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Camera+ Developer Provides Inside Look at App Store Success
Camera+ recently crossed the 2 million copies sold mark and blogged about its success Tuesday. Developer tap tap tap shared some info regarding the app’s success to date, and also provided us an inside look into how the studio minimizes its funding requirements while also maximizing its development investment.

In the blog post, tap tap tap founder John Casasanta noted that Camera+ took only three months to reach the 2 million sales mark, after it took more than double that time to reach the 1 million mark. If sales continue at their current pace, Camera+ is only 1.5 months away from the 3 million mark, but of course, Casasanta is quick to point out that that’s far from a prediction you can hang your hat on:

[W]ith the volatility of the App Store, our fortune could change in a heartbeat. The one thing you learn to count on as an iPhone app developer is not to count on future sales based on past performance.

App Store volatility aside, it looks like Camera+ enjoys very consistent numbers when it comes to user-initiated software updates. Casasanta found that more than half of its install base updated the app within six days of the update’s release. That indicates that users are keeping the software on their device, and also that iOS users are being diligent about updates, which is good news for developers who want to make sure experience is as uniform as possible across users.

Casasanta also revealed very specific figures regarding in-app purchases made through Camera+ in his blog post. Camera+’s in-app analog photgraphy effects pack has sold 98,169 copies since its introduction, which resulted in around $70,000 in revenue over a 4.5 month period. It’s not insignificant, but it also pales in comparison to the revenue generated by overall sales of the Camera+ app itself.

I asked Casasanta whether this reduced return meant that he would consider abandoning in-app sales in the future in order to focus on new product development, which in theory should be more profitable. In his email response, he outlined tap tap tap’s unique development model, and explained how it allows them to focus on both without really feeling the heat in terms of resource shortages.

Most of tap tap tap’s projects are done as revenue shares, Casasanta explains, which means that the people who work on them own a piece of the revenue generated by the product in perpetuity. This means chasing funding and pleasing investors is less of an issue for the studio, and it can instead focus on having many projects in the pipeline at once with very low overhead. Casasanta revealed that tap tap tap “currently [has] about 15 projects in the works,” and he argues that “each will likely turn out far better than they would’ve if we just hired a bunch of contractors to create them because the people involved have a big sense of ownership in their respective projects.”

Even with the company’s revenue sharing approach, Casasanta says that balancing time resources put towards the development of in-app content vs. that spent on new features can be a tricky process. Clarity, for example, was originally considered as a candidate for in-app purchase, but the team decided to include it for free. Casasanta explains how tap tap tap decides what becomes a paid feature, and what becomes a free update:

The general guideline for us regarding whether to charge for a feature or not is… if it’s something that mostly everyone can make use of, include it for free, and if it’s a more “vertical” feature, it opens the door to in-app purchase. The word-of-mouth that comes with including a big feature for free likely more than makes up for any additional income that would come in from charging for it.

In the end, Casasanta thinks that apps that depend on generating revenue exclusively from selling photo effects through in-app purchases is unlikely to succeed. Yet in other areas, such as social gaming, in-app purchasing is clearly a winner. This data from tap tap tap provides a good example of how freemium is far from a panacea when it comes to making money in the App Store, and also that securing external funding isn’t a prerequisite to making a great app.

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Apple Shines Spotlight on iAd Campaigns With New App
Apple Tuesday released a new app called iAd Gallery that provides users with access to all currently available iAd campaigns in one convenient location. That’s right, it’s an app, which you have to download (though it’s at least free), that does nothing but show you advertisements. I won’t be surprised if it makes it into the top free apps charts, either.

The app seems primarily aimed at potential advertisers and developers, as a section called “More” which provides links for more info for brands and joining the iAd network indicate. But the app also has some features which seem to cater to users, too, including the ability to “Love” campaigns you find particularly impressive. Obviously, if Apple can show advertisers that it can convince iPhone users to download an app just to check out ads, it’ll be better able to sell iAds, too.

As of right now, I could only find iAds in the U.S. and UK stores, but the only other ones I was able to check were those for Canada and Japan. 23 campaigns are listed in the version I downloaded from the U.S. App Store, including ads from major brands like McDonald’s, AT&T, Unilever and Geico. According to reports, Apple is having trouble convincing advertisers to come on board, which led to a significant price cut in the minimum iAd buy (from $1 million to $500,000), and the introduction of an iAd Producer tool that makes developing the interactive ads easier. The introduction of this app appears to be the latest step in Apple’s iAds expansion campaign.

Apple also today took steps to stop advertising dollars from flowing to jailbreak software marketplace Cydia. Toyota had introduced a small ad campaign around the new 2011 Scion line using a jailbreak-only iPhone theme, but removed the theme after reportedly receiving a request from Apple.

Despite a relatively slow start, iAds also shows some signs of early success. According to a recent study, users were more than twice as likely to remember Campbell’s soup iAds than TV ads for the same product. Of course, the study that found these results was funded by Apple, so take it for what you will.

I’m actually interested in checking out all the campaigns in the iAd Gallery app, since I seldom see iAds in the actual apps that I use on a daily basis. What about you?
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Apple Does Not Approve of Toyota's Jailbreak Campaign
We reported Monday that Toyota was trying out a unique advertising campaign for jailbroken iOS devices on the Cydia store with a Scion-branded theme. At the time, I suggested that Apple wouldn’t be too pleased with the idea, and it looks like I was right. ModMyi reports that Apple asked Toyota directly to take down the theme pack.

According to the site, Toyota contacted advertising agency Velti, which it had charged with running the campaign, and asked them to take down the theme. The reason given was that Toyota wanted to “maintain their good relationship with Apple,” according to ModMyi’s Velti contact. Attempts to contact both Velti and Apple for official comment so far haven’t been met with a response.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone, Toyota included, that Apple wasn’t happy about this arrangement. Jailbreaking is something the company still does its best to counteract, and any attempts to make it look like a legitimate alternative to the approved App Store distribution process are not going to go over well. If Apple didn’t nip this in the bud, it might’ve paved the way for other major advertisers to look at the viability of jailbreak campaigns, which could conceivably cut into to Apple’s own iAds revenue, as well as convince more users that jailbreaking in general isn’t as taboo as the company wants to portray it.

I doubt many will be sad to see the theme itself go, since it was basically a poorly designed, garish mess. But this does go to show that Apple has very specific limits when it comes to what it will tolerate in the jailbreak community, and threats to its growing mobile ad business definitely exceed those boundaries.
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Mac 101: Securing Your AirPort Wireless Network
There are many layers to securing your Apple products as well as many techniques. From simple best practices when setting up user accounts, to creating secure disk images for your most private data, to setting up some boundaries for your family’s home computing use. But even if your device security may be solid, your wireless network may not be. There are some key features of Apple’s AirPort networking technology that, if used properly, can provide ample security for most households.

Apply Software and Firmware Updates

While many check for iOS releases and Mac OS X updates, it is a little less common to remember to update your AirPort products. In addition to the security updates that you get with OSX and iOS releases, there are actually two additional components that you need to track of, the AirPort Utility application, and your AirPort products’ firmware. To determine if your AirPort devices are all up to date, launch the AirPort Utility and select “Check for Updates…” from the AirPort Utility menu.

Setting Up Your Wireless Network

There are five basic things to keep in mind when setting up your wireless network. Once a device is on the network, these settings will not make any devices themselves secure from an attack. These particular settings will just make it a little harder for rogue devices to find and connect to your wireless network. To access these settings, launch the AirPort Utility, select your AirPort device from the left and click on “Manual Setup.”
1. Disable WAN Setup — This feature of AirPort allows one to configure their network from the internet. By disabling this feature, you will be limited to applying updates from inside your network. This setting is located on the AirPort configurations under Time Capsule or Base Sation (depending on which product you are configuring):
2. Set a Hidden Network Name — While many network client access software packages seem to do a pretty good job of locating hidden networks, it is still a good idea not to broadcast your networks name. This setting can be found under the AirPort configurations under Wireless, by clicking on the Wireless Network Options button:
3. Use WPA2 Encryption — Wi-Fi Protected Access II (WPA2) is now mandatory on all Wi-Fi devices. It is based on the IEEE 802.11i standard which includes “government-grade” data encryption. It’s much more effective than either WEP or WPA protection. This setting is located on the AirPort configurations under Wireless:
4. Choose a Strong Password — Apple provides a password assistant to help you establish a strong password for your network. Be sure to use a mixture of uppercase, lowercase, numbers and characters when choosing your password. It is also a good idea to use at least twenty characters. When setting your WPA2 security settings, click on the Key icon to display a password helper:
5. Establish MAC Address Filter — This configuration when used properly can be thought of as a managed list of exactly which devices will be permitted on the wireless network. If your device’s MAC address is not on the list, it will not be alb e to joint the network. This is only manageable when working with a finite number of devices on a network that has the same users day in and day out, which is often the case in a home. This setting is located on the AirPort configurations under Wireless. Click on the “plus” sign to add a new device. See the next section for advice on finding your device’s MAC address.
Determining your MAC Address

A Media Access Control (MAC) address is a series of six groups of two hexadecimal digits separated by a colon. On a Mac, you MAC address can be found by clicking on the Apple in the upper left corner of your menu and selecting “About This Mac.” From there, click on the “More Info…” button and navigate to the “AirPort” section under “Networking.” Be sure that your AirPort is turned on in order to see the settings. On your iOS device, launch the Settings App and navigate to “General” then select “About.” Here you will be able to locate the Wi-Fi address.

Securing Your Devices

This gets a little more complex as it depends on how functional you want your devices to be on your local network. As soon as you start sharing printers, files, and screens, you open up each device a little more and make it less secure. Enabling Bonjour services, allowing remote login, and configuring services like Back to My Mac over the internet also compromise security. If you want maximum protection, the only option is to disable all of those services, block all incoming connections, turn on your firewall and enable stealth mode. For most users, of course, this is probably overkill, so pick and choose these options based on how you use your network.

Conclusion

With all of the new Apple products and other connected devices available, it is quite a hassle to register each devices MAC address as well as configure your hidden network settings with a strong password. But once set up and configured properly, you will have about as secure a network as is possible for consumer-based, off-the-shelf wireless security.
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PopCap Tries a New 'Game': In-House Indie Brand
PopCap Games, the company brought us mainstream successes like Bejeweled, Bookworm and Peggle, wants to explore another side of gaming. To that end, on Tuesday, it announced the launch of 4th & Battery, a new small games label with a distinctively indie feel whose first title will launch on the iOS App Store later this month.

The idea behind 4th & Battery is that PopCap’s design and development team has free rein to exercise their creativity with “smaller, simpler and sometimes edgier games,” according to the press release announcing the new label. PopCap’s EVP of Studios Ed Allard describes the idea as follows:

4^th & Battery is a pressure valve intended to keep our heads from exploding. The PopCap brand has become closely associated with ultra-high quality, polish and attention to detail — which is a great thing. But our standard game development process is therefore long and involved, and doesn't really accommodate all of the creativity pumping through our collective veins. 4^th & Battery gives us a way to quickly try really strange or marginal ideas, and to give our designers a safe area to hone their chops.

What does that mean once you cut through the marketing speak? Essentially, PopCap wants to be able to foster innovation and possibly strike it rich with the next big small-budget gaming craze, and it wants to do it while also respecting and not diluting the established brand that its built, and by taking an approach that shouldn’t require too much additional investment.

Motion picture studios, record labels and even comic book publishers have, in recent years, all adopted similar strategies of either partnering with, or creating their own, associated “indie” content producers in hopes of cashing in on the demand for that type of content while also keeping it separate from their primary sources of income. The advantages of this kind of setup are two-fold: Big brands get to play with risky content while preserving their squeaky-clean corporate image, and unfamiliar studio names mean picky consumers are less likely to turn their nose up and move on to something more obscure. This also speaks to the risks involved in bigger games, which consume a lot of time but need to be hits to justify their costs. An indie-style setup at 4th & Battery could allow PopCap to increase the odds of finding a hit by allowing for more, smaller bets.

4th & Battery’s first title is a good illustrative example. It’s called “Unpleasant Horse” (anyone else think immediately of Bad Horse from Dr. Horrible?), and it involves players controlling the title character as he smashes more well-adjusted horses and birds to the earth, where they’re fed through “a perpetual meat-grinder.” The game will be free when it arrives on the App Store later this month for iPhone and iPod touch devices.

PopCap claims this is all about providing a creative outlet for its game designers and developers, but I suspect the fact that quirky indie games and titles that tend towards the crude seem to do very well on the iTunes charts factored in to this decision. But, on a less cynical note, this could definitely generate some interesting titles if PopCap’s developers, who have a proven track record when it comes to producing solid games, really do have free rein to let their imaginations roam. Check out the video trailer for Unpleasant Horse below and let us know what you think about its potential in the comments.

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EyeTV Gets AirPlay Support for DIY TV Everywhere
If, like me, you eagerly comb the App Store for new apps that support AirPlay, an update to Elgato’s EyeTV iOS app for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad devices Tuesday should have you excited. It brings AirPlay to the streaming video app, which lets you watch live or recorded TV from your cable or satellite box (or even from over-the-air broadcasts, see video below) on your iOS device.

AirPlay support in EyeTV means that, so long as you have hardware capable of running EyeTV on your computer (like the Elgato EyeTV HD, for instance), you’ll be able to take your home cable or satellite subscription with you wherever you go and view it on the big screen if you also have an Apple TV and a decent internet connection. At a hotel, for instance, you could hook up your Apple TV to the provided in-room television, and using either a 3G connection (if you have a lot of bandwidth) or Wi-Fi, watch live TV from your cable box at home, including all your subscribed channels, complete with the ability to record shows and change channels as you watch.

It’s a great way to get access to TV everywhere without waiting for your cable company to wise up and provide it themselves. I’ve even known people who’ve used similar setups to share cable connections between households, and AirPlay support lowers the hardware requirements for entry (you no longer need an actual computer on the receiving end). Or if a friend you’re visiting doesn’t get the game you want to watch, you could bring along your Apple TV and use your iPhone to watch it live.

Ideally, we’d be able to pay for on-demand access to live and archived content from wherever we are whenever we want. Since that future’s a long way off (if we’ll ever get there), this update to EyeTV provides a very nice best-fit solution in the meantime. Let us know how EyeTV AirPlay performance is working out for you in the comments if you’ve got the app.

Watch this video for free on GigaOM

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iPad 2 Tops Consumer Reports Tablet Ratings
Consumer Reports has released its rundown of the top 10 tablets, and while it says there’s some competition brewing, Apple still wins in terms of both quality and price. The iPad also has a leg up on competitors that are yet to be released, and Consumer Reports does a good job of pointing to little details that illustrate why that is.

The iPad took four of the top five spots on Consumer Reports’ ratings chart. The 32 GB iPad 2 with Wi-Fi + 3G topped the list with an overall score of 84, and the 32 GB iPad 2 Wi-Fi took second. Original model 32 GB iPads with 3G and Wi-Fi-only took third and fifth, respectively. The Motorola Xoom was the only non-Apple tablet in the top five, with a fourth-place ranking.

The top five, plus the Samsung Galaxy Tab, which came in sixth, earned Consumer Reports‘ “Buy” recommendation. The remaining devices on the list, which included, in order of ranking, the ViewSonic ViewPad 7, the Archos 101 Internet Tablet, the Dell Streak and the Archos 70 Internet Tablet, all ranked quite a bit lower than the top six.

What makes Apple stand out? According to Consumer Reports, it comes from a number of small advantages all adding up to one big lead. The tablet report is right in pointing out most tablets nowadays are virtually identical these days. Most provide capacitive touchscreens, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, front-facing webcams and GPS. But Apple is still winning on price when you look at features and storage capacity, and it edges out the competition in terms of quality, too.

Consumer Reports found that even the original iPad had the best screen of all tablets tested, including a better viewing angle than its competitors and excellent color. The screen design also works to Apple’s advantage, as the more square screen ratio allows for either a taller on-screen keyboard, or more content visible above said keyboard, and a less cramped portrait viewing mode.

Finally, Consumer Reports warns against some of the disadvantages of other competitors not covered in the rankings. The HP Slate 500, loses points for using Windows 7, while the upcoming BlackBerry Playbook is knocked because it will ship without native email support, and will require a tethered BlackBerry smartphone for 3G connectivity. RIM has announced a WiMax version, but it won’t support 3G fallback when leaving 4G coverage areas.

The results aren’t surprising, but Consumer Reports does do a good job of unearthing some of the more subtle advantages the iPad has over its current competition, especially when it comes to average everyday use scenarios.
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Facebook App Update Focuses on Location
The iPhone Facebook app received an update Monday, including new features and bug fixes. New features include the ability to view your Facebook Places check-ins on a map, and the ability to check-in at Facebook Events you’re attending. It also introduces the ability to unfriend directly from within the app.

The new Places map display uses iOS’ built-in Google Maps services, and allows you to jump out to the iPhone Maps app itself, or go directly to directions in that app from your current location. It definitely makes it easier to stalk your friends in about three taps. The new Events check-in feature shows upcoming and current nearby events at the top of your location list, and lets you check-in as you would normally with any Facebook Place. You can also tag friends with you at a place, and include a status update.

There’s plenty of potential for Facebook Places thanks to these new updates. Businesses especially can benefit by combining Events with deals, allowing them to better publicize that feature of Facebook Places, which I’ve yet to see used very often. Tighter feature integration also gives users another reason to do their checking-in in Facebook instead of with competitors like Foursquare and Gowalla.

Another welcome new feature is the ability to unfriend on Facebook. A few friends almost exclusively access Facebook through the iPhone app these days, and that was the number one most requested feature I heard about from them. The ability to unfriend is accessible through the additional options button that appears at the top right when viewing a user’s profile.

Facebook also promises lots of bug fixes in this update, and so far it seems to deliver, though I can’t say I was running in to too many problems with the previous version either. Anyone else notice any specific bugs that have been addressed?
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Rokstand Review: An iPhone Stand With Motorsport Roots
An iPhone stand that costs almost as much as an iPhone ($169) will raise a few eyebrows. Mine were certainly raised when I heard about the Rokstand at this year's Macworld Expo. Yet, I was simply amazed at what a masterful piece of art and engineering the RokForm folks created. This is the stand Steve Jobs would use to charge his iPhone or iPad, in my opinion.

The Rokstand is made of of anodized aluminum, and it’s reminiscent of a motorcycle with its bearings and gears. That makes sense since RokForm is a division of Two Brothers Racing, which makes items for the powersports industry. This stand seems turbocharged even when its just sitting in place. The aluminum grey nicely matches Apple's current product line, but RokForm also makes the stand in eight different colors. I opted for the blue for this review.

The stand adjusts to six different positions and has grooves to hold your charging cable and dock. You simply place the phone in the dock to charge it. I really liked having a charging stand on my desk. The iPhone 4 doesn't come with one and I miss being able to view my phone while working. The rubber rings ensure the Rockstand won't slip off your desk. Everything has been thought of with the design of this stand. The rear gears hold the cable in place and a little lever optimizes the position of the device resting on it.

What you’re paying for with the Rokstand is style and quality. After all, you've got an iPhone, not a generic Android device. The precision aluminum combined with the American manufacturing is going to make it cost more, but this stand will clearly outlast your iDevice. It even has its own serial number. The stand is a true conversation piece and practically every visitor to my office comments on how unique and attractive the Rokstand is.

The only caveat is that I'm constantly having to clean the office because I simply don't want to embarrass myself in front of such a professional and classy stand. I sometimes even felt a strong urge to wear a shirt and tie while using it. Your mileage may vary.
- Pros: Absolute pinnacle of style and class
- Cons: It’ll cost you, and casual attire may not be appropriate.
Disclosure: Rokstand provided a sample for review.
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Toyota Embraces iPhone Jailbreak Community for Ad Campaign
In what may be the weirdest Apple-related news you’ll read today, Toyota introduced an official Scion-branded jailbreak iPhone theme Saturday for distribution in the Cydia store. This marks the first time a major corporation has embraced the iOS jailbreak community.

The theme itself is actually kind of garish, as you might expect from something completely focused on selling you a single product. It’s all about the Scion brand, and I suppose it might appeal to a few new Scion owners, but I can’t imagine many others lining up to download the theme. But of course, the theme itself isn’t really what’s interesting here. It’s the fact that Toyota has decided to treat the jailbreak community as a legitimate entity worthy of some marketing spend.

In a blog post on the Toyota campaign, Modmyi.com addresses many of the reasons behind Toyota’s decision to embrace jailbreakers. According to the site, roughly 8 or 9 percent of all iDevices worldwide are jailbroken, which translates into around 10 to 15 million. That’s a very sizeable group of potential customers essentially being ignored by the corporate world. That reach, combined with the ability to do things you could never do with a vanilla iPhone, like completely reskin every aspect of the system’s user interface or even get around limitations such as the absence of Flash, makes a jailbroken iDevice more attractive to advertisers, in many ways, than one that isn’t hacked.

But it’s precisely because this strategy circumvents Apple entirely that Cupertino isn’t likely to take this new development in stride. It’s true that jailbreaking has become a little more legitimate recently, as the DMCA ruled that the process of jailbreaking isn’t illegal — even if it isn’t definitely “legal,” either. But Apple still doesn’t condone or approve of jailbreaking in any way, takes steps to prevent it from happening, and continues to warn that it may void your device’s warranty. And since major companies funneling advertising dollars into the jailbreak economy potentially prevents Apple from collecting some of those revenues itself, I’d be surprised if the company allowed this sort of thing to become commonplace without a challenge. Apple could also levy punishments against companies that take this route, maybe by barring Toyota from legitimate App Store access, for instance.

In fact, this partnership between Toyota and Cydia (there is a financial agreement between the two entities) could become a lightning rod for the jailbreak community. Apple has been content to play a relatively tame game of cat and mouse with jailbreakers until now (unlike Sony, which immediately went after jailbreaker Geohot for attempting to open the platform in court), but the more jailbreaking is able to circumvent its ability to generate revenue for iOS, the more likely it becomes that Apple will devote more resources to stopping the practice altogether.

Calls to Toyota and attempts to contact Apple regarding this issue haven’t yet produced a response. We’ll update if and when any official comment is forthcoming.
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iOS the Only Holdout Against Android Onslaught

Market research firm comScore has released its survey of some 30,000 mobile subscribers from November through February, providing the first real data on the impact of the Verizon iPhone in the U.S. The iPhone’s market share increased 0.2 percent over the three-month period, from 25 percent to 25.2 percent. That relatively small increase (Android jumped seven percent) has generated a large amount of provocative commentary, such as Business Insider declaring, “iPhone dead in water,” but the reality is a little more nuanced.

First, the Verizon iPhone went on sale Feb. 10, meaning less than three weeks of its sales were accounted for during the three-month period surveyed by comScore. Second, going back to the end of January, comScore had iPhone market share at 24.7 percent, down from 25 percent in December. The increase from January to February was actually 0.5 percent. That compares a little more favorably to Android, which saw an increase of 1.8 percent. For Apple, it also suggests a late surge in sales in February, which coincides with the Verizon iPhone launch.

Finally, there are the actual phones to consider. While the number of mobile subscribers in the U.S. using Motorola devices dropped nearly one percent, and RIM dropped 0.2 percent, Apple saw an increase of just under one percent. That’s triple the growth of Samsung, a leading Android OEM. That’s important because Samsung, as well as every other device manufacturer, has access to the entire U.S. market of some 300 million subscriptions. In comparison, Apple reaches about 200 million with AT&T and Verizon, though that will change should AT&T complete its planned acquisition of T-Mobile. That would add another 34 million potential iPhone users, but not until 2012. That’s where the blame, if any, lies in Apple’s current smartphone strategy: the lack of universal, carrier-agnostic access to the iPhone.

However, despite that failure, the iPhone has managed to maintain its market share at around 25 percent in the face of the universal availability of Android. In stark contrast, RIM has fallen from 42 percent to 29 percent, and Microsoft and HP have seen their market share halved in the last year. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say the iPhone is treading water in the U.S., while the Verizon iPhone is finally putting a little breeze in the sails. With the possibility of new hardware/software and wider availability all looming, counting Apple out of the fight is an egregious mistake.
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In-App References Hint at a More Social iOS 5
An iPhone owner recently uncovered evidence (via 9t05Mac) of a social photo sharing component built in to iOS 4.3 when using a third-party image editing app. The app revealed a normally invisible album exists within the iPhone’s photo library specifically for “Photo Stream” albums. Information suggests this is a social, photo-sharing feature not yet active in iOS, and one that might be on track for the release of iOS 5.

Previous evidence regarding an iOS Photo Stream feature, which came by way of earlier digging through iOS 4.3 code, appeared back in January. Basically, the system seems to work by allowing users to create publicly viewable albums which will automatically update on other users’ devices, so long as those devices are subscribed to and have the proper permissions to view the stream.

The new discovery shows the system is largely already in place throughout iOS, with Apple likely only needing to flick a switch to turn it on in the next major update of its mobile software platform. It also shows that Photo Streams should be available to third-party apps, and that apps will also potentially be able to publish directly to shared Streams, building into iOS a system-wide, photo-sharing social network that may compete with the likes of Instagram, Path and Color. In fact, if Apple makes social photo sharing available to all, built-in and easy to use, those apps may have a hard time staying afloat. HDR photo apps aren’t exactly burning up the charts since Apple baked that into iOS 4.1, for example.

Apple is also thought to be working on a major revision of its MobileMe cloud services package. The new MobileMe is rumored to be free, and include a number of social networking features, including a “Find my Friends” Google Latitude-type service. It could be that Photo Stream hasn’t yet been released because it ties in tightly with an overhauled MobileMe, so both services need to launch at the same time. In fact, it’s almost a lock that photos shared this way would be stored in the cloud (device-to-device always-on sharing isn’t practical in terms of battery life), but whether or not it would fall under the brand umbrella of MobileMe specifically is another question altogether.

iOS needs to deliver something big to jumpstart iPhone growth in the wake of Android competition, especially if Apple isn’t planning on unveiling new hardware in June (something I still think is unlikely). Built-in, system-wide social sharing features that turn iOS ownership into social network membership is precisely the kind of thing that could shake up the market, especially if Apple makes the smart move and provides such features free for all device owners.
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Patent Describes OS X Spaces on iPad
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office recently published a new patent (via Patently Apple) that describes a system by which Spaces, Apple’s system for operating multiple independent desktops on one computer, might be brought to the iPad. The patent, which Apple applied for in 2009, doesn’t make too much sense as depicted in the accompanying images — unless you consider that it could provide more clues into the future of iOS.

Spaces on the tablet would apparently work like Spaces on OS X, letting a user set up different workspaces, then view those separate desktops all at once from a thumb-nailed, bird’s-eye view, which would allow for fast switching between them. On iOS in its current state, this might mean showing all recently opened apps that normally reside in the multitasking tray; each as its own distinct space with a thumbnail preview of the app’s last state between shutdown.

What the patent actually depicts, however, is a system by which apps appear on separate desktops in much the same way they do now on OS X. That opens up the intriguing possibility that Apple either is developing, or at one time conceived of, a more OS X-like desktop interface on the iPad, with the possibility of multiple existing apps open on each, for instance.

Mac OS X Lion is Apple’s next version of its desktop and notebook computer operating system, and it borrows heavily from iOS. Even small, system-wide changes, like the fact that the direction of scrolling is now reversed in Lion, and the presence everywhere of new slider buttons to toggle preference changes, indicate that Apple has touch in mind when thinking about OS X, even if it isn’t introducing touchscreens in its Mac lineup.

Likewise, with every new iteration, iOS is becoming more sophisticated, and more able to handle the same sorts of tasks as its desktop predecessor. Printing, multitasking, opening filetypes in different associated apps; all of these are features which, though still in some ways limited, have gradually made their way into iOS.

Apple’s development trajectory with both products is clearly pointing in the same direction, and may even be on a collision course if this patent is an accurate depiction of the future, and if iOS and Mac OS continue on the road to feature parity. Mobile hardware will only get more powerful and more versatile as time goes on, meaning that one day they could compete with their desktop and notebook computing predecessors when it comes to the type of software they can run. When that day comes, Apple could definitely move to a flexible, single OS platform for all devices, to maximize cross-compatibility and cut back on in-house development costs. If things are moving in that direction, it might explain why the father — and former head — of OS X, Bertrand Serlet and Apple recently had a parting of ways.

What do you think? Is a unified iOS X platform something we’ll see in our lifetime?
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