Apps

TiPb Interview: PCalc Developer James Thomson Talks iPhone App Store and "Postmortems"

By Rene Ritchie, Monday, Oct 27, 2008 a 12:24 pm

James Thomson is the acclaimed developer behind DragThing for Mac OS X and PCalc RPN Calculator for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Following up on his recent blog postings about the challenges involved navigating the still-nascent App Store business model for developers, and TiPb's own look at whether or not there's a "long tail" potential for the market, James was gracious enough to sit down (virtually) and share his thoughts with us about the issues facing 3rd party iPhone developers going forward.

TiPb: James, you recently blogged about PCalc in the context of a "postmortem". What was the reaction like to that article, and did it bring about any changes in your current thinking or how you plan to proceed with PCalc going forward?

James Thomson: Reaction was interesting. Many iPhone developers contacted me privately, and via the blog, to say they had encountered similar problems with sales after the recent changes to the App Store.
Some pointed out the "Availability Trick" to change the App Store release date for your software when you do an update, to make it sort higher up in the listings. I talked about that a bit in a follow-up post here. It's unclear whether it really is a trick, or just what you are supposed to do, but it does seem to work.

I've also tried a few other suggestions, like renaming the app to "PCalc RPN Calculator" to make sure it appears during searches for the word "calculator" which it didn't before. So far, there has been a relatively small boost to sales, but I'm not sure how much of that is due to my changes, and how much is just down to the overall publicity that the article generated.

I'm working on a small 1.1.1 update at the moment to fix a few things, and I'll likely add some more layouts and themes. The real question is what will happen to sales then. If they remain flat, with all the other changes, then I'm going to have to try some more traditional marketing beyond the Google AdWords adverts we are already running. To a certain extent, the blog itself /is/ a form of marketing - I don't think I can really deny that, given it is raising the profile of our software.

Read the rest of the interview after the jump...

Zippo Stole His Lighter App?

By Jeremy, Monday, Oct 27, 2008 a 9:55 am

UPDATE: Zippo and Moderati respond.

Googlepalooza Continues! Google Earth for iPhone!

By Rene Ritchie, Sunday, Oct 26, 2008 a 10:34 pm

UPDATE: Jeff from 148apps provides the direct App Store link! Thanks Jeff!

iPhone 2.2 style Google Maps Street-view, Transit, Walking Directions, and Location Sharing still not enough Google love for the iPhone? Want just that much more proof of affection? How about this: Google Earth is coming to the iPhone!

Forum Review: Kooaba for the iPhone

By Staff, Friday, Oct 24, 2008 a 1:55 pm

[The Lightning Reviews are over, but from their ashes rise... the Forum Reviews! TiPb has assembled a crack team of App-aficionados, and every week we'll be bringing you a few of their very best reviews right here on the blog. And be sure to check out TiPb's iPhone App Store Forum for even more!]

Kooaba Forum Review by msbaylor

Kooaba allow you to take a picture of a movie poster, then looks up the info about the movie.

You just push the camera icon on the main screen, snap a picture and it load (takes a long time – 30 secs+), then it opens safari and displays the movie details.

You can also view the history of your searches (if you ended up wasting that much time)

Showtime's Dexter Slicing and Dicing His Way to a iPhone Near You

By Jeremy, Friday, Oct 24, 2008 a 9:55 am

It looks like Dexter will be hacking his way into the App Store and onto your iPhone!

If you have not watched Showtime's Dexter on Sunday nights you have no idea of what you are missing. And what a time it is right now to be a fan, as Showtime has just extended Dexter for another 2 seasons. (I know forum member Reaktor5 will be pleased with this information.)

According to G4tv.com:

Revenge of the iPhone: Veency for Jailbreak

By Rene Ritchie, Thursday, Oct 23, 2008 a 10:55 am

So yesterday Chad put Jaadu and Mocha VNC through a no-holds-barred round of App vs. App for the title of best solution for controlling your PC via the iPhone. Well, the iPhone won't let those big bully PCs have all the fun!

ReadWriteWeb brings word of Veency, a solution that let's your iPhone via the PC!

Fliq Application Now Available on App Store

By Jeremy, Thursday, Oct 23, 2008 a 7:55 am

Let me just start off by saying, no this will not take the place of a real MMS app. I think that ball is in Apple's court. But Fliq will come in handy if you have a few friends with iPhones and are connected to the same WiFi network.

What is Fliq? Fliq was created by Mark/Space and is a "social networking application that allows iPhone and iPod touch users to instantly send, or "beam", photos and contacts to one another".

Quick App: Big Canvas PhotoShare Social Networks Pics for the iPhone

By Rene Ritchie, Thursday, Oct 23, 2008 a 1:55 am

Big Canvas PhotoShare offers easy uploading and sharing of photos, with comments and all the usual social networking trappings, for your iPhone. How does this fair compared to built in, but social-less services like MobileMe, or 3rd party support for giants like Facebook and Flickr?

If you try it, let us know!

Leah gives us the press blub, after the break!

TiPb AT WORK: Jaadu VNC vs Mocha VNC

By Chad Garrett, Wednesday, Oct 22, 2008 a 12:06 pm

[This is a TiPb AT WORK App vs. App Review! Last week, it was the To Do/Task App Showdown, with Things squeaking out the victory. But which blog commenter won a copy of the winning To Do/Task App? Alex! Congratulations!

This week, the TiPb iPhone Forums voted on their favorite Remote Desktop/VNC Apps, we took the top two, and now they're going head-to-head. But wait -- there's more! One of the forum voters has already won a copy of the winning App... Congrats avt! Want another chance to win? COMMENT BELOW! and make sure you leave a valid email address in the comment form -- it won't be made public, but it will be used to contact you if you win! Check out the full contest details, then grab your iPhone and get ready to get things done -- the TiPb AT WORK Remote Desktop/VNC Showdown is on!]

Like Brian, I use my iPhone for just about everything. So wouldn't it be nice to use your iPhone to access your computer(s) when you are not at your desk? At work (no pun intended) I rotate with team members to "take" call, meaning, if something needs resolved on a weekend or evening, it is up to me to fix it. My work does not currently supply a broadband card, so it is up to my own devices to have Internet access wherever I go to remote into my PC. The VNC applications Jaadu and Mocha allow me to do just that! For those of you that don't know what VNC is, it allows you to remotely control another computer. Now, this ability is available on your iPhone (side rant, why doesn't Apple give us this ability as part of our MobileMe subscriptions? Ah, I digress...)

I can now leave my laptop behind and just use my iPhone to connect to my work laptop at home or my iMac desktop and save the day! Let's take a look at these two VNC apps!

Pano: Bringing Panoramic Photos to Your iPhone.

By Jeremy, Wednesday, Oct 22, 2008 a 9:55 am

Any of you looking to add some life to your iPhone's camera with some new options? It is no secret that the camera lacks any type of features besides point and click. So once again, where Apple let us down, a 3rd party developer comes to our rescue.

Now let me introduce you to Pano. Pano was created by Debacle Software, and enables you to take panoramic photos using the iPhone's camera app. Here's how it works: