Scopy for iPhone is an extremely well put together Twitter client with a catch. Scopy only focuses on your Twitter friends’ photo streams. It’s very similar to services like Instagram but pulls all your friends existing Twitter photos from your stream. You can choose to sort by individual friend as well.

When I want to upload a photo, I can choose my photo service and apply filters as well. Scopy also pulls photos from tons of photo services, so you’ll never miss your friend’s photos. Hit the jump for a bit more on Scopy and to find out how you can win a complimentary copy!

iTunes Link

Services like Instagram only work as long as you’re both using the service and uploading your photos not only to Twitter, but to Instagram as well. This is the reason I like Scopy. It simply searches through your existing Twitter stream and pulls all the images from it. If you’re the type of person that likes viewing people’s photos on Twitter, you’ll love this app. It’s extremely well put together.

If I want to view only a certain friend’s photos, I can simply find them in my friend’s list and view only their photo uploads. The app sometimes doesn’t want to load individual photos for some users so I think it may only be pulling photos within a certain time frame.

Want to try a copy of Scopy for yourself? You’re in luck! The developer has given TiPb a bunch of promo codes for our readers. How do you win? Follow @TiPb on Twitter and at least one of our writers. Shoot @TiPb and at least one writer an @reply with the tag #Scopy. I’ve sent promos to give away to quite a few of our writers but make sure to follow all of us to increase your chances of winning! And you never know when when any one of us may have other promo codes to give away on Twitter.

Here’s our handles on Twitter, and remember, you have to be following TiPb and the writer with the code to win a code!

• @TiPb
• @reneritchie
• @GeorgiaTiPb
• @iChadman
• @iMuggle
• @llofte
• @jfsikora
• @andrewwray
• @Brian_Tufo
• @JorjLim
• @ChrisOldroyd

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 started sending out free iTunes movie rental codes to US iTunes users today. The promo code will allow you to rent one of the 8,500 available movies.

Redeem your free movie rental below, and start watching one of your favorite movies on iTunes. Watch what you want, when you want. Enjoy movie rentals on your iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch, the all-new Apple TV, or on your computer. You have 30 days from the moment you rent a movie to start watching, and 24 hours to finish it.

Apple has not indicated the reason behind this promotion, but we’re not complaining – we’ll gladly accept a free rental. Perhaps this is Apple’s way of saying “Happy Holidays”.

Who’s received a free rental code? What do you plan to rent? Do you plan to watch it on your iPhone or iPad?

[9To5Mac]

We reviewed Clearcam for iPhone last week, and this week, the developer was nice enough to share some promo codes with us to give out to you guys! Since our review, the developer released an update to the app that fixed some of the issues I had, such as some shots coming out a bit blurry for an unknown reason. He’s also added a few tweaks that have made the overall image quality even better!

What do you have to do to get your hands on a code you ask? Simply leave a comment below, that’s it. We’ll pick a handful of you at random on Friday to win some codes.  Remember! To win a code, you must leave a comment with a VALID e-mail address. If I can’t send you an e-mail at the account you left the comment with, another comment will be selected.

UPDATE: Give-away is over, winners after the break!

And don’t forget, we also do giveaways on Twitter from time to time randomly, so if you haven’t already, follow us on Twitter for chances to win other promo codes as well!

TiPb – @TiPb

Rene – @ReneRitchie

Jeremy – @jfsikora

Georgia – @GeorgiaTiPb

Leanna – @llofte

Ally – @iMuggle

The developers of Clearcam are also on Twitter, so give them a follow as well!

@occipital

@twoteethtech

• apeach
• Todd
• E Pow
• Cheerios
• shinseiromeo
• Brb
• Scott
• Ricky
• Eduardo Freitas
• Jason
• Samouflage
• Tesh
• Jailbreak4ever
• Mo
• TrickyD

Congrats!

According to developers, Apple has reversed it’s previous decision and will now allow Promo Codes to be generated for iTunes App Store apps rated 17+ — which includes any application that embeds a browser or otherwise allows unfettered access to the internet.

TUAW adds that:

While Apple has not made any official comment on the issue, it appears that they have quietly conceded this battle to the developers, once again enabling them to distribute promo codes as needed for all of their apps.

Promo Codes are the mechanism Apple uses to allow developers of paid apps to generate 50 tickets for free downloads, typically used for give aways or send out review copies. During the brief era of prohibition, everything from Twitter clients to internet data front ends had to either go without, or cut into their beta-testing pool by using some of their 100 ad-hoc build licenses, which still suffer from restrictions all their own.

So, good on Apple, let’s keep the problem-solving momentum going.

Macro.org, from the developer behind Tumblr and Instapaper, has a post up highlighting the latest App Store controversy — that all web-embedded apps must be rated 17+ and now don’t get Promo Codes — and comes to this conclusion:

Apple thinks reviews can take 8-30 days and web-capable apps need nudity warnings and the management interface can be buggy as s**t and they don’t need us to be able to reach them and nobody really needs to take any of this very seriously. Because it’s working for them. They’re making a killing taking their 30% commission on the 1.5 billion copies of $0.99 top-25 games that they’ve sold. Who cares if the App Store discourages good developers from putting serious effort into it? Apple doesn’t need to care. And, clearly, they don’t.

The whole post is definitely worth reading, and brings to mind the classic riff — “any incompetence sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from malice”.

Here’s the the thing, though: Apple is not only serving developers. They’re being served with lawsuits. And their hyper-vigilant legal departments are no doubt saying — perhaps rightly — that if someone uses a Twitter client that embeds a WebView and happens to see the f-word or a nipple, they’ll sue Apple.

Ridiculous, sure. A poor solution, of course. But it’s the kind of rolling triage Apple seems to be doing as the App Store grows beyond even their expectations.

Don’t get us wrong, all the problems marco.org mentions are real, frustrating, and need to be fixed yesterday. For Apple to force 17+ Ratings on these apps, and remove Promo Code functionality, is intolerable — and we wonder why Mobile Safari, Mobile Mail, iPod, etc. aren’t forced to pop up the same warning under that logic.

It’s entirely Apple’s fault, setting themselves up as editors to the App Store, and then not implementing the policies or staff necessary to keep up with the content requiring editorial approval.

But we don’t think Apple doesn’t care. They surely do, and will no doubt continue to make slow, steady improvements and address developer and user concerns, while at the same time making other clumsy and what look like bone-headed decisions and mistakes. Lots of them.

Toby Vincent of SmudgeApps wrote in to let us know that along with general App Store distribution and the 100-device Ad Hoc method universities and beta testers have been using, Apple has just opened the door to a new system:

Apple has finally started allowing us to issue free promotional copies of their iPhone applications. Devs can issue 50 promotional codes for their application. The codes allow the recipient to download a full copy of the application for free. Codes can only be presently used in the U.S. iTunes Stores by using the “Redeem” link in the App Store.

This would allow developers to, among other things, get their apps more easily into the hands of reviewers, or give them away as part of a promotional/marketing initiative.

Vincent was kind enough to send along a promo code for their flagship App, Jam! Unfortunately, as a — I guess undeserving? — Canadian, I was barred from downloading it. Ah well, my loss will be the gain of one of our US based writers for now…

So, while this still keeps apps for the most part still locked into the App Store, does it give developers a little more wiggle room in their iTunes straight jackets? What else does Apple need to do to really help expose the now 10,000 strong catalog to end users?