Apps

Here are some new features in iOS 4.2 for iPhone that we came across:

Assign text message tone to individual contacts:

Much more after the break:

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We tested Netflix on our iPad and it works with Apple’s AirPlay service. We connected some speakers to an Airport Express and the audio from the Netflix film wirelessly streamed and played perfectly with absolutely no hiccups. When the new Apple TV launches, you’ll be able to wirelessly stream both the video and audio to your television set; that’s right, I said television.

We’ve got another screenshot after the break.

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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2ncmwgJzqw&fs=1&hl=en_US]

If you’ve been sitting back all excited over Project Sword and waiting for the release of the game then you have an excuse to get even more excited on news Epic Games intends releasing its Unreal development kit for iOS soon!

Yes, gamers, this means a tidal wave of Unreal-engine driven mobile games will be slamming themselves down on iPods, iPhones and iPads soon (ish).
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Apple may have originally attempted to encourage development of Web applications before it introduced the App Store (and ain’t it glad it did), but now apps on smartphones are a bona fide US hit, with 35 percent of US adults having apps on their phones, though only one-in-four US adults actually use these apps. Still, that ain’t a bad record.

The most recent Pew Internet Life survey tells us that among mobile phone owners, 29 percent have downloaded apps to their phones and 13 percent have paid for the privilege.
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Coolest/quickest way to find apps…in the spirit of Google Instant Search:

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We reported that Sean Kovacs, the developer of GV Mobile, may have gotten the heads up that his app would be re-approved to the App Store. Well today, it looks like he submitted it.

Update:

We’ve gotten some more information about GV Mobile:

-New app name is “GV Mobile +”

–This is the new app icon

-The app will support the retina display

-The app will do iOS 4 quick-app-switching/multitasking

-There may be some sort of push notification feature in this release or in a future update.

-It will be free for the first 12 hours then will go to $2.99

We’ll be following this story closely and update when news comes about. Update: Some screenies, below.
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxLpMMzXVCk&w=670&h=415]

Apple-lover, raconteur and much-loved public figure, Stephen Fry, this morning jumped into the future of publishing with the release of his new book The Fry Chronicles as a conventional title, eBook and — but of course — iPhone, iPad, iPod touch app.
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Rock Your iPhone and Saurik’s Cydia have just announced a merger that also merges their app stores for jailbroken devices. All application licesneses will be kept for both the Rock and Cydia app stores so you should be all good when the transition completes in a few days.

Details of the acquisition have no been released, and this app store fusion will surely make jailbreaking even more convenient.

Apple has begun to send out e-mails to iOS developers who are allegedly app-name squatting. This notion of name-squatting is a practice that also widely applies to domain names. For example, if Apple is rumored to launch a product with a certain name, people will rush to get domain names relating to the supposed product name. With app names, if a developer registers a name, it cannot be used by anyone else.

It seems that this practice has created issues such as people reserving app names relating to companies who may be working on an app. This e-mail states that you cannot register a name and not have an actual application binary to go with it for more than 90 days. Today’s warning to developers informs them that they have 30 days to submit an app for the reserved name or the app name will be set free for anyone else to use.

On the other hand, there are developers who actually need to work more than 90 days to make an app. What if a developer wants to register a name in fear of someone else taking it, and they actually have an app in the works? How will Apple know that? These new rules seem like a good idea, but need to be implemented in a way that fits all developers and all situations.

Thanks, Jesse for the tip.

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You knew this was coming since Apple’s announcement this morning that they’d allow applications that were created in 3rd party development tools to be accepted to the App Store.  Now Adobe has officially responded:

Apple’s announcement today that it has lifted restrictions on its third-party developer guidelines has direct implications for Adobe’s Packager for iPhone, a feature in the Flash Professional CS5 authoring tool. This feature was created to enable Flash developers to quickly and easily deliver applications for iOS devices. The feature is available for developers to use today in Flash Professional CS5, and we will now resume development work on this feature for future releases.

Adobe had planned to shutter the service and had ceased development on it.  Quite a day Adobe’s had because of Apple’s announcement.  Their stock went up 12% today on the news.

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Sean Kovacs, the developer behind GV Mobile, has tweeted that after speaking with Apple Developer Relations, he has on good authority that his unofficial Google Voice client will be readmitted to the App Store. After his discovery that GV Mobile does not violate any of the rules in Apple’s new review guidelines, he was prompted to get in contact with Apple so his baby can get back into the hands of users.

GV Mobile initially made it to the App Store in July of 2009, but was quickly removed after it seemingly duplicated features already built into the iPhone. In a follow up tweet, Kovacs stated the app would be free on launch day. We’ll be sure to update as this story develops. Oh, and for those who remember; Apple’s own Philip Schiller verbally gave Kovacs an approval blessing. Let’s see how good the blessing is this time.

After going through Apple’s App Store Review Guidelines, we decided it would be a great idea to compile our personal favorites. Some even sound like the words of Jobs.

1: “Apps with metadata that mentions the name of any other mobile platform will be rejected” – No Android for you!

2: “Apps that artificially increase the number of impressions or click-throughs of ads will be rejected” – Don’t be greedy.

3: “App user interfaces that mimic any iPod interface will be rejected” – Who makes that Remote app that looks just like iPod.app?

4: “Apps that alter the functions of standard switches, such as the Volume Up/Down and Ring/Silent switches, will be rejected” – Camera+!

5: “Apps containing “rental” content or services that expire after a limited time will be rejected” – iTunes TV show and movie rentals FTW!

6: “Apps that encourage users to use an Apple Device in a way that may cause damage to the device will be rejected” – Don’t break me!

7: “Apps that include games of Russian roulette will be rejected” – No comment.

8: “Apps that contain user generated content that is frequently pornographic (ex “Chat Roulette” apps) will be rejected” – Until there’s an API to keep clothes on.

…And how can I forget my personal all-time favorite: “We have over 250,000 apps in the App Store. We don’t need any more Fart apps.” – Hi, Phillip!

Hope you enjoyed the commentary.

A neat little jailbreak-only tweak has been released today and that is the ability to have a home page in Safari for iOS. The tweak is incredibly simple to setup, and developer, Will Strafach, gets huge props for that. You simply hit the “+” on either an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch and click the “Set as Home” button. This is the same menu used to make home screen shortcuts and to email and bookmark sites.

If you like having a home page on your Mac or PC computer this is a great installion for you. Personally, it does not make much sense for my iPhone, but I find it incredibly handy on the iPad as it is more computer-like. The tweak, “Home Page in Safari,” is available now for $0.99 on the Cydia store for all iOS devices. If you are having installing troubles (server issues) just try back later.

Apple has just completely revamped their daily app sales reporting tool for developers. This tool has several new features, a modernized user interface, and is very intuitive. The new main dashboard has large graphs and new charts. The graph shows your app sales figures either in a daily or weekly view for paid or free downloads. You can even even choose any day from the last two weeks for display on the graph (The last 14 weeks too).

The charts dictate your app sales statistics in the top 10 regions where your app is on sale and also displays unit sales per app per day. Percent and unit change is also shown so you can compare your daily figures. Other categories of statistics include in-app-purchases and app updates.

The sales view offers a comprehensive look at unit sale figures for each app for each day. This section will show the version number downloaded, the type of app, how many units on that day or week, the customers price (upgrade, paid etc.), your revenue take from the app, what store it was bought in (US, UK, FR etc.) and its App Store identification number:

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According to a report by Asymco, Apple’s average iTunes operation costs nearly $75 million dollars per month. This is more than double 2009’s average monthly costs of $30 million. The rise is credited to the new features Apple has recently implemented into iTunes as well as the 18 million apps downloaded each day. In case you didn’t catch Apple’s September 1st keynote, that’s roughly 200 apps per second.

At this moment, the total yearly operational costs for Apple is somewhere in the $900 million range (75 million x 12 months), and since iTunes is only growing with more and more content, the one billion mark is sure to hit very soon. These costs cover purchasing abilities from 160 million credit-card carrying iTunes customers, and all the content that gets downloaded to Macs, PC’s and the 120 million iOS devices rocking today. Maybe that $1 billion data center will help out later this year.

iTunes to date has sold over 450 million TV shows, 100 million films, 12 billion tunes, and 35 million books. That’s on top of the 6.5 billion apps people have downloaded. That’s an app for every person on the planet!

The popular Grand Theft Auto video game series from major living room consoles made its way to the iPhone and iPod touch with Grand Theft Auto: China Town Wars a little while ago. Today an iPad HD version is available. The game has full HD graphics that look great on the iPad, and game play looks phenomenal.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFOPpxrgqR8&w=500&h=500]

The game is now available on the App Store for $9.99. Let us know in the comments what you think of it and that is all… I need to go play some GTA.

Well, it looks like Parallels 6 was officially announced, for realz this time. Parallels 6 is the fastest version of Parallels to date and you’ll be able to get your hands all over it on September 14th; that’s just 5 days! You’ll get 5.1 digital surround sound and a supposed 40% graphics performance boost. In terms of advanced Mac-PC integration, parental controls on the Mac side will carry over to the PC side.

Parallells 6 will be available for $79.99 but upgraders can save 30 bucks and get it for a penny under $50. Users who made their Parallels 5 purchase on or after the 15th of August can upgrade for… Free.

As a commenter points out… you can already upgrade to Parallels 6 for that 49.99 price point.

You want choice? It looks like you may soon have some when it comes to your choice of media player on an iPhone, as software dvelopers, Applidium, have submitted their own VLC app to the iTunes App Store for approval.
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We got tired of constantly updating our Game Center games post, so Apple did us, 9to5mac, a favor and updated the App Store with a dedicated Game Center section.

You can access this new section on your iOS 4 enabled Apple-money-maker too.

The Game Center compatible-games are beginning to populate, starting with Ms. Pac-Man earlier, and now two awesome titles from Firemint. Both of Firemint’s popular iPhone titles, Flight Control and Real Racing, were updated today for Game Center. They should hit the App Store very soon.

Feel free to add me on Game Center. I’m Gurman.

Update: The updates from Firemint appear to now be live, and some games from Pangea including Cro-Mag Rally were updated for Game Center also. Firemint Game Center integration screenshots and app update logs after the break.

More Updates: Farmville and iMobster Don have been updated for Game Center. – Thank you loyal reader, Randall! The very popular World Series of Poker was also just updated for Game Center! – Thanks, Kevin.

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We reported that Game Center’s first compatible title hit today, and users are already playing it. Here is our first look at “High Score” boards and achievements.

The main multi-player screen for Ms. Pac-Man allows access to the leaderboards, the achievements center, and recent games stats:

The leaderboard screen ranks all the gamers by score and you can choose to view this list for “all time,” “today,” or “this week.”:

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