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The Apple Blog
The Apple Blog, 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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On Farting iPhones: Where should Apple draw the line?

Since the App Store’s launch back in June, I’ve had mixed feelings about the overall level of quality of the applications for sale. Knowing that Apple has control over what does and does not make it in to the store initially had me with the mindset that they should indeed do a bit of quality assurance. If they already said they’d control the floodgates, then I just assumed they should make sure only quality stuff made it through the door.

But yesterday, news of an interesting event sort of shifted my mindset on things.

The basic gist of the story is that a completely legitimate application was submitted to Apple for inclusion in the App Store, only to be reject:

We’ve reviewed your application Pull My Finger. We have determined that this application is of limited utility to the broad iPhone and iPod touch user community, and will not be published to the App Store.

Yes, Apple rejected an app that turns your iPhone in to a farting machine. Watch the video and you’ll see there is plenty of “utility” in this application…infinitely more than something like a beer simulator or a glowing ruby.

But arguing over whether farting or beer drinking with your iPhone is really not the issue…though that would certainly be an interesting conversation. The real issue here is where can Apple consistently draw the line? And should they even draw a line at all?

Apple lets just about anything in to the iTunes music store as well as the Downloads area of Apple.com. So why would they opt to have such a stronghold on the App Store?
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Windows ad featuring Jerry Seinfield airs

Tonight Microsoft aired its first ad featuring Jerry Seinfield. The ad (including Seinfield) is part of a new $300 million ad campaign Microsoft has put together to try and breathe new life in to the Windows operating system.

The 90 second ad spot is compromised mainly of shoe-banter between Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfield in a Shoe Carnival where Gates is a “platinum member.”

Interestingly enough, only 20 of the 90 seconds really have anything to do with Microsoft or Windows and of those 20 seconds, no time is spent actually touting much about Windows except that it is “The Future” and “Delicious.”

Microsoft has hinted that the new ad campaign is, in some part, a response to Apple’s successful “Get A Mac” campaign.

Personally, I’m not convinced this is starting on the right foot. My wife initially saw the commercial this evening and her response was basically “I don’t get it.” It’s one thing to try to be “hip”, but it’s another thing to try but completely fail at getting your message across. The attempt at humor is a nice change, though.

Check the new ad out below and let me know what you think. Is it effective or does its message get blurred?

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Adobe set to announce CS4 later this month

Yesterday it was announced that Adobe will be announcing (gotta love announcements announcing announcements) Creative Suite 4 on September 23rd.

Adobe will be holding a special little event online showing all of the upcoming features of CS4 (which is rumored to be released as early as this Fall).

For those hip to trying out beta products, you can already checkout CS4 versions of Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and Soundbooth. Though, be warned, downloading and installing these could cause some conflicts should you need to re-install any CS3 software (I know it gave me some issues).

The current version of Creative Suite (CS3) was released on April 20, 2007.

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Spore Origins Released For iPod

All of the gaming love seems to have been directed at iPhone and iPod touch users for the past few months so it’s only fair that “regular” iPod owners get a piece of the pie.

Tricky Software has released Spore Origins. It’s currently only available for iPod nano (3rd generation), iPod classic and iPod (5th generation).

Using a simple single-finger control (via the click-wheel), you can navigate around 18 levels in six different worlds. The same premiss of the full Spore game applies here in that as you complete levels, you can evolve your creature to be stronger and faster.

The game is available in the iTunes store for $4.99.

Tricky Software is working on getting Spore Origins developed for iPhone/iPod touch and hopes to have it available in the coming weeks (no word yet on pricing).

The full Spore game is scheduled to be released in a matter of days on September 7th.

If you give Spore Origins a go, let us know!

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