Craig Hockenberry and the Icon Factory are among the earliest and most well respected iPhone developers in the community. In addition to their amazing design work and Mac and Windows software, they created the highly popular Twitterrific and Frenzic for the iPhone.

TiPb: We’ve been spending a lot of time lately discussing the App Store and what business model(s) it will evolve From launch, you took the route of having both a premium paid version of Twitterrific and a free, add-supported version. What made you settle on that idea, and how effective has it been for you?

Craig Hockenberry: The desire to have both a free and paid version of Twitterrific came from our experience on the Mac. It’s the best of both worlds for everyone: we get some funds to pay for the development of the product, and users get to choose how they want to support us.

We decided on having ads before the final details of the App Store were revealed. Since there are no demos in iTunes, the ability to have a free version for people to evaluate has been a big benefit. A lot of my fellow developers are now looking at this model.

With stories about apps being rejected or removed from the App Store, how (if at all) does this effect your planning or strategy as a developer? Is it something a developer should have to consider?

Rejections and other App Store issues are certainly a factor in planning. But it’s just one aspect of a successful product: it’s more important to focus on how an app will make customers happy or solve a problem.

That being said, I know of an app that was cancelled before it even left the drawing board. It included both podcasting and fart noises, and was actually a great app concept. I’m sad that it will never get made.

There’s still a demand for multitasking on the iPhone, which would obviously benefit apps like Twitterrific. How far will Apple’s still- pending Push-Notification service go towards satisfying this demand for you as a developer and as a user?

Asking me about a unreleased Apple technology isn’t going to get you a very interesting answer. (This stuff is still under NDA.)

I will make the observation that Apple is still getting its own push service (MobileMe) in order, so we’re all waiting to see how this will pan out. It’s not a simple problem from a developer’s point-of-view.

Now that Twitter seems to have solved their up-time issues, what could they surface or add to their platform to make apps like Twitterrific even more useful or powerful?

There are a lot of things that could make Twitter more useful: http://bit.ly/9L0A

One thing I see a need for is the ability to “jump into” existing threads of conversation amongst a group of users. This has been hard to do until recently because replies didn’t contain accurate links to original tweet. That has improved recently (thanks to Twitter implementing one of my suggestions.) But there could still be a lot done in that area to make the user experiences better.

You’ve now developed for the iPhone during three distinct phases: pre-SDK, post-SDK under NDA, and now SDK post-NDA. Any particular insights you gained from that range of experience, and what steps would you like to see Apple take next?

Everything led up to the “SDK post-NDA” phase. It’s what I wanted all along: developers can now freely exchange information about what we’re working on. When something doesn’t work right, others can help.

I think Apple is fully aware of this need: the recent launch of devforums.apple.com is an excellent example of how they’re actively working to help developers come up to speed with this new platform.

The only thing that I’d like to see from Apple at this point is a detailed list of what is and is not allowed in the App Store. This lack of information regarding acceptance limits innovation from developers: it’s too risky.

If there were absolutely no limitations on the SDK, what app would you never consider developing yourself, but still love to see on the iPhone?

I’d love to see a native version of Lotus Notes with excellent calendar support.

Seems like a strange request, I know.

But my wife uses a BlackBerry because she needs this functionality. If it was available on the iPhone she could buy her own and stop borrowing mine all the time

Profound thanks to Craig Hockenberry for taking the time to share his insights on the iPhone.

Furbo.org is his personal blog, iconfactory.com is his company’s website, and both Twitterriffic (read our review) Free and Premium and Frenzic (read our Forum review) are available via the iPhone iTunes App Store.

Frenzic Forum Review by cjvitek (For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!

A new game….just what the iPhone needs!

Actually, a little side note. I approach my iPhone as mostly an entertainment device. So while I will find, use (and review) useful productivity, utility, or lifestyle apps (or other categories) by far the category I am most interested in is games. I would guess that at least 70% of my downloads are games. Anyway, on to the review.

Frenzic is a frantic, fast paced strategy game, simple in concept, but one that can provide lots of enjoyment (frantic + frenzy = frenzic!). In Frenzic, your goal is to put little pie-shaped wedges into various circles, filling the circles. For anyone who has played Trivial Pursuit (where is that game for the iPhone?) the shapes look just like the pie pieces from there!

Anyway, the pie pieces come in three colors – orange, green/yellow, and purple. As you move along, you can try to organize the pieces by color, but you aren’t required to (Thank GOD!). If you do fill a circle with pie pieces that are the same color, you get more points, an extra life, and a power-up (more on that later). If you fill a circle with mixed colors, you just get some points.

The game starts off slow – presenting you with one piece of a pie, and 6 empty circles to fill. A timer (around the center) indicates how much time you have left to move that piece. If you run out of time, you lose a life. Lose all your lives and the game is over.

As you progress, you have less and less time to use a piece (at least it felt that way, I didn’t actually time it). Eventually (trust me, it will happen) you will get to frazzled to find a place to put the piece, and you will lose your last life.

As I said, when you fill a circle with pie-pieces that are the same color, you get a bonus life, more points, and a power-up. The power ups have to be manually activated, and come in three varieties – double points, slow down, or nuke. Double points give you, as you might expect, double points for a limited time. Slow down simply slows the timer down for a while. And nuke simply clears some the board. Unfortunately you are not given the choice of which power up you get, nor can you stockpile them to save up (I know, I tried). Although you can’t stockpile them, you can pick up a powerup while you are currently using one.

In the settings, you can control the various aspects of the game – sound, music, vibration, etc. You can also activate “advance piece” which allows you to move to the next piece costing you a life (but not having to wait for the time to run out).

You also have the option of uploading scores, which I didn’t participate in, but some people may enjoy. It would be nice to see a head-to-head match ability via wifi, giving people the same pieces and seeing how they do with them (or people using the same board, filling each other’s spaces to foil their moves!). There are lots of options for a multiplayer, and I would hope to see something in that vein in the future. There is also no difficulty setting – it would be nice to be able to choose easier (with only two colors) or harder (with four colors).

This is a fun game. The graphics are simple but crisp and clean, and the background sounds and music work well with the game. The responsiveness is great, and while it is not a game to play to relax, it certainly is one the shows a high level of replay-ability.

Pros:

• Nice graphics,
• simple concept,
• addicting

Cons:

• No multiplayer

Conclusion

All in all, this is a fun game, and may very well make its way onto the first three pages of my iPhone (where I keep “my apps” as opposed to apps I am reviewing). It is fun, fast paced, and easy to pick up. It is currently on sale for $1.99 (during the “holiday season”) but it is normally $4.99. My rating is based on the current price – for the “normal” price, people may consider it overpriced.

Forum Review Rating

[Frenzic is available from the iTunes App Store.]

Apple has now hit the milestone 10,000th app in the iTunes App Store, and to celebrate, TapTapTap created the awesome icon tile artwork above (via TUAW), and what’s more, CNBC (via iLounge) noted that Apple has snuck in some new ad copy claiming iPhone users have “downloaded over 300 million” apps.

Those numbers are simply staggering. As Steve Jobs recently, the adoption rate is beyond anything seen before in the industry. That the App Store is as unified, integrated, and easy as the iPhone platform itself is no doubt the driving factor.

But the question increasingly becomes, amid 10,000 apps, how do developers get more of those 300 million downloads for their apps?

Icon Factory co-founder and Frenzic designer Gedeon Maheux, on his gedblog, suggests that the app icon is an important place to start:

All too often icons are treated as second-class citizens, especially in the App Store. Lately, developers have taken to plastering “SALE” or “60% OFF!” within their icons. They’ve become lazy and let the iPhone software mar their design with glossy highlights which obscure efforts to brand their software. They use dull colors or pile on heaps of detail that just adds unwanted noise to an already cluttered array of choices. After the flashy ad pitches have faded, the icon still has to live on the user’s device and is often the first line of interaction with the product.

Another tool that may help is the new promo code system Apple has enabled for the (US-only so far) App Store. Erica Sadun provides a great iPhone promo code walk through over on Ars, explaining how to both give and receive, as well as some helpful hints for developers:

You can preview your Application. Once your App has been given a green light by Apple, the codes can be used—even before the release date you set in iTunes connect. Whenever your app is “Ready for Sale”, Apple says you can offer free downloads. Setting a future date and releasing previews allows you to build your buzz before you go live in the App Store.

The scariest thing of all? It hasn’t even been 6 months since the App Store launched (Dec. 17 will mark that anniversary). What will things look like in another 6?