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- Weekly App Store Picks: May 9, 2009
You can’t have pizza without cheese, socks without shoes, a sandwich without bread, or a complete week without hearing about the freshest iPhone apps.
Before I present you with a hand-picked selection of the latest iPhone releases to hit the App Store, as is tradition, we’ll take a moment to review notable news and take stock of the week that was.
For iPhone supporters, the week seemed to start on somewhat of a downer as news broke that RIM’s Blackberry Curve is the belle of the ball, surpassing the iPhone in popularity. Plus, darkening the mood a little more, it seemed that the developers gathered for our Monday App Store Roundtable were, understandably, none to pleased at the App Store’s review system.
By Tuesday, the week began to pick up with speculation that Apple may adjust their app approval policy upon the release of the iPhone 3.0 update this Summer. In short, there’s a possibility that “adult-only” apps will appear in the App Store; perhaps tasteless topless images will become the new novelty fart sound maker?
Also this week,Bento, the personal database application for desktop, was released on iPhone. David Appleyard was on hand to provide an excellent overview of the app. Although I use Evernote for collecting info on the move, users who need to go beyond lists and start making databases will find Bento to be an indispensable tool.
Mid-week mirth was provided courtesy of Apple, when someone on the Cupertino campus inadvertently approved a listing for QuickPWN — the iPhone jailbreaking tool — in the official web app directory.
The other notable rumor of the week concerns a possible feature coming to new MacBooks in the future. Based on a job-posting straight from Apple, it’s looking likely that the next Macbook will have integrated 3G. Although 3G may be the death knell for USB sticks touting the same functionality, on the flip-side it means less peripherals and more connectivity for Macbook-users.
Moving on to the picks, this week I’ve been looking at Offmaps, GadgetTrak, Kids vs. Zombies Lite and Battalion.
Offmaps ($2.99)
Having Maps on your iPhone is all well and good, but when you’re out and about without a data-connection, the app is essentially useless. For frequent travelers (or even iPod touch users) Offmaps compliments Google Maps perfectly. The app allows you to download specific maps directly to the iPhone, even allowing the user to set the zoom level — useful for those looking for a high level of detail. A worthwhile companion to the embedded Maps app and surprisingly cheap given the excellent functionality.
GadgetTrak (Free)
This seems to have been released back in August last year and while I try to feature the latest apps, it’s occasionally worth rewinding a moment if I’ve missed something worthwhile. GadgetTrak is incredibly similar to Caught You! Both of the apps create a dummy icon on your iPhone which, in the event of your device being stolen, a thief will hopefully click. The dummy app then e-mails your iPhone’s GPS coordinates to you. Unfortunately, Caught You! seems to have gone AWOL from the App Store — I’ve checked both U.S. and UK stores and it’s no longer available — as such, it’s worth checking out GadgetTrack as an alternative (and free) tracking tool.
Kids vs. Zombies Lite (Free)
Recommended to me by Larsonian, via the comments section of last week’s App Store Picks, I thought I should take a look at this game. In the midst of a zombie apocalypse, you take control of three kids who happen to be armed to the teeth. In terms of gameplay, it’s a coin-op-esque shooter, wrapped in gorgeous cartoony 3D graphics, with a sprinkling of the undead. Each of the characters have different attack abilities — close combat, long range and explosives — plus, you’re able to visit the Hardware Store and upgrade the weaponry for even more effective zombie devastation. Check out the free Lite version first and, if you enjoy destroying the living dead, upgrade to the full version for only two bucks.
Battalion (Free)
If you’re looking for a 3D shooter with a retro vibe, then check out Battalion. The game was originally developed for the Cave Automatic Virtual Environment, aka CAVE (I love a good recursive acronym), and found the player becoming a movie-style giant monster, literally stomping around a town and taking on the might of the military. The controls are incredibly tough to get used to, combining a mixture of tilting, tapping, double-tapping and even dragging, however after an initial learning period, it’s good fun (and a strangely effective stress reliever). While this version is certainly not as immersive as the original virtual reality Battalion, you get to choose from one of four cute but angry B-Movie monsters. Recommended for those looking for a free and fun new game.We’re all done for the app picks this week. In keeping with our usual schedule, I’ll return next week with more news from the week and picks from the App Store.
In the meantime, what apps have you been using this week?
Переслать - App Review: Easy Wakeup
App Quick Stats
Easy Wakeup is an advanced alarm clock, designed to gently nudge you from your slumber, helping you wake up alert and ready to tackle the day’s tasks.
For some of us, sleep is a real bane — an interruption to what would otherwise be the perfect non-stop working schedule. To others, settling in to the glorious dirge of dreaming is a true joy. Regardless, we’ve all got to wake up sometime and, aside from those truly gifted natural-risers, most of us rely on an alarm clock.
Easy Wakeup is pitched as a smart alarm clock for the iPhone. Alongside waking you at the optimal moment, based on your sleep cycle, it also incorporates custom alarm tones and sleep-related statistics.
The Science of Sleep
Free Terra, the team behind the app, claims that Easy Wakeup helps you rise refreshed, energized and alert. The core features of the app are based on their assertion that the phase of sleep in which a person wakes up, affects how they feel throughout the day.
The idea is that Easy Wakeup prompts you to wake up at the optimal moment, rather than one pre-determined specific time. The developers say that there’s a link between our sleep phases and our body movements. With this in mind, in order to determine when we should rise, Easy Wakeup monitors your movements as you sleep and then calculates the ideal moment to wake you.
Having swallowed all the pseudo-science, this seems like a reasonable enough assertion to a lay-sleeper like myself. In testing Easy Alarm, I wanted to determine whether the app would bring any additional benefit to me, beyond that of a traditional alarm clock.
Looking Sleepy
Seeing as many users will be interacting with the app when they go to bed, or when they rise from bed, I expected the app to feel comfortable and intuitive. Instead, perched on the edge of my futon, trying to configure Easy Wakeup for the first time, I found the app’s look and feel inconsistent and frustrating.
The Alarm Clocks screen is where, much like the iPhone’s Clock app, you’ll configure multiple alarms – useful for those with shifting sleep routines, or partners who rise at a separate time. The alarms incorporate a cavalcade of settings, from customizable melody, to snooze and wake up intervals.
The incorporation of shake to snooze is terrific. It’s a smart way of having a snoozing user interact with the device. However, being able to configure wake up intervals felt confusing — I just didn’t understand what palpable affect this would have on my sleeping and waking.
Of note also is the Statistics screen, a section of the app which collates data relating to your sleeping patterns, specifically your rest time. The data is then rendered as an ugly looking graph which can be e-mailed out to acquaintances showing an unnatural interest in your sleep patterns.
While it could be wonderful to have access to these kind of statistics, the information it’s recording seems to be useless. I’d love to know how much I rolled around on a given night, or if I mumbled in my sleep, or to be able to consistently rate the quality of a night’s sleep and compare this data over time. Unfortunately, Easy Wakeup’s statistics just aren’t that useful, imaginative or fun.
Sweet Dreams
Setting it up for a night’s sleep I discovered that Easy Wakeup certainly isn’t as easy as the name asserts. Once the alarm is activated, the app instructs you to turn on Airplane Mode, turn off Wi-Fi, set the iPhone brightness to a minimum, charge the battery and attach the iPhone to your hand.
A frustrating, overwhelming, and downright irritating list of instructions that pile on the stress when you’re attempting to settle in for a good night’s sleep. The app is left open while you’re sleeping, hence the brightness needs to be turned down and the battery charged. Frankly, leaving your iPhone on all night with an app open just isn’t going to work for the vast majority of users.
And then there’s the big deal-killer: attaching the iPhone to your hand so that the app can record your movements. Apart from this instruction being utterly odd, killing any enthusiasm I had left for the app, I was quite befuddled when attempting to determine how best my iPhone should be literally attached to my hand: would I use a belt, string, tape, glue, a staple-gun?
Summing Up
The bafflingly long list of instructions, apexing with the über-punchline of, “attach the iPhone to your hand,” utterly ruin this app. I don’t think it’s a realistic, comfortable, or natural proposition to expect users to actually hold or attach the iPhone to their hand while sleeping.
Not being a sleep specialist, dream doctor, or nocturnal nerd, I can’t vouch for Free Terra’s pseudo-scientific assertions when it comes to the theory behind this app. However, sleeping with the iPhone in hand just doesn’t sit (or lie) right with me.
Furthermore, the app is ugly, counter-intuitive, and the stats seem to be useless. For the record, after trying the app for a few nights, I found that my sleep routine was completely disrupted by having the iPhone attached. The stress of having it there caused me to wake up early anyway, thus negating the actual alarm clock functionality. In summary, you’ll sleep better if you avoid Easy Wakeup.
Переслать - Windows 7 RC: Reality Check Edition
Yes, I know “RC” designates Windows 7 as a Release Candidate, but a better designation would be Reality Check.
Windows 7 is an improvement over a very bad Vista, OK? Big deal. Let’s not pretend it’s more than that. The signal-to-noise ratio from some quarters is getting ridiculous.
Let’s look at the reality check:
- Did they address that whole sluggish performance thing? Not really.
- Did they address that whole confusing number of editions thing? Not really.
- Did they address that whole XP compatibility thing? Not really.
I installed Win7 beta on my MacBook a few months back, and recently installed the reality check on my iMac. Most of the improvements Microsoft made in either version are fine (especially those that pay homage to Mac OS X), and driver support is better, but this would all have happened to Vista in 2.5 years anyway.
Steve Ballmer said it best: Win7 is just Vista done right. Fine, but the problem is that Vista was never anything more than a replacement for what was at the time a 6-year-old XP. It had long since lost the shine, promise, and propaganda of a Longhorn we never got. And even with the broken promises, Microsoft still couldn’t get it “right” until now.
I did not upgrade to Vista. It was a horrible release that had issues even with new hardware, let alone the 2-year-old PC laptop I owned then. My experience with Vista, like most peoples’ at the time, was a disaster. I went back to XP and never looked back. But at some point one must question the sense in using an OS struggling under the weight of issues and security concerns rooted in decisions made a decade ago.
The biggest thing Windows 7 has going for it, by far, is that while after six years XP was showing it’s age, after nine it’s almost comical. The hardest reality check for Microsoft is that XP had to become so dated to make their “new” OS finally look reasonable by comparison.
Переслать - Reader Feedback: Macs as a Superior Development Platform?
So I need your help, dear readers. I’ve taken a new position at my big-boy job, and it’s throwing me back into the world of coding. As with the majority of businesses, ours runs on Dell PCs, but my new lead wants to change that (at least for our group). We’re a small enough company that a shift to Macs for a small group of us (who can support ourselves technically) isn’t out of the question. But we need some sound arguments to take to our owner as to why using Macs would be a superior choice for the new development practice in our group. Think you’ve got some solid input for us?Ideally, we’ll answer two different questions here. The first would address the best arguments for using the Mac platform as our main development machines. What makes them a better, more flexible — even more cost-efficient — solution to our large, beefy, Dell machines that we’re currently using (in between blue screens). The second bit of feedback I’m hoping for, is what you’ve found to be your streamlined software configuration for such tasks. So let’s get to it.
I must confess, it’s been awhile since I could call myself something reminiscent of a code monkey. To be more accurate, it was before I was using a Mac full time (as an adult, that is). So while I’ve got a lot of experience with Macs, I’m not well-versed in the code development side of things in their current incarnation. Obviously, XCode rocks for the likes of app development for OS X and iPhone, but that’s not what I need. We’ll be working mostly in Java and SQL. Having tight access to the command line, databases, and code repositories will be important. Multiple environments (probably via virtual machine) will be pretty helpful, too. So these are the general parameters to form our Mac argument around. Go!
The other part I’d like to address is best software setups to achieve the above. NetBeans looks like a no-brainer for the IDE. (I am, of course, open to suggestions, hence this post!) But more specifically, how are you using the other tools like databases and virtual machines and such? Do you like to use the OS X in-built MySQL database and Apache web servers? Or have you found that installing them standalone or using the likes of MAMP results in a better set of options? Which OS X tools are useful, and which third-party tools are ideal? Basically, any firsthand experience as to what works best for developing on your Mac — even if it’s using some parts of Windows or Linux in a virtual machine — is what I’m looking for here. Should we win this little war of ours, I’d love to hit the ground running rather than reinventing the wheel.
As you may be able to tell, I’ve got my own ideas for some arguments. Perhaps some of the requirements I’ve listed are leading, but I’m truly looking for your experience and input. This really isn’t meant to spark another Windows vs. OS X flame war, so let’s please stick to fact and experience and leave the emotion at home. To that end, even if your feedback is that Windows has been better in your experience, let’s hear it! I’d love to use a Mac at the office, but if it’s not going to be the best tool for our needs, then I want to know that, too.
With Apple’s hardware slowly fighting the good fight in the workplace, I’ll wager that there are others out there looking for similar ammunition to take to their tech departments to get Macs in their own shop. If you’re looking for specific areas to strengthen your pro-Mac arguments, let me know those in the comments as well. If we get enough, we can do a follow-up article and try to get feedback for your needs, too.
A big thank you in advance for the valuable input that our reader base undoubtedly has to share.
Переслать - Apple Brings Parental Controls, 3G Data Failure to iPhone OS 3.0
Another new feature has surfaced in iPhone OS 3.0 beta 5 (though it appears to have been available in beta 4, I just discovered), and this one should come as welcome news to beleaguered and frustrated developers dealing with inappropriate content-based rejection. Parental controls are now available on the iPhone, just as was hinted recently in a rejection letter to the developer of Newspaper(s), a news aggregation app.
The new controls should also please Trent Reznor, who recently had a very high-profile and vocal (albeit one-sided) argument with Apple over their rejection of an update to his app for objectionable content. Much like Google’s Safe Search filtering, they allow iPhone owners to restrict the types of apps which are allowed to be installed on their iPhone. This means that poor little Johnny might soon have to go without Bikini Blast, for instance, if his parents get wise to the new features.
The settings appear in the restrictions menu under General Settings, and allow you to control what apps can be installed on the phone by their age restriction, which range from 4+ to 17+, as you can see from the screenshot. You can also allow any, and disallow all, a feature which might be useful for particularly sensitive corporate use. The ratings suggest that apps will each also be rated according to the same scale, and that whatever rating the app is assigned will automatically allow or disallow it according to the new content filter.
Another new “feature” being reported is the loss of 3G data connectivity for a small number of AT&T customers who have installed the new beta, so tread carefully. That warning comes straight from Apple, so consider yourself duly warned. No word on whether that extends to any international carriers, but so far, it seems not to. Let us know if you run into trouble.
Переслать - Entry-Level AT&T iPhone Plan Could Be Cut by $10 Next Month
In a down economy, it could take more than just fancy new hardware to attract new converts to the Apple/AT&T cause. Sucker fanbois like me will be forking over whatever they ask us for to get our hands on the new device, but that doesn’t help telcos expand their subscriber numbers, or Apple grow their user base. It’s always nice to keep the customers you already have, but the real money is in growth and expansion, and a new iPhone, even with video recording capabilities, won’t be enough to convince everyone to sign over two years of their life.A new report by TheStreet.com says industry pricing strategist Michael Cote thinks it likely that AT&T will go to further lengths to attract new blood. Specifically, he thinks they’ll drop the price of the entry-level iPhone plan by $10, from $69 a month down to $59. Such a drop would appeal to those customers who’ve put off a purchase to date because plan pricing is too expensive, which is a fairly large group, if Cote is to be believed.
Cote believes AT&T is considering the cut in part due to recent rumors that Apple might enter into partnership with Verizon in order to gain growth. It makes sense that AT&T would answer with some kind of concession that would allow Apple to continue broadening the reach of their device in order to convince them to stay a one-man girl, so to speak. $10 may not seem like much, but if you’re counting the total cost of the contract as the actual cost of the phone, a $10 decrease ends up saving you $240 over the duration, which is nothing to sneeze at.
Переслать - iPhone OS Beta 5 Now Available, Kills Carrier File Switching
This week, Apple deviated from their usual biweekly update schedule and released yet another installment of the iPhone OS 3.0 beta. As of last week, the beta has been accompanied by an iTunes 8.2 pre-release build, and an updated version of that accompanies the beta firmware and the SDK. Aside from the single-week interval, the beta is also unusual in that it was released on a Wednesday night, instead of a Tuesday, when Apple has usually released new iterations in the past.
There are a few different reasons Apple might be stepping up the release schedule. First, WWDC is coming up very soon, and they might be speeding up the development schedule in order to get a stable product out the door come early June. They might also have picked up on a nasty security vulnerability before anyone else did for once, and therefore a quick patch along with any bug fixes completed to date was required.
There’s a final reason for the early release, which seems to be best supported by the information available to date. It looks like Apple has tried to block MMS access entirely for Beta users by preventing people from being able to switch carrier .IPCC files via iTunes. With all earlier builds, it was possible to do a force restore to an edited version of the file, which users had managed to hack in order to enable tethering and MMS on their devices, which were not meant to be available to users until the full version of the OS is released. The update also hides MMS features in the iPhone’s GUI for U.S. users. The MMS functions have never been visible on my iPhone, which is Canadian.
Apple looks to have pushed out an early release specifically to stop users from fooling around with hacked .IPCC files, and given the odd timing of the release, probably at the insistence of AT&T and/or others of their carrier partners. It’s possible that the early iTunes build was introduced specifically to stop this, and that the first build either didn’t succeed or was introduced early just to allay suspicion as to its ultimate purpose. This also seems to indicated that the beta pool is large enough that unauthorized MMS and tethering usage was actually having a significant effect on carriers.
Either way, we’ll have to wait and see if developers come up with another workaround. If not, there’s only a month left before WWDC ‘09, so users anxious to get MMS and tethering up and running won’t have long to wait.
Переслать - Top Gun Blasts Nostalgically Onto the iPhone
“Top Gun” is widely regarded as a classic film, one which seems to retain a sense of timeless prestige as the years pass. Fans of the film — or iPhone games in general — will be pleased to know that a “Top Gun” game is now available for the iPhone. Fast-paced and action-packed, it is an excellent example of game development for the iPhone done right.
The story line picks up where the “Top Gun” film left off, with Maverick and Iceman now instructors at the U.S. Navy Fighter Weapons School, where you learn to fly. The game can be picked up quickly, is easy to dip in-and-out of, and doesn’t require any advanced flying skills.
Story & Missions
Cut scenes and a story line are provided in a cartoon style. This looks appealing and is easy to skip through if you’ve already seen the dialog before (this is likely, as it appears every time you replay a mission).
Story Scenes
I won’t give any of the story away, but it’s a fairly simple affair! Missions are selected through choosing one of the available briefing folders. There are 10 in total, and you can replay them to unlock certain medals and achievements if desired.
Selecting a mission
Gameplay & Audio
There are two ways in which to play the game, either in a linear “Story Mode,” or by quickly replaying previously completed missions. Gameplay, in terms of flying, is fairly simple; you don’t need to worry about taking off, landing or navigating. These are handled for you, keeping your fingers free to focus on the combat and action. While I crave an application capable of mixing the realism of xPlane with the combat of a game such as this, I fear I may be asking a little too much!
Thick of the action
The game requires you to evade enemy attacks (achieved through keeping clear of shifting “danger zones”) while simultaneously firing upon the enemy with a combination of your missiles and machine gun. Action is fast-paced as the levels progress, but remains fun on account of unlimited ammo and few complicated controls to master.
Avoiding the Danger Zone
Unusually, Top Gun calibrates the position of your iPhone automatically at the beginning of each level. This can be frustrating if you don’t remember to hold the phone in a good position as the level commences. Re-calibration can be instigated through the in-game pause menu, and is as simple as tapping a button.
Various environments are used, from open deserts to the glistening sea. The graphics used in the game look excellent and plane models are reasonably detailed. In an interview with IGN, Senior Developer Bruce Morrison outlined the elements of the game that he felt worked well:
From a technology side, our real-time lighting. From a gameplay [perspective], I like how we incorporated elements from the movie that fans can really identify with, while keeping the experience fresh.
The lighting is indeed excellent and creates a compelling environment in which to play. Even more fun, however, is the in-game audio, which uses a range of songs from the original film soundtrack. These offer a remarkable nostalgia and go a long way towards making the game feel linked strongly to the movie.
Developing for the iPhone
When asked about the experience of developing for the iPhone, Bruce noted:
The iPhone is great. It’s like a tiny little Mac. It’s running OS X, so a lot of the Mac code we’ve developed over the years has come right over. A lot of the same underlying code we’ve used for other projects is running natively on the iPhone.
I’m continually impressed with how such a small device is capable of creating an immersive gaming environment and capturing your full attention. Top Gun is no exception, representing a very well-rounded game. I’m looking forward to seeing future releases from Freeverse, already well-known for games such as Big Bang Board Games and Days of Thunder.
Areas for Improvement
While Top Gun is a fun game to pick up and play, it does have a few limitations. I would appreciate a way to invert the accelerometer settings, as it felt unnatural to tilt the iPhone the opposite way to which you’d like to move. In addition, the interface can start to look a little confusing as you progress to the later missions. Multiple “danger zones,” targets, commentary, and other aircraft can quickly fill up the iPhone’s screen to a frustrating degree. Missions are relatively short, and the game does become repetitive after a few plays.
That said, the price tag of $4 is a good selling point for the app. It offers an impressive demonstration of the iPhone’s graphic capability, and is a good game to quickly “pick up and play.” If you act fast, it should be possible to take advantage of a 50 percent discount, which is running for a few more days (bringing the price down to $2). For more information, take a look at Top Gun in the App Store.
Переслать - Four Useful Quicklook Plugins
Quicklook is a great feature of OS X, allowing you to press the spacebar when a file is selected in Finder and quickly look at the contents. If you’re unfamiliar with Quicklook, check out this great introductory article.
As great as this is, there are a few occasions where it would be useful to quicklook a file that is not supported by default. Luckily, Quicklook is extendable with plugins; here are my favorite four.
BetterZip
BetterZip QuickLookGenerator lets you peer at the contents of an archive file (ZIP, TAR, GZip, BZip2, ARJ, LZH, ISO, CHM, CAB, CPIO, RAR, 7-Zip, DEB, RPM, SIT, DiskDoubler, BinHex, and MacBinary) without extracting it first.
Folder
Folder will display the contents of a folder. One might ask, why not just use Finder to view the contents of a folder, since that is really its job? I often will navigate to a top directory with Finder, and then bring up QuickLook. I then use the arrow keys to navigate that top directory, with Quicklook still open. This lets me peer at all files, including any subdirectories, without breaking my navigation method.
Suspicious Package
Suspicious Package lets you peer into the contents of a .pkg file, often used as application installers. This is also useful to browse the package receipts in your machine’s Receipt directory (in /Library/Receipts) which represents all packages previously installed. This is handy if you need to manually clean up packages.
ColorCode
Color Code gives you syntax highlighted source code. This supports a range of source files from the standards like C, Java, Pascal, XML and Plists (which are usually just XML, anyway). This is great for quickly glancing at any source code files you need to.
Other File Formats
To see if a Quicklook plugin exists for a specific file format you use, such as Adobe Illustrator (ai), Flash Video (flv) and more (even Commodore 64 disk images), check out qlplugins.com for an up-to-date list of available plugins.
Installing plugins
Quicklook plugins are generally distributed without an installer. To install Quicklook plugins where an installer is not provided, copy the .qlgenerator file to either
/Library/QuickLook/(to be available for all users) or/Users/username/Library/QuickLook/(to be available for just that username).To uninstall these, simply delete the .qlgenerator file from where you installed it.
Переслать - Apple Customer Satisfaction: It's the Experience
Apple has once again received top honors among computer manufacturers for customer satisfaction, and not by a small margin, either. The recent American Customer Satisfaction Index survey (PDF) has Apple beating their closest competitor by 10 points, something with which the creators of the survey are very impressed. Apple hasn’t always been so lucky. There was a period of time in the 90s when many were wondering if there was even going to be an Apple Computer anymore.
Since that time, though, along with the return of Steve Jobs, Apple has made slow and continuous improvements to the Apple experience, something that encompasses every part of owning an Apple product. From the quality of the packaging to booting OS X, Apple makes owning a Mac a different experience from just owning a computer. One of the most important aspects of owning a Mac is the quality of the construction. In my mind at least, plastic has been considered “cheap” for a long time, and metal considered “well built.” A lot of the toys from when I was a kid were made out of metal, and they lasted. Now they’re made out of plastic, and fall apart.
The latest unibody aluminum MacBooks are precision engineered, solid, and feel worth their weight. It’s almost like Apple designs with blinders on, ignoring what everyone else is doing and focusing on what they believe is best. So far, Apple has been very resistant to release a low-end computer. Even the tiny Mac Mini is at least twice as expensive as a low-end Dell. It’s not that Apple doesn’t have an interest in the low-budget market, it’s that Apple refuses to create a product that doesn’t live up to their expectations of what a Mac should be. The Mac Mini is relatively inexpensive, but it is also a high-quality machine. The iPhone and iPod Touch are excellent examples of Apple’s commitment to quality. How easy would it have been for Apple to release both machines with cheap plastic cases and screens? They would have been able to reap the profits of the low cost of manufacturing, but at the price of releasing an inferior product, and the long-term cost of lower customer satisfaction. The iPhone is one of the most well-made pieces of electronics ever. As John Gruber said, “There is no better phone, at any price.”
Creating great products is only useful if you can tell people about them, and be able to tell the people who are most likely to be customers. Apple’s marketing is the result of an evolution of several years. Apple uses product placement in high-rating television shows and popular movies, ads on TV that demonstrate the functionality of the Mac, or poke fun at the competition in a tongue-in-cheek way, but the real Apple marketing are the thousands of blogs and web sites (this one included) that are dedicated to all things Apple. It seem natural to me now to read Mac-related news, but there are relatively few Lenovo blogs, or Dell blogs, or Acer blogs. Most of this is because PCs are fundamentally the same. They all have the same basic components, and run the same software.
Macs have always been different, although they are not quite as different now as they used to be. Macs also lost the popularity contest with businesses to Microsoft and IBM. The company from California that started the personal computer industry was, in the 90s, pushed out of the office by big, faceless companies. Apple was the underdog. Luckily, people like underdogs, and Apple gained a cult following that persisted through its darkest of times, when there were rumors that it was going to be bought out and dismantled. Most of this happened while Steve Jobs was off creating other insanely great things, like NeXT and Pixar. When Jobs returned, he made some drastic changes at Apple, and began the slow, steady climb that has brought them to the top of the customer satisfaction ladder. They went from being the underdog to being the comeback kid. Apple is an American success story.
Apple’s stigma cannot be explained by generous return policies or coverage. Both Dell and HP offer more lenient return policies, each allowing 21 days to return the product compared with Apple’s 14 days. HP and Dell also offer accidental damage protection, something lacking from the otherwise excellent AppleCare. On more than one occasion I’ve had a claim denied because the damage was considered “accidental,” and therefor not covered. However, for what AppleCare does cover, it provides excellent support. AppleCare will repair your Mac, answer questions about software, and replace faulty parts. If you scratch up your install disk, AppleCare will replace it. The unique thing about AppleCare is that it covers not only the hardware and operating system, but all other Apple software. If you want to know how to import a movie into iMovie, call AppleCare and they’ll be happy to walk you through it.
When you buy a Mac, you join a club. It’s more than simply owning a computer, it’s being part of the entire Apple ecosystem. Each part of each product is tied together to provide a seamless experience that brings together your electronics so you can get on with the business of living your life. Take photos, make movies, write a book, and do it all without worrying about how. This is the real reason for Apple’s customer satisfaction. Apple is a success story, and when you buy a Mac, in a small way, you become part of that story, too.
Переслать - App Store Roundtable: Transparency and the Approval System
For our next installment of the App Store Roundtable, we talked with developers about an issue that comes up time and again: the application approval system and the overall transparency of the inner workings of the App Store. When developers submit their products to Apple, we have to cross our fingers and hope they’ll be allowed into the App Store, as there’s very little consistency or feedback.
My biggest gripe about selling in the App Store is Apple’s lack of status updates during the review process. Even a “we received your app and are reviewing it” would be a big help.
– Doug Davies, developer of JiggleBalls
I guess the single most burning issue with the App Store is the intransparent review process. One submits an app, then after an indeterminate time it is approved or not; there are no clean cut rules; there is no public timeline; there is no ETA; there is no feedback (even a page in the dev center with “Status: Waiting for review,” “reviewing” or something equally vague would help).
– Martin J. Laubach, developer of Moonlight
The whole process needs a lot more transparency because developers are the lifeblood of the appstore and they need to plan their future development and marketing initiatives based on some general time line. If Apple subjectively rejects an app for “being too simple” when there are literally hundreds of simpler apps already in the store, they are hurting the development process. There currently aren’t any guidelines for what is “too simple.”
– Dan of Rareapps
I also feel that apple is not giving the approval process enough attention, we should not have to put up with scandals such as the port of the famous Nintendo Duck Hunt (exact graphics ) in there. Apple should develop a quality assurance process within its approval process so completely ridiculous games wont get through.
– Brynjar Gigja of On The Rocks, developer of Tiltafun
The biggest issue for us is the lack of information on how the App Store really works. So much of what we do hinges on how the store operates- how and when applications are approved, which apps are featured, exactly how the top 100 list is computed, and how release dates work. Knowing how these details work is key, but in depth information has never been provided.
– Andy Korth of Howling Moon Software, developer of Crayon Ball
Featured Slots
If you gather two or more iPhone developers together at any time the conversation will inevitably touch on the featured lists. These are the suggested apps you see in the various App Store lists (What’s New, What’s Hot etc.), and most apps that are lucky enough to get one of these slots find themselves with many thousands of dollars worth of extra sales. This is another area where developers would welcome more transparency.
I’d really like Apple to be clear how they choose to feature apps. Is there anything that can be done to help, or anything which definitely blocks you from being featured?
– Tim Haines, developer of BurnBall
I would like to know more about how Apple chooses it’s featured products, I would like Apple to give us developers more heads up to changes in the market place, what they have in mind for the future so we can adjust.
– Brynjar Gigja
There’s this feeling that the app review and featuring department is completely isolated from the world. There seems to be nothing, or very little you can do as an independent to get their attention.
– Mike Kasprzak
It would be nice if you could pitch your app to Apple (or even a monetary model) so that you could be displayed at the top level (other than by release date) for a few days. As an “indie” it’s frustrating trying to get exposure.
– Doug Davies
Join us next time?
If you are an iPhone developer with experience of the App Store and would like to participate by sharing some opinions in future App Store Roundtables, please get in touch via our contact form.
Переслать - Rumor Has It: Apple Putting 3G Into MacBooks, Rendering USB Sticks Useless
As if I didn’t have enough USB sticks sitting around doing nothing (512KB flash drives, Bluetooth and 2.4GHz wireless dongles, etc.). Now it looks like my 3G mobile broadband USB modem might soon join the ranks of the neglected and forgotten. Not because 4G networks are being built out as we speak, but because it looks like Apple is gearing up to start building 3G radios into their notebook computers. It’s about time, too, and frankly I’m surprised that more computer manufacturers haven’t gone this route long ago, considering the significant added incentive to buyers of having wide-coverage Internet access built in to their machines.News of the new direction for Mac hardware comes from job postings, which have been garnering quite a bit of attention for Apple lately, considering the recent buzz about chip-making related positions. Now Cupertino seems to be looking for a few good 3G QA, design, and testing engineers to join their camp. The job descriptions, listed on their Hardware Engineering jobs site, list a variety of wireless specifications, with 3G among them, and the jobs in question talk about Mac applications specifically, so this isn’t just an iPhone-oriented position, as I initially suspected.
There’s already been all kinds of buzz about AT&T or other telcos offering bundles, including both 3G wireless plans and subsidized MacBooks, but so far nothing’s come of it. It’s very possible that either AT&T or Apple floated the rumor in order to try to gauge customer interest in such a package, and are only now moving to build the tech into their hardware because the response they received indicated that it would be worth their while. Question is, how much of a premium will Apple be charging for the new hardware addition, if any, and what kind of plans will the cell phone companies be able to offer?
Even if Apple is going forward with this, and the deal is good, there’s also the fact that tethering is apparently included in iPhone OS 3.0 to consider. Why would they shoot themselves in the foot, so to speak, by offering iPhone users a way to use 3G mobile broadband with their MacBooks without taking advantage of a built-in in antenna? There’d be no incentive for owners of those devices to sign up for an additional plan to take advantage of built-in MacBook 3G access.
It’s possible that the price of purchasing 3G antennas has become so affordable that Apple is willing to put them in as just one more incentive for prospective buyers, rather than as a significant selling point. Personally, I know I’d rather have it than not, even if my iPhone is able to tether on my existing wireless plan. We’ll just have to wait and see what develops, which will likely take at least a year, considering the types of positions Apple is hiring for.
Переслать - Apple Promotes QuickPWN Briefly, Changes Mind
Maybe it’s a shot across the bow of AT&T, sort of like all the buzz about Verizon-specific Apple devices, but if so, it’s not a very subtle one, and it contradicts all Apple policy on the matter to date.
I’m talking about a brief appearance (caught by Gizmodo, among others) on Apple’s own web site of a promotional reference to QuickPWN, which iPhone and iPod Touch owners will recognize as the hacking software that allows users to jailbreak their Apple handheld devices quickly and easily, without having to get very deep into the programming or code side of things. Apple, of course, disapproves, and generally tries to counter jailbreaking with each new firmware release.
Funny then that for a brief time yesterday, the screenshot above was what a page in their web application directory looked like. True, “QuickPWN” in this case referred to a website name and not the hacking software, but it’s clear where the web site took its name. In fact, a quick visit to the web site shows that its tagline is “Download QuickPWN, jailbreak iPhone and iPod Touch, games and more!”, so Apple’s own description of the site’s contents doesn’t seem to have quite gotten the point.
Obviously, this could not last. The page has since been removed by Apple, which must’ve somehow been asleep at the switch when it went through the first time. Maybe the web app listing is largely automated at this point, although I hardly think Apple would relinquish that much control over the process. According to Gizmodo, the QuickPWN web site folks seem to think that the only reason the listing has come down is because it was listed in the “Games” category, instead of the “News” section. If you believe that, I’ve got a bridge I can sell you in San Francisco.
Переслать - QuickBooks Online Now Available to Mac Users
We had a sneak peek of the new QuickBooks Online back in January at Macworld Expo, and now the Mac community can start using the service. Intuit announced today that the new release of QuickBooks Online is finally compatible with the Safari browser and, thus, is available to Mac users.
QuickBooks Online
QuickBooks Online, which runs entirely through a web browser, is not a replacement for the full feature set of QuickBooks Pro for Windows, or even QuickBooks for Mac. Instead, QuickBooks Online is a separate product that is positioned as an alternative for those people who require maximum portability and remote access to their accounting information or for multiple users who work in physically separate locations. The main feature missing from QuickBooks Online is inventory management. Otherwise, QuickBooks Online Plus (a $34.95 per month subscription) is very close in comparison to QuickBooks Pro.
If you can get by with fewer features, there is a $9.95 per month option, as well as a free option.
In addition to the Safari browser support, QuickBooks Online has a web interface that has been optimized for the iPhone. Today’s announcement also reveals that the iPhone web app has been updated to allow for more editing on the mobile device than was previously possible. You can now edit customer, vendor and employee information as well as create and send invoices.
These changes to the app will make it accessible to Mac users, but will make it far more useful for those with iPhones, too. I would still like to see timecards in the iPhone app, as this seems like the natural place to do job timesheets for many service companies.
Safari 4? Firefox?
The current release only supports Safari 3.1. Firefox for Mac and the Safari 4 beta will not work. I did try setting the user agent to Safari 3.2.1 using the Develop menu in the Safari 4 beta, and everything seems to work, but Intuit will not support this configuration. Make sure you uninstall the Safari 4 beta, or just live with any potential quirks when setting the user-agent to a different value.
At Last! Multi-user QuickBooks Accounting on the Mac
The most significant reason to take a look at QuickBooks Online is that it finally gives Mac users true multi-user accounting from Intuit. Sure, you could use virtualization to run QuickBooks Pro for Windows or connect to a Terminal Server with Microsoft RDC, but this is a true Mac experience, even if it is online software.
For many, this will be a real boon to be able to share accounting data within a company that uses virtual office space to connect staff in different locations. The small business entrepreneur will be able to check up on things with their iPhone, or their Mac laptop at home.
Take a hard look at the feature list and see if it meets your needs. The problem for Mac users is that this is the only choice from Intuit for multi-user accounting, so we will probably approach it with a different set of needs than a Windows user who is considering it as an entry-level alternative to QuickBooks Pro. Still, $34.95 a month for multi-user accounting without the hassle of virtualization, Windows, etc., is a fair trade for many Mac users.
The Future of Mac Software?
I think it makes great sense for QuickBooks to provide multi-user accounting to the Mac platform through the online version. It has been frustrating to live without multi-user support in QuickBooks for Mac, but I imagine any problems will get fixed faster in QuickBooks Online than waiting for updates to the Mac version. If the Online product continues to grow, then I see how Intuit could eventually drop QuickBooks for Mac entirely. The differences between the Mac and Windows versions have always been frustrating, and by going online only, it would create a scenario where both Mac and Windows users are working with the same data without having to go through a conversion process. Mac users would finally be using the same version of QuickBooks as their Windows counterparts, something we were all hoping would happen on the desktop side first. But if it takes going online to do it, I think most will appreciate the benefits of leaving that Mac-Windows gap in QuickBooks in the past.
Переслать - How-To: Port Forwarding On an Airport Extreme & Time Capsule
When I moved into my new apartment I brought with me a 1TB Time Capsule that I was previously using as a network storage device because my old roommate already had a Linksys router. None of my new roommates had routers, so I decided to use the Time Capsule as both our router and network storage device. Pre-Time Capsule, I have always used Linksys routers — and throughout the years became very comfortable with their web configuration tool. In my Internet travels, I have found it a little tricky to find proper documentation for a lot of the more technical questions I have with Apple products.Recently, I figured out how to do port forwarding on the Time Capsule, so let’s take a look at what it is, why you’d want to do it, and how to set it up.
What is port forwarding?
The act of forwarding a network port from one network node to another. This technique can allow an external user to reach a port on a private IP address (inside a LAN) from the outside via a NAT-enabled router.
Why would I want to port forward?
Port forwarding greatly increases torrent speeds. It can also be used to access files on your computer or NAS at home over the Internet (i.e., mount a file server over the Internet).
Setting Up Port Forwarding On Your Airport Extreme or Time Capsule
- Open Airport Utility: Applications → Utilities → Airport Utility
- Find your device in the left-hand column and select the “Manual Setup” button
- Click the “Advanced” gear at the top of the window
- Click the “IPv6 Firewall” tab
- Click the “+” to add a new rule
- In the window that pops up:
- Description: Enter whatever you want
- IPv6 Address: Enter the IP address of the computer you are forwarding the ports to (To figure this out: System Preferences → Network. Inside that window write down the number next to “IP Address”)
- TCP Port(s): Enter in the port number you want to forward
- UDP Port(s): Enter in the port number you want to forward (Same port as the TCP Port)
Common Ports to Forward:
- BitTorrent: 6881-6999 (Pick any number in this range and forward it)
- AFP: 548 (Forward this if you want to be able to access an internal drive over the Internet)
Check That Your Ports are Forwarded Properly
I’m sure there is another way to do this, but we’re going to use the BitTorrent client Transmission to check if our port forwarding was successful.
- Download & Install Tranmssion (Don’t worry, it’s free — it’s also my BitTorrent client of choice)
- Click Transmission → Preferenceas
- Go to the “Network” tab
- In the “Network: Peer Listening Port” box enter in the port you forwarded earlier
- If everything worked, you should have a green light with the words “Port is open” (I am on a Wi-Fi hotspot so my port is currently closed)
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