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TheAppleBlog
TheAppleBlog, published by and for the day-to-day Apple user, is a prominent source for news, reviews, walkthroughs, and real life application of all Apple products.
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Weekly App Store Roundup: Jan, 10. 2009

After our first week proper in 2009, we’ve run smack-bang in to a hurricane of Apple news courtesy of this year’s Macworld event.

Over at Apple’s final MacWorld Keynote, standing in for Papa Jobs, Uncle Phil unveiled brand new iLife and iWork suites, alongside completing the Macbook Pro lineup with a 17″ model touting 8 hours of battery life.

And, to finish proceedings off, Apple revealed special singing guest Tony Bennett, allowing the adoring audience to bask in the warmth of his orange glow as he crooned the keynote to a close.

While everyone else at TheAppleBlog has had their eye on Macworld, I’ve been rolling around in the App Store and getting friendly with the latest additions.

This week I’ve been looking at Keynote Remote, Wallpaper Notes, Cisco WebEx Meeting Center and Bank Panic.

Keynote Remote ($0.99)
If you’re passionate and prepared, presenting can be a true pleasure. Keynote, being the polished application that it is, makes both preparation and execution a breeze. When I present, the Apple Remote is a key tool: enabling me to present in a fluid and relaxed manner. Using the Remote, I’m not looking at a screen or even notes, I’m looking at — and engaging with — the audience. If you want your presentations to be more effective, don’t bother with this app, go back to basics — learn your subject inside out, practice, relax and, on the day, enthuse.

Wallpaper Notes ($0.99)
Apple’s embedded Notes app is already out-dated; there’s no desktop or web sync, no reminders functionality, no bells and a distinct absence of whistles. I replaced Notes with Evernote, which incorporates a cavalcade of note-taking features. Wallpaper Notes does nothing special, bar one killer feature: saving notes as iPhone wallpaper, meaning that a quick check of the screen keeps you informed. A cunning work-around indeed.

Cisco WebEx Meeting Center (free)
Back when I worked for the European-arm of an American mobile media publisher, I learnt two important things: a white vest and organic American Apparel underwear are only ever acceptable work-wear when working from home, and, when we conducted large-scale meetings with our cousins ‘cross the pond, Cisco’s WebEx was an invaluable tool in bringing us together. Long-awaited by iPhone-touting business folk, this mobile implementation of WebEx incorporates audio-visual presentations and even chat functionality.

Bank Panic ($0.99)
It’s a morbidly apt premise for a simple iPhone game and I love it: bankrupt stock brokers have taken to hurling themselves out of high-rises due to the global financial crisis. It’s your job to stop the depressed Dow dealers snapping their supple skulls on the hard floor by catching their falling bodies in your miracle blanket. Now if this deliciously horrid plot wasn’t reason enough to purchase the game, here’s the really clever bit: the game’s difficulty is linked to the real-world value of the Dow Jones — the lower the Dow drops, the tougher the gameplay gets.

Just One More Thing

It seems that this week’s Roundup has been of a decidedly productive nature, covering tools for meetings, note-taking and presenting. Even Bank Panic has serious under-currents with its amusing use of the declining Dow Jones feeding the stock-brokers’ suicide rate.

So it’s time we lighten the mood a little as, like Sauron’s great big burning eye in the sky, I’m going to turn my cyclopean gaze to the future and draw your attention to a very promising iPhone game due out soon.

Bovine Dragon Software are the designers behind Trace, an inventive game that involves drawing the platforms that your character traverses in each stage, released last year. About to pop its youngling head out from the womb of development is Bovine Dragon’s latest creation, Gomi.

From the cutesy preview videos, it seems that Gomi is a mash-up of Mario Galaxy, Katamari Damacy and LocoRoco, wrapped in graphics that look like they were drawn in Microsoft Paint. According to the developers, the eco-friendly, grinning Gomi will be out by February, in the meantime, check out the videos to see the game in action.

Over the course of the holiday season, I decided to invest in Gameloft’s Uno for iPhone. The game is bug-ridden, clunky and slow, certainly not worth the five bucks I paid for it. And I should have known better – I’ve previously worked for a big mobile publisher and developer, based on my own experience and general industry chit-chat with my peers, I know exactly what goes in to the development of these games.

Perhaps it’s an effort to appease the needs of licensors, or to hit unrealistic release dates promised by uncommunicative marketing and sales departments, maybe it’s to please investors (who are often shielded from a proper overview of the business by misguided MDs) or it’s as distasteful as knowingly rushing a title out with a recognizable logo pasted on to it (that acts as a horridly misleading seal of quality), there are a multitude of possible reasons as to why games from the big developers and publishers are often offensively shoddy disappointments.

I’ll summarize my point as such: look at Tapulous, Hand Circus and Illusion Labs – bastions of quality independent development. It’s time the big guys started taking notes from the little guys.

That’s all from the App Store for this week, I’m quitting my jibber jabber for another 7 days and I’ll be back next Saturday with more apps. In the meantime, drop by the comments and let me know what apps you’ve been looking at.

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Daily Apple: Multi-Core iPhone, Windows 7, Box Set, Bottles

Shareholder Proposals for Upcoming Year Denied by Apple Board of Directors - Yes, it’s true that they are responsible to the shareholders, but that doesn’t mean they have to listen to their wacky ideas. Not that some of them don’t actually make sense. Hit the link for the full list.

iPhone Firmware 3.0 to Support Multi-Core Processing? - They’re not saying that anything solid is in the pipeline, but this rumor does make a bit of sense, especially once you’ve read the details. The rumor is corroborated by Imagination’s announcement that they’re working on something that would suit this purpose.

Windows 7 Goes Public Beta, Then Goes On Hold - Thanks to our friends over at jkOnTheRun, I spent most of my morning hitting reset to try to get into the brand new Windows 7 public beta. Also thanks to them, I stopped. Let’s hope they start up those engines agains soon.

Box Set Has All The Hits for Less - If you’re just getting started with this whole Mac thing, this is the deal for you. Leopard, iWork ‘09, and iLife ‘09, all for $169. That’s a steep discount, considering that without the deal, they cost $300.

Apple to Crash the CES Party? - Macworld’s definitely out, but now it looks like Apple might be eyeing up the fair maiden CES. That’s according to a source telling tales to Cult of Mac. CES does garner more press when Apple isn’t dropping huge bombs like the iPhone.

Motorola Presents the Bottle Phone - Apple, you can claim to be green all you want, but until you start making the iPhone out of recycled cardboard or something, Motorola’s got you beat. They just unveiled this beauty, made of recycled bottles.

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Final Cut Pro-to-iDVD Chapter and Widescreen Woes

For goodness’s sake, will the people at Apple responsible for iLife go talk to the Pro Apps folks so that iDVD and Final Cut Pro actually works together? You’d think that Apple would ensure both their video applications work seamlessly together, especially when such interoperability is touted in the Help section of both applications. Well, you’d be surprised at how broken it is.

I learnt that the hard way earlier this week, when I had to master a DVD for a client. My intention was to export five segments from the timeline, each of which would have chapter markers, while the segment would itself become a ‘Play All’ clip.

Having finished the edit in Final Cut Pro, I placed the necessary chapter markers in the timeline and exported each segment of the timeline as DV PAL 16:9 Anamorphic QuickTime clips. I chose this format since it was what the acquired footage was shot in.

Once I’d imported the clips into iDVD, two problems surfaced: the 16:9 clips remained anamorphically squashed in the 4:3 ratio, and iDVD could not see the chapter markers in any of the clips. After some Googling, it turned out that the problems I was facing are known issues, according to two Apple support articles.

In the first, Article TS2179, titled “iDVD: DV widescreen 16:9 workflow from Final Cut Pro”, warned that “if you export an anamorphic 16:9 DV sequence from Final Cut Pro with the intention of burning a DVD-Video of that sequence in iDVD…. Final Cut Pro does not include the widescreen aspect ratio information that iDVD looks for.”

Great. Prior to discovering the support article, I had figured iDVD would be smart enough to unsqueeze 16:9 clips back into their original anamorphic aspect ratio since QuickTime Player did exactly that.

The second problem is acknowledged in Article TS1233, titled “Final Cut Studio: “All Markers” option does not include DVD Chapter Markers”. The symptoms described in it goes: “When you export a QuickTime movie from Final Cut Pro, choosing the “All Markers” option does not include chapter markers that will function in DVD Stidio Pro or iDVD.”

Right.

Look at the screenshot of Final Cut Pro’s export dialog box above. You can see various types of markers listed. Any user would naturally assume that choosing “All Markers” would include all the types of markers. Why this is not the case for DV clips is a mystery only the FCP or iDVD folks at Apple would know, since the support article offers no explaination.

If your editing workflow comprises exporting 16:9 clips from Final Cut Pro for DVD mastering in iDVD, you’ll have to avoid using the DV Widescreen format until this is fixed in a future release of iDVD or Final Cut Pro. In the meanwhile, if your workflow involves DV Widescreen, I recommend that you export your clips as ProRes 4:2:2.

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Managing Email With Postbox

A number of different email clients are available for the Mac, but a new piece of software announced at MacWorld takes a new and different approach. Postbox is a new way to manage online communication, aiming to let you spend less time managing messages and more time getting things done. Built with powerful search and organization features, finding and browsing old messages is a simple process.

A video of the application in action can be seen at a recent presentation, and gives a great overview of what the app is capable of. The system supports all manner of email accounts and formats; IMAP, POP3, SMTP, Mobile Me, Gmail, RSS and Newsgroups. The software is noted to scale well, having been tested on databases of up to 30,000 messages.

The Main Interface

The main interface consists of folders, topics and search tabs. Folders and topics are used for categorizing and managing your email, and search tabs allow you to quickly view your contacts (generated based on all the messages you’ve received), images, attachments and links. Easy searching is central to the application and is given a great deal of attention.

The detail of the interface itself is impressive, feeling very much like a native Mac app. That said, it does feel slightly cluttered at times and there is undoubtedly room for further simplification in its look and feel.

The idea of ‘topics’ adds a different slant to traditional folder organization. These operate in a similar way to tags, and messages can be set to automatically be assigned a topic depending upon their contents or who they are from.

Conversations

As with many modern mail clients, the facility exists to display email messages in conversation threads. This is done in an accurate and visually appealing way, clearly displaying the details for each message along with a summary of who is involved with the conversation.

The sidebar area in a conversation is something I could see being very useful. It collects all the information which has so far been shared in a message thread: links, addresses, images, attachments — it’s all displayed in one place. This saves a great deal of time navigating back and forth through different messages.

Searching

While both Postbox and Mail.app are fantastic at cataloguing mail message content, Postbox takes displaying search results to a new and interesting level; emphasis is placed on context. When searching for a piece of text within a message, for instance, results show the matching results with a multi sentence abstract around it. Messages retain their original thread information, and searching for images shows all the related message information.

Sharing

With full integration to web services such as Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, and Delicious, sharing information received via email is remarkably simple. Right clicking a link, for instance, brings up a context menu of useful export options:

Getting content from various web services into a new message is just as simple — the sidebar lets you pull in information directly from search engines, reference sources, and social media sites. Integration with Google is present through the application, though for now there doesn’t seem to be any link to this being a revenue stream for the developers (as is the case with applications such as Firefox).

Conclusion

After trying Postbox I would seriously consider it as an alternative to the standard Mail.app shipping with OS X. It takes a step forward in terms of features, offering far greater functionality than Apple’s basic email client. That said, I do enjoy the simple interface of Mail.app and there are a number of minor bugs which will need ironing out before the release of Postbox.

Postbox is currently in Beta stage, and you’re able to register your details to be notified of new developments. This can all be done through the Postbox site.

What are your thoughts on the application. Do you feel that it will prove to be a solid competitor to Mail.app, or are people more likely to continue the gradual move towards web-based email services? I’m sure Apple will be watching the development of this application carefully, and I would not be surprised if several of the features it offers make an appearance in a future version of Mail.app.

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"Boring?" Maybe Apple Really Has Outgrown Macworld Expo

Disappointed? Not me!

I thought Apple’s farewell Macworld Expo keynote had plenty of substance, notwithstanding that Phil Schiller lacks Steve Jobs’ on-stage presence and charisma. Phil had an unenviable assignment, and I think he carried it off well. I’ve been astonished and saddened by a quite large proportion of reaction and commentary declaring the keynote “disappointing,” “boring,” “a failure,” “going out with a whimper,” and so on and so forth.

Not everyone of course. Motley Fool’s Anders Bylund called it “brilliant,” chiding the nattering nabobs of negativism to “open your eyes, guys and gals. It doesn’t get any better than this.” That may be a bit over-enthusiastically effusive, but I too would rate it one of the better Expo keynotes.

Of course, I’m a laptop devotee, so any keynote with a major portable Mac announcement is a good one in my books, but there were also substantial iWork and iLife suite upgrades, the removal of DRM from iTunes downloads is arguably revolutionary and there were significant adjustments to the iTunes song price structure. All in all not too shabby.

Widespread Negative Reception

Those declaring the Macworld Expo 2009 keynote the dullest ever seem to have forgotten that there were no Mac hardware announcements at all in Steve Jobs’ Macworld keynote two years ago (although there was a little gizmo called the iPhone that was previewed), leaving it up to indie Axiotron to hold up the computer end of things with the unveiling of their MacBook based Modbook tablet computer. Actually, Axiotron came through again this year with their new Modbook Pro announcement.

I was saddened to hear that this will be the last Macworld Expo in which Apple will participate, but the widespread negative reception this year’s keynote got is helping convince me that bailing from the show may have been the right decision.

The annual Expo hoopla has become in some ways a no-win equation for Apple. If they introduce something at the show, it’s never enough, eliciting “is that all?” reactions, while not rolling out some game-changing “one more thing” leads to accusations that Apple has lost its innovative groove.

Apple At CES In 2010?

With Macs continuing to sell reasonably briskly despite the miserable economy, the iPhone storming (er… sorry RIM) the smartphone space, and Mac OS X (including the iPhone version) cresting more than of 10 percent of the OS market and indeed approaching half of Vista’s penetration, Apple is becoming part of the computing and communications mainstream, no longer a niche player, and perhaps it has simply outgrown the MUG on steroids ambience of the annual January love-in.

Apple’s Macworld Expo pullout poses several questions going forward, including, obviously, whether the show can survive more than a year or two (and indeed begs the question of whether there will really be a Macworld Expo 2010 at all). Another line of speculation is whether Apple will be a participant in the Consumer Electronics Show at Las Vegas next year as just an ordinary exhibitor rather than having to lay on a keynote extravaganza.

Apple is More Than Steve Jobs

Apple is more than Steve Jobs, and someday Jobs will step down as CEO of the company.

I actually became a Mac-head in about the middle of Jobs’ exile from the company, while Michael Spindler headed the company. I had a vague consciousness of who Jobs was, but having been pretty much oblivious to the computer world until the early ’90s I missed Apple’s early development years and the first Jobsian epoch and I still found much to delight in the Mac computer orbit.

Now, I’m not trying to minimize Steve Jobs’ instrumental contributions to that orbit in the slightest. I’m highly doubtful that Apple would still be around in anything like its present form, and would more likely be a niche division of some other corporate entity had it not been for Steve Jobs’ return to the helm in 1997. And OS X, which has been such a monster success for Apple is based on Jobs’ NextStep operating system that he developed as founder and CEO of NeXT Computer, the purchase of which brought Jobs back into the fold in 1996.

Jobs saved Apple and OS X played a pivotal role in how he did it, but with the solid foundations he’s laid, I’m confident prospects will continue to be bright for Apple in the post-Jobs era, whenever that becomes a reality. I hope it will be a good long time yet until we fond out for sure, but in the meantime, making moves like dialing back Jobs’ prominence as figurehead, spokesman, and public persona for the company is a sensible and logical strategy, and bidding farewell to the Macworld Expo circus is probably healthy as well.

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Best iPhone App Ever Winners for 2008

It may not be the most authoritative source (what is?), but the winners of the Best iPhone App Ever Awards have recently been announced. The awards are organized and run by 148apps.com, an iPhone and iPod touch App review site whose main feature is a top 148 list. Awards were decided based on community and committee nominations and subsequent voting to determine the top app in each category.

There are 34 categories in all, including things like Best User Interface and Best Long Play Game. Winners are not generally too surprising, and the list stands as a good resource for new iPhone and iPod touch users who might otherwise be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of programs that now occupy the App Store.

Shazam takes the biggest prize on the list, walking away with Best App Ever. I admit, though I don’t use Shazam all that often, when I do, I find it extremely handy. Still, Best App Ever? I suppose its other benefit is that anyone and everyone can make good use of it, which isn’t the case with apps I might suggest as more deserving of the award. Curiously, Weightbot was also nominated in this category, something which I can only ascribe to the incredibly good design of the app’s graphics, icon, and interface.

Other winners of interest include Air Sharing for Most Useful App, Field Runners for Best Original Game, and Things for Best Productivity Enhancer. Probably not my first choice in any of those categories, but they’d definitely make the short list, at the very least. Check out the full list here.

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Macworld Day 3: Best of Macworld 2009
Wednesday at Macworld Expo marked a distinct change from the hectic activity around the keynote and the open of the show floor. The big news today was the announcement of the Best of Show awards from Macworld. The products recognized this year are…

Best of Macworld 2009
- iPhoto ‘09
- Cisco WebEx Meeting Center
- Things
- Ecamm Network BT-1 Bluetooth Web Cam
- Filemaker Pro 10
- HP MediaSmart Server
- Livescribe Pulse Smartpen
- Daylite Touch
- Sling Media SlingPlayer for iPhone
Our Impressions

iPhoto ‘09 is a great upgrade and worthy of the attention, despite the appearance of Google’s Picassa for Mac as a possible competitor. We love Things around here, and quite a few of us actually use it to try and stay on top of, well, things. We introduced you to the Ecamm Bluetooth Web Cam on Monday. Filemaker Pro 10 is a nice update. I talked to a few developers today that are looking forward to the new scripting features, but the UI overhaul is just something that’s long overdue. Daylite Touch really redefines what an iPhone app is capable of doing. We had a chance to talk with Marketcircle yesterday and will share our impressions of using the app soon. One thing I can let slip now, this is definitely not going to be a $.99 app store purchase. Daylite Touch is a full-featured app that rivals what you can do with a desktop app and you should expect it to be priced accordingly.

The Rest of the Best

The HP MediaSmart Server is a really interesting solution for home users that want to store and share media. SlingPlayer is very cool and something to keep an eye on as soon as it gets released to the app store this quarter. We’ll bring you more info on that announcement soon, along with some details on the Livescribe Pulse Smartpen, and Cisco WebEx Meeting Center.

Other Announcements

If you’ve been wondering what happened to the Xserve RAID team after that product was discontinued, several of them have resurfaced at startup Active Storage. I had a chance to talk with Alex Grossman on Wednesday and I am very impressed with the attention to detail, and the particular attention to the needs of Mac users, that Active Storage has put into their products. If you are looking for high-density storage solutions that you can easily manage from the Mac, you may not need to look any further than Active Storage.

Intelliscanner has a new update to their SoHo and Mini scanners. If one of your New Year’s resolutions was to get organized and catalog stuff around your house, you’ll love this little scanners and the accompanying software.

Axiotron recruited Steve Wozniak to demo their new Modbook Pro this week. The Modbook Pro, as the name suggest, is based on the MacBook Pro system just as the Modbook is based on the Apple MacBook.

Ambrosia, one of my favorite developers, is announcing iToner 2 and WireTap Studio 1.0.7 this week. iToner 2 adds three new features: ClearTone to help get the audio levels right so your ringtones always sound great on the iPhone, cropping tools to edit snippets right in iToner, and 40+ professionally mastered ringtones that you can use right out of the box. WireTap Studio has been updated to improve performance and add some new control schemes .
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Phil Schiller vs. Steve Jobs: Comparing Macworld 2009 to August 2007 Special Event
With Phil Schiller’s Macworld keynote fresh in our minds from only two days ago, I wonder how many Mac fans remember the Special Event of August 2007. In terms of what was discussed they have a lot in common, so it’s worthwhile to review them to see just how Phil did in comparison to a Steve event.

For those who have forgotten, in August 2007 was the event where the aluminum iMacs were first introduced. In addition, the new versions of iLife ‘08 and iWork ‘08 were introduced. The entire presentation was done by Steve Jobs. Here are all the things Steve had going for him in that presentation.
- Obviously, he’s Steve. No one entered the event tentative about the presenter or his ability to get the job done.
- While the new iMac was much rumored, no one new for sure what it would look like. It was in fact a brand new generation of the iMac product.
- iLife had an entirely new application in iMovie ‘08 (most people didn’t decide they hated it until the day after the event). It’s more interesting to an audience to see an app they’ve never seen before than just an upgrade to an app they already know.
- iWork had a new application in Numbers. Again, it’s more interesting to see something brand new.
Compare the above advantages with the tide running against Phil for his keynote:
- Lots of disappointed people who had signed up for Macworld expecting Steve, but getting Phil. And many thinking Phil may not be able to pull it off.
- Like the iMac above, the 17 inch MacBook Pro was rumored, but in this case we all knew what it would look like since it was obviously the unibody version of the models introduced in October.
- iLife had no rewritten apps, just upgrades to existing ones.
- iWork had no new app, only upgrades.
In addition, both events demoed new online initiatives (.Mac’s Web Galleries in 2007, iWork.com in 2009).

I watched the Jobs Special Event a few times, and ultimately bought a new aluminum iMac 24 inch. But it was pretty boring. Let’s face it, even Mr. Jobs can’t make your average software demo particularly exciting, even when it’s a new app. I mean, sure, some OS demos can be cool, but productivity apps? Not so much. I watched it to get a feel for the new software features and it served that purpose well.

Of course, Phil wasn’t Mr. Exciting either, but it ran as well as the other event did. And one easily gets as much a sense of what’s new in iLife and iWork as they did from Steve’s presentation. I’d say that, all in all, Phil did very well. I think he did as well as Steve with similar material.

Besides, it’s not as if every Steve demo kicks butt. Geez, folks, remember the Apple HiFi special event? Z-z-z-z-z-z-z…
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Daily Apple: Macworld Lives, Kidproofing the iPhone, Glass Apples

The Rumors of Macworld’s Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated - At least according to one blog, that is. Tom Yager at Infoworld thinks the trade show will be just fine without their darling star. In fact, he thinks the move will greatly improve the show, since presenters won’t have to worry about pissing off Apple, who won’t be around to be offended any more.

Because Your Kid Isn’t Safe Anywhere - Internet filtering comes to the iPhone, courtesy of Safe Eyes Mobile. Their argument for why it’s needed: there are tons of teens walking around with iPhones just desperate to use it to find porn. Probably true.

Apple Security No Longer So Special? - It looks like we might be drawing closer to PC users when it comes to security and vulnerability to threats, at least according to this article. The past two years have been banner years for Mac security, except the opposite, meaning they were the worst ever. Still, 2008 was slightly better than 2007. So there.

The Apple of Glass - This article makes the interesting claim that despite how sound they may be financially, Apple is in fact America’s most fragile company. Owing, of course, to the way the stocks dip and dive so predictably depending on the health speculation of one man.

Admob Tracks iPhone App Downloads - If you’re looking to see just how effective app advertising is, check out Admob’s new service. They enable advertisers to track how often their posted ad actually results in an App purchase. Some of the data has already been analyzed, and there’s some interesting conclusions to be found at the end of this article.

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Media Messaging in the UK With iPhoneMMS
The iPhone’s lack of any MMS capabilities was said to be on account of the versatile and full featured email support. If it’s so simple to send photos via email, why pay extra to send them via MMS?

While that is a valid argument to a certain extent, the two services remain predominantly different; e-mail is unlikely to be picked up by a regular phone user ‘on the go’ and isn’t tailored in the same manner for quickly sending and receiving photo snapshots.

Enter iPhoneMMS. This service is currently a web application for the iPhone allowing you to access and send O2 media messages through a more appealing interface. For the last few days I have been using a preview of the latest edition, a native iPhone application which has recently launched.

The app allows you to send and receive MMS messages in a far more user-friendly way than through the O2 website. It brings MMS functionality closer to a real, integrated solution.

International Support

For sending messages, international support is planned and under development. Unfortunately, the ability to receive messages relies on support from the network operator in question and no other international network offers the same functionality as O2 at this stage. Depending upon the success of the app in the UK, the developers may seek the assistance of AT&T to extend support to the U.S.

Setting Up

Once installed, you’ll see the red iPhoneMMS icon in your iPhone menu. I was pleasantly surprised to see the similar design to existing Phone and Text icons — albeit in a brighter red color. It makes the app feel like an official edition to support MMS sending and receiving.

To set your phone up to access your messages through the app, you need to receive a MMS and note the PIN code provided to you by O2. You then enter your mobile number and that PIN into the application to access your account.

Receiving Messages

When you receive an MMS, a notification is usually provided in the form of a text message from your network operator. You can open the iPhoneMMS application, login, and browse all previously received messages.

Sending Messages

Sending a new message is very similar to composing an email. You enter a telephone number, subject line and can take a new photo or attach an existing one.

Costs & Pricing

The iPhoneMMS app is free through the App Store and there are no recurring costs — you pay only for the messages you use. At present, each message costs one credit. You receive one credit for free when registering, after which they can be purchased via PayPal in blocks of 10 or more. They are priced at around £0.35 each.

Plans are in place to lower this price in the future through discussion with the MMS team at O2. An agreement with the network operator could lead to:
- Instant notification of MMS (no need to use your mobile number / pin to login)
- Sending messages will be charged by O2 through your standard bill
- Messages will be charged at the normal O2 rates
I feel that this would go a long way towards making the app more useful, encouraging casual users to dabble in sending media messages rather than those who are happy to pre-pay with a credit system.

iPhoneMMS is currently freely available through the UK iTunes App Store. I’m interested to see that the app has been readily accepted — I imagine its submission to the App Store sparked a debate at Apple surrounding plans to support or endorse this feature in the native iPhone software itself.

Who’s Behind the App?

This service is entirely owned and operated by two private individuals:
- Ross McKillop: A web developer and consultant who became frustrated at the lack of MMS on the iPhone (and others asking about it!) so decided to do something about it.
- Ed Lea: A talented iPhone developer behind many other excellent apps on the AppStore including TV Plus, which held the #1 spot in the Top 50 Apps for a number of weeks.
Conclusion

This app seems to be a great start for supporting MMS on the iPhone. I’m aware that UK-only support is limiting for many readers of TheAppleBlog, but the system provides a concept which could be expanded to the U.S. — either by the existing developers, or a different team based in America.

There’s still some way for the app to go before being fully integrated into your O2 bill and providing seamless MMS support. Initial impressions are good, however and it will certainly be worth investigating if you’re based in, or frequently travel to, the UK.

What are your thoughts on MMS support? Is it a service which you miss the support for on the iPhone, or have you adjusted to life without it just fine? I’d be interested to hear how many of you would welcome an app such as this.
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New iTunes Pricing and DRM Removal Questions

Like many users, I’m pleased that the labels are finally allowing Apple to sell music free of DRM copy protection. Given that the labels have allowed this for many other vendors (Amazon, Wal-Mart, Zune Store, etc.) I think they’ve been flirting with collusion on the iTunes store for a while anyway.

What I’m happiest about is the higher quality — which I don’t think Apple would have needed permission for – since Apple’s FairPlay DRM was pretty transparent anyway. Of my nearly 8,000 songs, about 200 of them are iTunes, most belonging to my daughter. The DRM has simply never been an issue since they play on every Mac and iPod device we have. I’m not even sure I’ll upgrade them, but a lot of that has to do with price, as we’ll see.

What I’m most curious about are the details and consequences of this deal as it pertains not just to Apple, but also the competion. Here are some questions I have…

Why only eight million tracks now?

Apple has 10 million tracks on their store. Yet only eight million of them are DRM-free now. The rest are slated as being DRM-free by the end of March. It seems likely the yearly Apple contract with the labels renews on April 1, hence the significance of the date. Still, why aren’t all tracks waiting for the end of March, instead of just 20 percent of them? Could it be the labels are being generous and letting some of their wares go DRM-free early? Um, no. Sorry, but I’ve seen no generosity from the labels (or RIAA) in the digital age; I assume the answer lies elsewhere and ties into the next question…

The new prices don’t kick in until April 1. Why?

As mentioned above, if the Apple contract renews on April 1 that would explain why the new prices do not take place until then, but then why are so many tracks DRM-free now? I can’t help but wonder if the 80 percent of available DRM-free tracks today are those primarily slated at selling for $.99 or $.69, whereas the 20 percent waiting for the end of March are mostly slated for the higher price of $1.29. In other words, the labels may have no problem with you possibly buying a DRM-free track now for 30 cents more than you’ll pay in April, but they don’t want to sell many for 30 cents less.

What about the competition?

As it is, the Amazon store sometimes undercuts iTunes by selling tracks for $.89. Will this still be allowed by the labels when the new Apple prices kick in? I mean, a dime differential is not that big a deal, but 40 cents is significant and a big disadvantage. Seems like Apple would have a case there for some kind of unfair competition. Same is true for Wal-Mart, etc. I do not know when the other stores’ latest contracts with the labels expire, but if they do not also have to honor a higher price when the contracts are renewed, something seems wrong there. Of course, these stores would get to use the lower price tier as well.

Oh, and what’s with this AAC encoding?

Some of the comments I read yesterday about AAC encoding made me alternate between laughing and weeping for all of humanity. People, AAC is in reality MP4, and the successor to MP3. It’s better, with superior sound and smaller file sizes. Yet the Apple bashers would have you think it’ll only play on about three players. There is no self-respecting player today that does not support AAC, and it’s been supported on many devices (including Zunes and many smartphones) for years. Besides, if you feel you must have the inferior quality and larger size of an MP3 file, iTunes will gladly convert them for you.

What’s with the “Upgrade my Library” option, especially the price?

Right now, I’ve verified that most of the 200+ DRM tunes I have are now DRM-free. Yet iTunes so far has only identified 44 songs. Not exactly sure what’s taking it so long, and wonder if it’s not quite working properly. I’ll keep an eye on it and see how it grows. More importantly than the identification, I’m curious about the price. It’s straightforward right now. For a single song it’s $.30, and for an album it’s 30 percent of the current album price. But won’t that need to change in April? It sure as heck ought to. I think a lot of my tracks are going to be $.69 come April 1, do the labels really expect me to pay $.30 on top of the $.99 I’ve already shelled out for these? That would be ugly; upgrading should be minimal there. In any case I have no intention of updating any tracks until April and see if the price for upgrading changes based on the new tiered structure.

Oh, and why can’t I just upgrade some of my music?

I can click one button to upgrade all the tunes identified, but there’s no way to just upgrade individual songs or albums. Really? All or nothing? That’s beyond ridiculous.

Conclusion

It’s going to be very interesting to see what happens on April 1, but also to see how the other online stores adjust their pricing — of if they do not need to.

Meanwhile, the best thing about the DRM-free music is that the Apple bashers will have to look elsewhere (some of them have latched on to AAC) to claim being “locked” into Apple’s music “monopoly.”

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When The Cracked and The Cracker Meet: An iPhone Tale

Imagine sitting down to talk with the guy who just broke into your apartment and stole your TV. You might ask him, “Why did you steal my TV?” and he might answer “Because I wanted it.” or “Because I wanted to sell it.” In the real world, a thief’s motivations are generally not very complicated. On the internet, though, those who crack or otherwise pirate software usually aren’t after money, since they generally give away the fruits of their labour. Since that’s the case, a conversation between thief and victim might prove a little more useful.

And it did, for iPhone developer James Bossert, who together with his wife, Constance, developed the Whack’em All game, which is based on the concept of the popular carnival Whack A Mole game. According to an article at TorrentFreak, James took matters in to his own hands when he noticed one day that his user base had spiked, gaining over 400 users in one day, compared to the usual ten. Excited, he looked into the purchasing numbers via Apple, only to find out he’d only sold 12 copies, which was pretty much par for the course.

As it turned out, Whack’em All had been cracked and distributed to users with jailbroken iPhones. At this point, most people would’ve just sighed and gone about their business, but James contacted the cracker responsible for pirating his app via email and asked him why he’d done what he’d done. The answer was an outright condemnation of the App Store, and suggestions as to how, as a developer, James might avoid being cracked by offering free trials or ad supported releases. Here’s a quote from the cracker, via TorrentFreak:

As many iPhone and iPod touch owners have discovered, Apple's iTunes App Store has many flaws which render it useless to the common user. Apple has chosen to allow a multitude of ridiculous, worthless, poorly-represented applications through its 'strict' screening process, nearly all written by mediocre programmers with a dream of getting rich quick. Many of these programmers game the reviews system, misrepresent their application in the description, and generally try to swindle the honest buyer.

Regardless of what you think of his methods (i.e. stealing and distributing stolen software), the pirate in this case makes a number of valid points. He goes on to point the finger at Apple for refusing to allow users to download apps for an initial free trial period to test out the game and see if it’s worth the money. And we’ve seen review gaming in action.

Do you see this kind of thing as a valid form of protest against the sometimes tyrannical App Store? Or is this software cracker just going out of his way to justify what is still essentially just the basic desire to get something for nothing?

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