relations team. Apple’s policy allows for employees to have apps on the App Store if they’re developed and published prior to their start at Apple.”

Other former Apple employees confirmed that special, executive level permission was required in order for an Apple employee to publish on the App Store, though if the apps predated Apple employment permission for them to remain on the App Store might be easier to obtain.

So is it reassuring for developers to have someone with experience getting controversial apps approved inside the App Store? Does it mean if you were rejected, you didn't even meet the Animal Farts sniff test?

[Wired, thanks Luke!]

iAds is Apple's attempt to bring the emotion of television to the interactivity of online, but the Wall Street Journal says it's off to a bumpy start. Apparently, part of the reason is -- surprise, surprise -- Apple is exerting tight control over the platform (what, punch the monkey ads aren't good enough for iOS?!). Apple is also producing the ads themselves at this point and there appear to be longer than expected delays getting them up and running even after they've been signed off on.

That has made the creation of the mobile ads laborious, taking about eight to 10 weeks from brainstorm to completion—longer than normal for most mobile ads, executives said. The building of the actual ad, handled by Apple, in some cases is taking two weeks longer than expected, one person added.

Once online, however, they seem to be working.

A Nissan spokeswoman said its iAd "has driven exceptional results to date." The company said the rate of users tapping on the banner is five times the click-through-rate of the Nissan Leaf online campaign.

Those "people familiar with the matter" claim Apple underestimated the demands of the new business and are scrambling to learn how best to deal with the Mad Men of advertising.

Once it gets established, once Apple rolls out an HTML5 development environment for it, once it gets on an iOS 4.x iPad, once we see more of it internationally (I don't think I've seen a single iAd yet, anyone else outside the US?) -- i.e. once it matures -- these problems could go either go away, or just become the constant, mild grumbling we hear with App Store growing pains.

[Wall Street Journal]

Playboy magazine is coming to iPad by the nudity isn't coming with it. According to founder Hugh Hefner, who broke the news on Twitter, the reason is:

Steve Jobs has a thing about nudity

So yes, you really will be reading it for the articles.

[@hughhefner via 9to5mac]

During QuakeCon 2010, ID Software's co-founder John Carmack demoed Rage on a iPhone 4 running at a very impressive 60 frames-per-second. And what's maybe even more impressive is the fact that Carmack believes this game will "kill anything done on the Xbox or PlayStation 2." We first heard of Rage coming to the iPhone and iPad back in March so it's good to see that this is finally going to happen and sooner rather than later.

Any first-person-shooter fan out there should definitely be chomping at the bit to see this one land into the App Store "later this year". And if one title is not enough, perhaps the planned sequel that will be available just in time for the 2011 launch of the PC version will make you happy.

Check out the most impressive video after the break!

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

Apple's iOS Developer News is letting developers know how to set up Game Center achievements and leaderboard categories:

You can now set up metadata for your Game Center Achievements and Leaderboard Categories in iTunes Connect. Setting up these elements will allow you to test the full capabilities of Game Center for your app in the sandbox environment.

Apple announced Game Center way back in early April but instead of shipping it in June with iOS 4, they said it would be coming "later this year". The basic idea is to give "Xbox live" style social networking to iOS devices like iPhone and iPad.

For example, Chad challenges me to the latest hot FPS. I get a Game Center notification but since I don't have the game, it asks me if I want to get it and then automagically handles the download, and since it knows Chad and I are friends, gives me a grenade launcher and sets me after him. Then it shows all our other friends how Georgia sniped me just as I was about to blow him up. Dang.

Though it's obviously game-centric, there are rumors Apple could extend features to other apps as well.

[iOS Developer News]

Let's hope "later" comes as soon as possible.

Apple has sent out a note to developers regarding an App Store volume purchase program that allows educational institutions to make bulk purchases at a 50% discount.

We’re pleased to announce the App Store Volume Purchase Program. Education institutions in the United States now have a new way to purchase your apps in volume for distribution to their students and faculty. You can also elect to offer special education pricing on your app when purchased in volume.

Read more about the App Store Volume Purchase Program and how to get started in iTunes Connect.

This is a way for for educational institutions that want to purchase a large amount of licenses for an iPhone or iPad app without the need for countless individual iTunes accounts. The purchasing of these discounted applications is done with the use of vouchers which can be purchased via the Apple Store for Education in $100, $500, $1,000, $5,000, and $10,000 denominations. These very vouchers then can be distributed to the program facilitators to be redeemed within the App Store.

Sounds like a great idea if a fairly complicated way to go about it. For the full rundown be sure to check out the Volume Purchase Plan Frequently Asked Questions.

[Thanks anonymized developer for the tip!]

Apple has begun filing patent applications for 1st party (i.e. Apple produced) iOS apps that include screen drawings of well known 3rd party (i.e. independently produced by developers for the App Store) apps.

Is Apple trying to steal the hard work and shatter the good will of App Store developers? Is Apple merely showing how App Store apps could hook into future Apple apps/hubs? Is it something in between?

Let's take a look after the break...

[Venomous Porridge, Thanks Dev for the tip!]

Venomous Porridge originally posted the image up to and this commentary:

one of the diagrams in Apple’s patent application for a travel app is a direct copy, down to the text and the positions of the icons, of an existing third-party app that’s been available on the App Store for years.

I can’t see how this is even close to OK.

The image is chilling for developers, especially since it doesn't appear like Apple contacted them to let them know they were using it, and doesn't appear to really explain the context of the usage in the application. That Apple would use an exact rendering of an existing app, when they could easily make their own, far more defensible artwork, is curious. That they show it clearly labeled as "Where To?" is more than curious.

FutureTap, the makers of Where To? said they did not have any deals in place with Apple for the patent and posted the following:

We’re faced with a situation where we’ve to fear that our primary business partner is trying to “steal” our idea and design. So how to deal with that? — As some of you know, we’ve always been more than grateful for the platform Apple created. And, in fact, still are. However, we can’t ignore it if the #1 recognition value of our (currently) only app potentially is under fire.

This is where a lot of coverage has ended to date. A few excellent comments have kept it moving forward, however. Macro Arment of Tumblr and Instapaper added:

Is it possible that Where To is being intentionally and innocently used as an example of a related app as an inconsequential portion of the much larger and more complex patented concept that wouldn’t interfere with it?

Brian Ford adds:

The other clue that this isn’t about an underhanded attempt to patent the Where To app is that various pictures showing several completely unrelated app designs are all used to describe this same patent. None of the other drawings are consistent.

Venomous Porridge subsequently updated with a second post

I think it’s more likely that the people involved in drawing up this patent simply didn’t think about the message it would send to developers. I’m sure it’s not Apple’s practice (or intention) to plunder the App Store submissions bin for new things to patent. But there remains a conflict of interest in Apple acting as the sole steward of the iOS software universe while also filing patents in areas that have long been staked out by third-party developers. If those developers suddenly get cold feet toward submitting innovative apps for fear of their ideas suddenly appearing in Apple’s patent filings, it will be hard to blame them.

Which is pretty much how this reads. Apple is the giant in their forest and sometimes intentionally and sometimes unintentionally they'll step on the far, far smaller villagers who inhabit it. If enough villagers pick up torches and pitchforks and make enough noise, the Apple giant might pause, shrug, say "my bad" and be try to be more careful for a while, but it will always be the giant in their own forest.

It would behoove Apple none the less, especially since developer relations have been tense over the years, to try and create a preemptive strategy in terms of reaching out and assuaging developer fears. If they're going to include Where To? or other app screens in their patents, create a process where that's noted in draft and the developer is contacted and given context.

Ultimately it doesn't look like Apple is being evil here, just inconsiderate.

You know the drill, if you're a developer and you want the latest, greatest iOS 4.1 beta 3 for your iPhone or iPod touch, head on over to Apple and get it.

No word yet on what, if any new features it might contain but we're still guessing we won't see anything too spectacular until Steve Jobs takes the stage for the annual iPod and iTunes event in September, and shows off iPod touch G4 and the final iOS 4 version.

But if you find anything, let us know in comments.

[developer.apple.com]

Steve Jobs says Apple is the largest start-up in the world, and Posterous CEO Sachin Agarwal not only experienced it, but says that's why things like Apple's own Remote App for iPhone haven't been updated for iPad, iPhone 4, or iOS 4:

Yes, the Remote app is due for an update. But here's why it hasn't been updated: the person who wrote it is busy working on other things. Yes, the person, not the team. (He's a good friend of mine)

Apple doesn't build large teams to work on every product they make. Instead, they hire very few, but very intelligent people who can work on different projects and move around as needed.

Argawal says it isn't uncommon for members of one team to find themselves moved over to something else entirely when ship dates need to be met. That's true for iOS, Mac OS, Pro Apps, and every part of Apple, and something he says is in stark contrast to Microsoft:

Maybe that's the problem at Microsoft: they think they can solve problems by throwing lots of people at them. They put together large teams to build products. And large teams require managers. The last thing we need in software development are more product managers.

[Posterous via 9to5mac]

Apple's newly renamed iOS Developer News feed has released two notes today, one on exciting new features in iTunes connect, and the other announcing iAd for Developers -- a great way to promote apps, in apps.

iTunes connect is gaining the following:

• Using the new Version Release Control to choose when your new app version goes live on the App Store;
• Delivering binaries using Application Loader;
• New states for your app including Prepare for Upload, Pending Developer Release, and Processing for App Store;
• UI Enhancements that indicate when you can edit your app information;
• Game Center functionality for the setup of Achievements and Leaderboard Categories for sandbox testing purposes.

You'll find the iTunes Connect Developer Guide available for download on the homepage of iTunes Connect.

And for developers who want to get a little more attention for their apps:

The new iAd for Developers program is a great way for you to advertise your own apps to millions of users across the iAd Network. When a user taps on an ad for your app, they can download it from the App Store without leaving the app they're in.

It's easy to get started. Learn more about how you can drive more customers to your app with iAd for Developers.

Any devs out there liking either or both of these updates?

[iOS Developer News]

We're one of the lucky devs to score a preview of Xcode 4 back at WWDC 2010? Worry not, Apple has been mailing out news that a new beta is available for one and all... (registered developers that is).

Get a preview of Xcode 4 — the next generation of Apple’s integrated development environment for creating Mac OS X and iOS applications.

With a brand new interface, compiler, debugger and dozens of new features, Xcode 4 is faster, easier to use, and more helpful than ever before. Quite simply, Xcode 4 will help you write better code.

Read about the many new enhancements and download the developer preview to see what’s new in Xcode 4.

It's under NDA but we've heard through the grapevine that it's a fairly impressive update. Hopefully that translates into better apps for our iPads and iPhones...