iOS Devices

http://online.wsj.com/media/swf/VideoMicroPlayer.swf

According to the WSJ, Apple’s about face on 3rd party app development may have been due to pressure from the FCC:

The concession comes after the Federal Trade Commission launched an inquiry around June to determine whether Apple had violated antitrust laws with the earlier policy. It isn’t clear if Apple’s move Thursday was in response to the FTC’s investigation, but it will likely be carefully scrutinized by the regulatory agency, said people familiar with the situation.

They also speculate that other platforms may have been a factor:
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4CHkHtUJ8w&w=640&h=385]

Interesting decision for Apple to make here on this application.  VLC is fantastic on the Mac and it looks equally good (except for high bitrate MKV files) for the iPad.  If they accept it, people will be less likely to make videos in H.264.  On the other hand, Apple’s customers would have a field day playing all of those ripped DVDs of yore.

The killer for this application, which hasn’t yet been shown, is if it can stream videos effectively from a NAS server share or over the net.  Uploading videos via iTunes is olde fashioned.
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Oh, now you want an iWatch band? Good news, Engadget’s linking to a broken WordPress site (that’s how popular the idea is!) that supposedly has ’em for $20.

You’ll of course need a Nano as well ($143@Amazon).
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Yet more claims that Apple intends launching the iPhone on T-Mobile and Wind carriers in Canada comes from Canada mobile firm, Videotron, which claims it too will offer a version of the device, specially manufactured with support for the 1700MHz AWS band.

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BusinessWeek this morning has an interesting read — a profile of the head of Apple’s main iPhone manufacturing partner, Foxconn’s Terry Gou. Gou notes on Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, “I forced him to give me his business card”.

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Computerworld: Apple is putting up a fight like we’ve never seen before. This is not a repeat of the Apple v. Microsoft battle of yesteryear. This is a new skirmish fought with different rules, in which only one of the combatants truly has a historic understanding of what the stakes are.

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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.

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.

Seems they forgot that little bit of information last time around.

Fortune points us to two ads that Sony has made to try to convince defectors not to go iOS.  Clearly a long reach.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IOt19iOED0&w=640&h=385]

Don’t miss the other below:

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You’ve seen the magnetic ones, but Apple might be looking into a clip-on zoom lens for its iOS devices according to patents revealed by Patently Apple today.

The implementation pictured above isn’t very ‘Apple-like’ at first glance, but might be a neat accessory if done right.
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Computerworld: Apple last week helped create a brand-new $15 billion business when it introduced its new AirPlay music streaming system, which it is licensing to third party developers — and which it created with help from BridgeCo, here’s what the BridgeCo people told 9to5Mac’s own Jonny Evans this week.

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Apple today released the following statement on App Store Review Guidelines:

The App Store℠ has revolutionized the way mobile applications are developed and distributed. With over 250,000 apps and 6.5 billion downloads, the App Store has become the world’s largest mobile application platform and App Store developers have earned over one billion dollars from the sales of their apps.

We are continually trying to make the App Store even better. We have listened to our developers and taken much of their feedback to heart. Based on their input, today we are making some important changes to our iOS Developer Program license in sections 3.3.1, 3.3.2 and 3.3.9 to relax some restrictions we put in place earlier this year.

In particular, we are relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps, as long as the resulting apps do not download any code. This should give developers the flexibility they want, while preserving the security we need.

In addition, for the first time we are publishing the App Store Review Guidelines to help developers understand how we review submitted apps. We hope it will make us more transparent and help our developers create even more successful apps for the App Store.

The App Store is perhaps the most important milestone in the history of mobile software. Working together with our developers, we will continue to surprise and delight our users with innovative mobile apps.

It would appear that Apple has reversed course and now is allowing third party application development environments to be used to submit apps.  What happened to the Thoughts on Flash:
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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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Hackerz, jailbreakerz and all the iBadBoys will be having a little party this morning on news that those iPhone hackers over at the iPhone and Chronic Dev Teams have succeeded in jailbreaking iOS 4.1.
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We’re not saying the iPhone 5 will be this startlingly amazing example of a location-sensing, near field communicating hyper-advanced device that might run at speeds as fast as 2.5GHz — but we are saying it’s possible.
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r45l_jRH7xo&w=670&h=415]

Perhaps Apple can easily side-step the major labels while also giving them the kind of fractured competitive landscape music industry forces hope for in digital music. Perhaps it has already begun doing it — look at Pandora or Spotify for their all-you-can-eat music services, and, this morning, look at all-new Mac compatible streaming music/locker service, ZumoCast.
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Here’s a high quality version directly from Apple:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKxoqRoRB0c&fs=1&hl=en_US&hd=1]