Calcalist reports that Apple is hiring a number of chip experts to fill up their new Isreali research center — the one aimed at developing new chip configurations that could help power future iPhone and iPad devices.

The company reportedly received “several hundred resumes” for various engineering positions. Specifically, Apple is seeking hardware engineers in chip development with strong emphasis on electrical circuits, analogue and hardware testing and verification.

News that Apple was interested in opening an Israeli research facility first surfaced back in December. Rumor had it they were interested in being in close proximity to the Technion Institute of Technology, an area already home to Intel, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Qualcomm.

According to this new report, Apple’s recent acquisition of flash-storage wizards, Anobit has nothing to do with this new research facility. Instead these new specialists will focus on research and development of silicon, chip circuitry and hardware testing/verification.

The new facility should be up and running by the end of February, however it is unlikely we’ll see new chip technology from these R&D efforts in the next iPhone or iPad given the lead time required.

Source: Calcalist.co via 9to5 Mac

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

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 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]

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.

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]

You’re Microsoft and today you’re launching the brand new Windows Phone 7 platform and what better game to showcase that launch but iOS hit Angry Birds… unless of course the developer, Rovio, isn’t making Angry Birds for Windows Phone 7 and didn’t give Microsoft permission to use it. Whoops.

Whether or not Angry Birds will make it to Windows Phone 7 down the road is debatable, but a lot of developers have been contacted and asked to make apps for the Windows Phone 7 marketplace.  In some cases, they’ve even been offered cash incentives. Hit the jump to see the letter some developers have been receiving from Microsoft asking them to develop for Windows phone 7.

And for complete Windows Phone 7 launch coverage, check out our newly renamed sibling site, WPCentral.

[WMExperts, via 9to5mac]

Exclusive, limited Time Offer from Microsoft to Help You Develop Application on the Windows Phone 7 Platform

Dear Beacon Hill Apps,

Beacon Hill Apps mobile applications have been identified as some of the key applications Microsoft would like to offer on the Microsoft Windows Phone 7 Marketplace. The Windows Phone 7 Marketplace is the official site for developers to market their mobile applications to a broad range of Windows Phone 7 users.  The Marketplace provides end users with an easy way, to discover, purchase and download mobile applications, games and other content with confidence and payment convenience.

Microsoft is offering an exclusive and limited time opportunity for you to join, publish and distribute your applications on Windows Phone 7 Marketplace while receiving several benefits. The benefits for registering on the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace by December 31st, 2010 during this offer include:

• Rebate of US$99 dollars on the application registration (after having at least one compatible application included on the marketplace by December 31, 2010)

• Application name reservation on the Marketplace

• Technical & application submission support
• Local events to assist with your development efforts
• One free copy of Windows 7
• To apply for this offer please email me back with your contact information or call me at the number below to help you complete the marketplace registration and reserve your application names.  See additional helpful resources below.

Should you have any questions about this email feel free to call me or send an email to v-mafl@microsoft.com. N(3) is a third party vendor hired by Microsoft to assist and make mobile application developers aware of an exclusive offer.

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]

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.

Do you want your iPhone apps sharpened up for iPhone 4‘s Retina Display? iPhone 4 has a whopping 960×640 screen which is literally 4 times (twice vertical, twice horizontal) the pixel size, but the same physical size, as previous generation iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G, and iPhone 3GS. That’s a density of over 300dpi — print magazine quality. Existing apps will just seamlessly use 4 pixels on the iPhone 4 compared to 1 pixel on previous gen iPhones, so they’ll look identical.

In fact, fonts — and if you built your app in Xcode, UI elements — will automagically be rendered at the new 4x sharpness, so they’ll look better.

To truly take advantage of the new display, however, developers and designers will have to go back to the drawing board (or paint program) and make new, higher definition graphical elements like icons, textures, and other artwork.

For some developers this won’t even be a question — they love their apps and they want to make them look as good as possible. They’re already getting this done. For others, especially for those with older, catalog apps somewhere in the longer tail of the App Store sales cycle, they may not be sure the effort is financially justified (especially given the 100,000,000 existing, lower res, iOS install base).

So we’re curious what our readers, developer and user alike, think? Do you want to see nothing but ultra-sharp apps on your iPhone 4? Do devs need to do it immediately? Wait for the next update? Focus on new apps only? Go back and retrofit old apps? How important is it to you?

Twitterrific is the grandaddy of iOS Twitter clients — it existed on the iPhone before there was an SDK and was in the App Store on launch day, and again for iPad launch. Twitterrific has evolved from a reader-centric experience to a feature-full client and back to a highly focused app.

Craig Hockenberry, a principle at Iconfactory, the driving force behind Twitterrific, spoke to me at WWDC 2010 about getting Twitterrific ready for the iPad and how that process re-informed what will be going into (and perhaps coming out of) Twitterrific 3.0 for iPhone.

And no, Tweetie becoming the free Twitter for iPhone isn’t slowing them down. (You can read more on that from Craig and Iconfactory collaborators David Lanham and Ged Maheux)

Hockenberry has also taken a turn as author, with his iPhone App Development: The Missing Manual now available from O’Reilly. It takes you through the process, from SDK signup to Xcode and Objective-C, to deploying an app. It’s a treasure-trove of experience and insight for developers — aspiring and veteran alike.

Videos after the break. (Huge apologies to everyone, especially Craig, for the annoying wind noise — I greatly underestimated it during filming)

[Twitterrific homepage]

YouTube link

YouTube link

This is just a heads up to developers who are looking to get their hands dirty with iAds as you can now do so by joining the iAd Network and downloading the development kit Apple has just released.

The iAd Network provides an intuitive environment for you to easily incorporate iAd rich media ads into your applications. You can also monitor performance and track revenue. iPhone Developer Program members can join the iAd Network today.

So developers should not delay, receiving 60 percent of the advertising revenue is not too shabby and should be well worth their time.

Apple’s new policy on cross-compilers has the development community in a frenzy, and for good reason.  RunRev is reaching out to Apple and developers and voicing their opinion on the matter.

For those not familiar with RunRev, revMobile is a cross-platform solution that will allow developers to port their applications to several different mobile platforms with ease.  Even though revMobile is still in its pre-alpha stages, it shows a lot of promise for developers who wish to develop for multiple platforms.  It allows them to build their applications and not have to re-write code for each and every platform separately.  This would provide an invaluable tool for devs.  Now with Apple bringing the ban hammer down on cross-compilers, Adobe isn’t the only one speaking up anymore.

RunRev has issued a statement with its thoughts on Apple’s new policy on cross-compiler usage. Apple wants developers to create native applications originally written in Objective-C code. What this means is that developers will not have the ability to simply port over existing applications written in other languages. Apple voiced their concern over apps running natively and creating a more “seamless” user experience. RunRev isn’t necessarily in agreement as to whether or not that’s the best course of action. They’ve proposed a solution to this problem in an open letter to the community and Apple.

” … In order to support our active and growing revMobile customer base, we submitted an in-depth proposal to Apple that we create an iPhone-only product that uses native Cocoa objects, supports 100% of their API, works perfectly with multitasking and battery life, but uses a variant of the revTalk language to use these objects and APIs, and then translates those into native code. While a significant engineering departure for us from the current revMobile path, this solution would have resulted in perfect-quality iPhone-only applications impossible to distinguish from native applications. It would have been impossible to tell these applications apart from native iPhone applications because they would be native applications. As native applications running directly without a compatibility layer, there would have been no battery life issues, multitasking and iAds would work perfectly, and new APIs would be supported as they came out. … “

To me, this sounds like a reasonable solution. Apple has rejected this proposal and RunRev is uncertain what the future will hold for revMobile at this point in time.

” … Some of our customers have suggested that we continue to develop the version of revMobile that outputs entirely native code (as detailed above). However such a solution–even though it would create perfect applications–would be in violation of Apple’s agreement, which states that code must originally be developed in one of their approved languages. As such, we cannot risk hundreds of thousands of dollars of further engineering budget to create a solution that does not guarantee Apple acceptance to the app store. … “

This is also understandable. The amount of development and time that would go into this solution is immense. As RunRev has stated, they’re left at a stand-still as they aren’t 100% certain that this solution would work or if apps created using revMobile would still face the App Store ban hammer. That’s a lot of time and money to waste on an uncertainty.

This policy also will prevent the use of development tools such as HyperCard, which was one of the first successful rapid application development tools available. Not only do tools like this work, they provide an invaluable time management tool to developers. Not to mention HyperCard was written by Bill Atkinson, a co-founder of Apple. How’s that for irony?

Perhaps Apple wasn’t just after Adobe, as many originally thought. But where is Apple and why is it starting to feel like they’re beginning to alienate more than just Adobe product users?

Thoughts?

[via RunRev]

Apple has released the final Gold Master (GM) seed of iPhone 3.2 SDK for iPad, get it now via developer.apple.com:

iPhone SDK 3.2 GM Seed is now available. Starting today, all iPad apps submitted must be built using this release.

All members of the iPhone Developer Program can submit their iPad apps to iTunes Connect for review and approval. If you did not submit your app during the initial review period, but upload it by March 31, it will be reviewed but may not make the grand opening of the iPad App Store.

Make sure you read the iPhone SDK GM Seed Release Notes before installing and developing with this release.

Furthermore, 9to5Mac notes that an additional email has gone out to developers telling them they need those final apps in for approval by March 31, 5pm PDT. Any time after that and there’s no guarantees your app will be in there for launch.

(And hey, if you want to help TiPb out with coverage of your iPad app, the sooner you contact us the better as well — we’re expecting something close to insanity come Saturday!)

Apple’s iPhone Developer News brings word that videos from last year’s iPhone Tech Talk World Tour are now available online for iPhone Developer Program Members.

Watch these videos to learn advanced techniques to enhance the capability, functionality, and usability of your iPhone apps. Apple’s Technology Evangelists take you deep into coding and design techniques so that you can take your apps to the next level.

We’ve posted and linked to some notes from the Tech Tour before and it sounds like excellent information was shared so if you’re a developer be sure to check them out.

TechCrunch links to noted developer Tim Bray who’s taking a position as “Developer Advocate” at Google for Android but who announces it while taking a swipe at Apple’s iPhone:

The iPhone vision of the mobile Internet’s future omits controversy, sex, and freedom, but includes strict limits on who can know what and who can say what. It’s a sterile Disney-fied walled garden surrounded by sharp-toothed lawyers. The people who create the apps serve at the landlord’s pleasure and fear his anger.

Which is completely and utterly wrong, of course. That’s Apple’s vision of the mobile, curated App Store which they intend to be a family friendly, corporately liable software repository. Apple’s vision of the mobile internet is Mobile Safari and its WebKit rendering engine and other technological underpinnings, most of which are open source and heavily supported by Apple.

You can, now, today, get porn on the iPhone via Mobile Safari. You can get Google Voice. You can pretty much get anything and everything without any interference from or need for approval by Apple. It’s the definition of the Winer-ian vendor-less platform Bray quotes. Never mind:

I’m going to have to get savvier about HTML5-based applications, because a lot of smart people think the future’s there, that the “native app” notion will soon seem quaint.

And HTML5 (which allows web-based apps to behave more like native apps) is something Apple has been pushing very hard as well (from promotion at Apple’s Developer Tech Talk World Tour to WebKit.org itself). And again, now, today, you can code and run some of the best, most robust HTML5 applications for mobile to run well on iPhone Safari — and other WebKit-based mobile browsers.

We’ve said many times Safari is Apple’s open app store, and Apple even includes it beside Mac and iPhone on developer.apple.com. That’s what confuses us about comments like Bray’s and TechCrunch’s mention of former Facebook for iPhone developer Joe Hewitt (who has since said the iPad is “everything he’s wished for”).

We’ll stop short of assigning motives to Bray’s comments, given his new job. It’s awesome for Bray and Google and Android and developers to even have that sort of person in that sort of position, and we congratulate and wish all of them well. But it’s important to point out that while Apple’s App Store might be “closed as in managed”, Mobile Safari is wide open; if you’re a web developer it’s delivering as well or better than anyone else on the promise of of that platform today.

iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch developers: get yourself over to Apple’s developer center, as iPhone SDK 3.2 Beta 4 is ready for you to download, a mere two weeks after Beta three was unleashed for your coding pleasure. As MacRumors and Engadget note, it’s too early to say what magical new capabilities are to be found here – but don’t let that stop you.

TechCrunch is reporting that companies who mass produce (or provide tools and templates for the mass production of) “cookie cutter” apps are hearing that they need to add differentiation and functionality or risk Apple not allowing them into the iTunes App Store. Jason Kincaid says:

Between the developers I spoke to, the consensus was this: Apple doesn’t appear to be opposed to ‘app generators’ and templates per se, but in the last month or so it has started cracking down on basic applications that are little more than RSS feeds or glorified business cards. In short, Apple doesn’t want people using native applications for things that a basic web app could accomplish. For some of these services that’s bad news, because that’s exactly the sort of application they produce; any new applications they submit are going to get rejected. But all hope isn’t lost for them, provided they can make their apps more useful.

Kincaid says Appmakr for one has taken suggestions from Apple to improve things like in-app purchases, instant notifications, offline access, and landscape viewing modes and describe the process as positive. Other services apparently haven’t had as much luck.

The move seems to be part of Apple’s ongoing efforts to increase the quality of the App Store experience and protect the brand. Much like the removal of sex-based apps last month, “cookie cutter” apps could seen as low value, sometimes verging on spam. For consumers it could result in a cleaner App Store and ultimately better apps (more than just re-packaged RSS feeds) but at the expense of quantity and choice. For developers, it’s likely another in a list of things they’ll consider before building on Apple’s platform.

If Apple is indeed working on revamping the mass produced app, what think you?

iPhone developer extraordinaire Erica Sadun has been running a great series of “iPhone Dev Sugar” posts over on TUAW:

• Should you be building universal apps for App Store?
• Create shiny buttons easily
• Simulating device events with iSimulate
• Re-signing applications - Installing the 3.2 SDK alongside the 3.1.1 SDK
• Three lessons from the iPhone (big fingers, attention spans, fast launches)
• Letting go of iPhone visual design patterns
• Simple table badges
• Improved Network Reachability routines
• SwapKit

For anyone interested in the nuts and bolts — and subtleties — of iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch development, they’re definitely worth a look. Check them out, and if you have any ninja-level tips of your own to share, don’t be shy!

According to Game Developers Research, their new study shows the iPhone platform is more popular with game developers than either the Nintendo DS or Sony PSP. Electronista sums up:

Demand for the iPhone has surged to where about 19 percent of all game developers are writing for the iPhone and iPod touch. The figure is more than twice as high as for the DS and PSP and results in three quarters of all mobile game developers writing for Apple’s handhelds.

While no reasons were cited for the level of developer interest in the iPhone and iPod touch, they figure the high visibility of the Apple brand combined with robust developer tools and centralized App Store model makes for a compelling package. 75 million devices on the market probably doesn’t hurt either…

Good news for iPhone, iPod touch, and eventually iPad gamers — with developers come great games.

If you’re interested in iPad design or development, the internet is already offering up resources for you, including interface recommendations, icon templates, and galleries of Apple examples. And why not? The same people who love every pixel of interface on the iPhone are finding 1024×768 reasons to pour over the iPad’s beefy new canvas as well.

First up, Gizmodo highlights some of Apple’s new iPad Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) which suggest developers “think different” and not just big when it comes to the iPad. They have to “just work” no matter how a user holds the iPad, portrait or landscape, and they should remain just as focused and uncluttered as iPhone apps. It should be easy to share, both in terms of several people using the app on the same devices, and moving data back and forth from the app. Real world look and feel is encouraged; making contacts look like a book gives it tangibility. Multiple multitouch gestures are your friend (there’s a reason NOVA let the player touch the screen and turn the door latch). And while it is a computer, it shouldn’t present the user with file-systems or other computer management tasks.

Next, Cocoia has been generous enough to share a downloadable Photoshop PSD template for iPhone and iPad icons, everything from giant 512×512 to standard iPad and iPhone sizes, to iPad Spotlight and menubar variants.

Last but not least, developer Frasier Spears has painstakingly assembled a Flickr gallery of every iPad UI element he could get his screen-shot on, and presented them with commentary. No better way to get started than by checking out what Apple’s done so far.

Is the Android Marketplace a more open alternative for developers compared to the iPhone App Store, or does the growing diversity of hardware, software, and overlays make it just as frustrating in its own way? Okay, so Fake Steve is likely to be more pro-Apple than a Fake Eric would be, fair enough. And, yes, some high-profile developers have taken issue with Apple’s draconian incompetent App Store approval process, well taken. But as much as Fake Steve is funny, the real Dan Lyons (of Newsweek) behind him is an equal opportunity offender, happy to take the p*ss out of Apple at any opportunity, often anti-Linux, and just as often insightful when it comes to things like Old Media and, yes, competing platforms. So take this with a giant-sized fake grain of salt, but take it:

There are just a bunch of different devices that have a lot in common with each other but aren’t quite the same. Trying to turn that into a “platform” is like trying to build a porch using three hundred pieces of wood, none of which are the same size. From the [Gadget Labs] story:

A slew of problems have made managing Android apps a “nightmare,” they say, including three versions of the OS (Android 1.5, 1.6 and 2.0), custom firmware on many phones, and hardware differences between different models.

Dear friends, this is only going to get worse, not better. Think about it. Every handset maker wants its device to be different. And special. So they intentionally tweak the OS to give themselves what they think of as an “advantage,” when really it’s nothing of the sort, because all it does is prevent ISVs from writing apps for them. Even if the handset makers weren’t totally short-sighted and evil, there’s the competency issue.

No doubt Apple’s App Store can make developers tear their flesh off in frustration, and GPS/CPU/GPU/Camera/etc. issues fragment the iPhone/iPod platform as well, but at the end of the day, does 50+ million “compatible enough” iDevices that are gate-keeper’ed still offer developers a better experience than a wide range of quasi-competitive, free’er devices?

(Yes, Google is closed as well, just not as closed…)

Why is it easier to make a great Twitter client for Apple’s iPhone than for Google Android phones like the new Verizon DROID? After Robert Scoble wrote a typically impassioned post entitled The Droid fails AS A PRODUCT when compared to Palm Pre and iPhone, and used Twitter clients as an example, Thomas Marban of Android’s premiere Twitter client, Twidroid, responded:

one of the main reasons why UIs are unequally inferior are not only the way you build apps (open vs. closed hw/sw system) and the SDK itself but also marginal to non-existing UI standards, no ready-made drag & drop UI items, variations in carrier- & device firmware, hard- & software input, screen sizes, international customizations, modded phones, rooted phones and last but not least completely different expectations among users and the linux’ish target group itself. in a nutshell: beautiful mess. obviously, all these reasons eat up a huge pile of time that one could better spend with improving UX and polishing the interface. those who started early with android development have learned and are still learning it the hard way, just like they did with win 3.1 back in the days.

John Gruber of Daring Fireball, in Lots of Excuses comments:

That doesn’t sound like someone who plans to ever ship something of the caliber of Tweetie, Birdfeed, or Twitterrific. From what I’ve seen of Twidroid, it’s not even as good as Craig Hockenberry’s original version of Twitterrific for iPhone, which was written as a jailbreak app before the iPhone officially supported third-party software. If Android hardware diversity is already a problem for third-party developers, it’s only going to get worse.

This also highlights the advantages Apple has given iPhone developers. Not only is the iPhone based on OS X, but the development tools are based on Xcode and Interface Builder, and while not as many developers are likely already familiar with Cocoa touch as, say, developers might be with Android’s language(s) (or web developers may be for the Palm Pre), existing Mac developers can make those tools sing. And, given the SDK Apple provided, even new developers get a huge head start in terms of functions and user interface elements.

Sure, that means there’s a lower barrier of entry to creating poor iPhone apps, but it also means great developers aren’t wasting their time re-inventing UI wheels, or fighting the OS to do right by their apps. They investing that time in making great apps.

Acceleroto, makers of the iPhone apps Air Hockey [$0.99 - iTunes link] and Air Hockey Free [Free - iTunes link] have written an interesting post on the differences between developing their app for the iPhone App Store vs. the Palm Pre App Catalog. Some take away:

• They charge more for the webOS version due to lower volume expectations
• iPhone and Palm Pre are “remarkably similar” hardware-wise
• They already knew Objective-C, but Javascript wasn’t difficult to pick up
• iPhone is native, webOS is interpreted, so there’s a difference in execution speed (more important for game developers)
• Getting code onto the Pre is faster. Debugging is much more difficult than iPhone.
• Had to “skinny up” iPhone code to get 30-fps for webOS.
• Multitasking and garbage collection impacts performance
• Since webOS apps are “web pages”, touch events are handled as mouse-clicks and aren’t as smooth
• No sound yet, because the requisite timing isn’t possible.

So, as we’ve heard before, development for non-intensive apps is likely quicker and easier for the Palm Pre, but more intensive apps, like games, are still a challenge. Doubtless Apple will continue to work on making casual apps easier to deploy, and Palm on making deeper apps run better.

The full post also includes the backstory of how and why Air Hockey was ported to webOS, and shown off as part of the Palm Pixi introduction. Give it a read, and then let us know what you think.

[Acceleroto via PreCentral.net]

A short time ago we mentioned that Standford’s iPhone Application Programming course was being made available as a video podcast via iTunes U. In addition to two lectures a week, the course offers special Friday sessions, one of which recently featured Atebits‘ Loren Brichter (iTunes link), the developer behind popular iPhone (and now Mac) Twitter client, Tweetie (see our review).

Brichter, though he worked for Apple on the first generation iPhone, had no actual app development experience when he set out to make Tweetie, yet the app has become the most successful iPhone — and mobile — paid Twitter client in terms of both revenue and user base, hitting the #6 position in the App Store at one point. How’d that happen?

At the beginning of the lecture, Brichter shares his App Store daily revenue graph (sans actual dollar amounts) for Tweetie, which he says he made simply because he wasn’t satisfied with any of the existing clients. Focusing on a mix of functionality and simplicity, and an Apple-like experience, Brichter credits luck, quality, and marketing for Tweetie’s success. Part of that marketing, after a small initial sales spike due to friends and family, was the semi-facetious introduction of PEE (“popularity enhancers” like a flashlight and fart sounds) that garnered a lot of media attention and quintupled growth for a while.

Other growth occurred when Apple featured Tweetie on their main page, but the biggest growth-booster — also thanks to Apple — was when Tweetie 1.3 was rejected by the App Store due to the term f**kitlist just happening to be a trend on Twitter’s search results that day. Press jumped on it and users bought it up. (Apple reversed their decision later that same day).

The final two growth spikes occurred after Twitter itself began highlighting Tweetie as part of their sidebar factoid promotion, and after the press surrounding the recent introduction of Tweetie for Mac.

Being part of the Application Development course, Brichter also touches on some of the things he did from a programming standpoint to boost Tweetie’s performance.

Looks behind the app development curtain, especially in academic settings with some back-and-forth questions and answers, are rare enough in the iPhone world that anyone interested should definitely consider checking out the whole session.

Apple’s Ad-Hoc iPhone distribution method allows developers to register up to 100 iPhones or iPod touches so they can run their applications on them without having to go through the App Store. This is priceless for beta testing, educational environments, and other non-public environments.

Dragthing‘s James Thomson, however, has posted on a problem that just might bite a few developers right in their beta tests:

Reading between the lines, and discussions on the forums, it sounds like every time I deleted or modified an entry, I was getting one closer to the magic figure of 100 device IDs you have entered since the beginning of time. When you hit the limit, regardless of how many total device IDs you have listed in the portal, your ability to further edit the list is removed completely.

In other words, if you change your beta testers — if you change your own device — you might just end up locked out of your own Ad-Hoc distribution.

Check out the full post for more on this problem and what, if nothing, Apple is currently doing to help developers fix and/or work around it.

Meanwhile, let us know if you have any ideas as well…

Maybe this explains, at least in part, the new iPhone 3.0 Beta 5released yesterday? Looks like Apple is super-eager to get developers testing and submitting 3.0 compatible applications.

We’re really eager to see what developers are coming up with to leverage all those great 3.0 features as well. Really, really eager. Ahem.

Full text of Apple’s email to developers:

All apps must be compatible with iPhone OS 3.0

Millions of iPhone and iPod touch customers will move to iPhone OS 3.0 this summer. Beginning today, all submissions to the App Store will be reviewed on the latest beta of iPhone OS 3.0. If your app submission is not compatible with iPhone OS 3.0, it will not be approved.

Existing apps in the App Store should already run on iPhone OS 3.0 without modification, but you should test your existing apps with iPhone OS 3.0 to ensure there are no compatibility issues. After iPhone OS 3.0 becomes available to customers, any app that is incompatible with iPhone OS 3.0 may be removed from the App Store.

Begin testing now

iPhone OS 3.0 beta 5 and iPhone SDK 3.0 beta 5 are now posted to the iPhone Dev Center. Start testing today to ensure your application runs on iPhone OS 3.0. Visit the iPhone Dev Center for additional development information including iPhone SDK Release Notes for iPhone OS 3.0 beta 5 and Getting ready for iPhone OS 3.0.

(Thanks DevX for the tip!)

Read Write Web has posted the findings of mobile analytics firm Flurry. They break it down as follows:

• Apps (see charts above) put the iPhone staggeringly ahead in terms of active developers, applications developed, and consumer usage. (note: lack of analytics use by BlackBerry devs likely skews those numbers).
• Smartphones are being used more than ever
• iPhone apps, if they’re marketed effectively, are making strong development houses millions of dollars.
• iPhone apps are becoming “hit-driven” like the music industry.
• Free versions help sell paid apps
• Only 10% of users update their apps (we’re not sure if that’s skewed by other platforms, Apple makes it simple to update).

It’s important to remember that with this type of analytics, results are hyper-dependent on what’s included (and what’s missing) from the data set. If nothing else, however, iPhone developers are getting more attention from, and making greater use of, market analytics at the moment.

That said, anyone surprised by these numbers?

I was just listening to Dieter and Mike’s latest PalmCast, where they were crowing in duet about how sweet it was that the Palm Pre has an app that can book movie tickets and automagically add the movie event information to the Palm Pre calendar.

I know, I know. If they love the Palm Pre so much, why don’t they just marry it? (Dieter is, in fact, looking for a state that may allow it…) But they raise an excellent point — where’s the iPhone version of that functionality? Why can’t we push a button on our movie ticket app, or concert tour app, or tradeshow app, or whatever and have that slice of time booked off for us in our calendar?

While the iPhone SDK allows access to the Contacts database to do all manner of glorious, 3rd party app-powered magic, Apple has thus far not surfaced any APIs to do the same for calendaring. I don’t believe the new 3.0 SDK has announced any improvements in that area either.

What makes calendar so different? MobileMe and ActiveSync push both. Apple’s even giving Calendar some much-appreciated CalDAV and subscription love, with no CardDAV that we’re aware of for contacts.

We’re sure developers would appreciate it. We know users would adore it.

Anyone have any idea why we don’t have this yet?

Ars Technica’s iPhone wonder woman, Erica Sadun, has put together what must be the first expert level how-to: Pushing tweets to your iPhone with Apple Push notifications

Ars shows you how to create a Push-based Twitter update notification system for the iPhone without actually showing you any of the details due to the ongoing NDA. (But don’t worry, we tell you exactly where to find the instructions.)

Nin. Ja.

Now if you need help getting your code on, it just so happens that the Stanford iPhone Application Development course (the one being offered via iTunes U) looks like it has “make your own Twitter client” on the agenda.

Ready? Set? Push Tweet!

iTunes U has posted the first in what promises to be a series of video lectures on iPhone Application Programming [iTunes link] from Stanford University. Led by Evan Doll and Alan Cannistaro, it’s recommended for people with previous C, UNIX, object oriented programming languages, and graphics tookit experience, but will likely prove of value to anyone interested to in coding the next great iPhone app. Ars Technica says:

Videos of all the lectures, lead by Apple engineers, will be posted on iTunes U two days after each class meeting [...] The slides from the lectures will be available to download as well. The school notes that the material will be the same that enrolled students get, but unfortunately, following the lessons via iTunes U won’t make you eligible for college credit.

So, who’s adding it to their feed?

An app that barks at a dog to get it’s attention so it can then snap the dog’s picture? Now that’s some cunning canine camera creativity right there. We imagine, however, a barking dog might get the attention of all sorts of other snap-able subjects.

Bow Cam comes from Appliya, a Tokyo based iPhone developer house. We’re hoping to see more from them, but we’ve also heard that waiting in the increasingly long line for app approval is even more problematic internationally, with some iTunes branch reps simply telling devs to contact the US for support (regardless of language differences.)

Let’s hope the post-holiday season slows down a little, Apple adds both staff and a modicum of transparency, and the process as a whole matures into 2009, b’okay?

Tried Bow Cam on your pooch? (or prowler?) Let us know how it worked for you!

David Perry of Didev Studios wrote in to tell us about Bugz for the iPhone, and was kind enough to send along some interesting insights into the game, developing for the iPhone, and the App Store.

On the origins of Bugz as a PSP game:

Bugz was originally conceived about 2 years ago as a PSP game. It took me around a year of coding, design, graphics and audio work before I made a release into a competition that was being run at the time. Bugz was well received in the competition and received first place. The public seemed to like Bugz and it’s quirky cuteness.

On moving Bugz to the iPhone:

Recently I decided to look at iPhone development and Bugz was an obvious choice as a first project. The initial version of Bugz for the PSP only had 17 levels – this would obviously need expanding for the iPhone version. Whilst contemplating the iPhone port of Bugz, I asked a friend to join me on the project, he accepted and Didev Studios was born.

On the re-development:

The port to approximately 5 weeks and I use the term ‘port’ loosely. The game was pretty much re-written specifically for the iPhone, only the original graphics and audio were retained. The iPhone really is a great device for developers to create for. The SDK is feature packed and comes with great documentation and samples – all that a developer could want.

On the App Store and marketing for the iPhone:

I’m happy with the way things have gone so far, Bugz sales are increasing slowly and feedback from users has on the whole been great. The one thing that is hard is marketing your app. Any released app is quickly lost in the App Store and external marketing is a must in order to get potential users interested.

Bugz is available in the iTunes App Store.

Back before my iPhone was torn from me (sniffle) for the Round Robin, Twitteriffic was (and will be again) my mobile Twitter client of choice. Since TiPb has also been looking into App development and iPhone UI lately, this all added up to make Craig Hockenberry’s post today on furbo.org especially interesting. Hockenberry talks about the importance of making choices in development, about what features to add and what to leave out, and perhaps most importantly to us, in variety of different approaches:

There will always be more than one way to solve a problem: a developer’s personal preferences will inevitably seep into the implementation. Having many choices for a Twitter client means that developers don’t need to create a “one size fits all” solution. In essence, users get to choose a developer whose preferences match their own.

If you’re at all interested in a behind-the-curtains peak into what makes a good app great, be sure to read the whole article.

Also, let us know if you’re currently using Twitterrific, if what he mentions was already obvious to you, or if you’re using another Twitter client, what you’re using and why you prefer it?

Yahoo! oneConnect wasn’t the only news to come steamrolling out of the CTIA Keynote yesterday, and TiPb senior editor Dieter Bohn was there live to capture it:

The big story is BluePrint — it offers a very quick mobile services development platform based on XML. Basically it’s a large set of XML setup you can program a mobile app in and it will display very nicely on different platforms — iPhone, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Symbian, etc. They are opening it up for anybody and anybody can distribute however they’d like. Yahoo would prefer you use Yahoo’s ads on your apps, but not requiring it.

The fine folks at iphone-dev want to make it clear: they’ve jailbroken the iPhone and they have the video above to prove it. Now all we need is a release announcement …and maybe confirmation that it will work on that rumored 2.01 release. On the first score, they let us know they’re hard at work. They must be — it’s clearly fried their taste in music — check the video above out for proof of both.

Thanks to Cherryhead25 for the tip!. [via]

Want to develop apps for the iPhone? Sad that WWDC is sold out? You’re just in luck, the iPhone Dev Camp 2 is scheduled for August 1-3, 2008 in the Adobe Systems offices in San Francisco, California. A follow up to the original iPhone Dev Camp with one obvious new twist, the SDK.

A not-for-profit effort focused on the development of apps on the iPhone, it also hopes to migrate Mac OS X apps to the iPhone. Though they are well aware of the NDA that Apple has in place on the iPhone, they are hopeful that Apple will lift the NDA after the public launch of the App Store.

Over that August weekend, Cocoa Touch developers, web developers, UI designers, and testers will be working together in app development. If you are interested in attending the project, feel free to click the Read Link!

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