For this week’s Photoshop Contest, I asked you to design some dream iPad apps. Some of these are legit and feasible, others are pipe dreams and the rest are flat-out insane. More »
Browsing the iPad App Store: A Video [By @viticci] from Federico Viticci on Vimeo.
With the iPad launch still days away, a developer appears to have leaked a video showing the iPad App Store.
Multiple independent reports over the weekend included purported screenshots of the iPad App Store. Those screenshots match the images in the screencast above, lending credence to the video’s authenticity. Posted by MacStories, the video appears to have been made by a developer with special privileges to access the App Store through the iPad’s software development kit and emulator.
As expected, the iPad App Store closely resembles the UI of the iPhone’s App Store. From the video, we can extract a few key tidbits:
A brand new “In the Spotlight” section utilizes Apple’s Cover Flow interface to showcase highlights in the store. We’re guessing those are Apple staff’s picks for what they feel is interesting — and if that’s the case, expect developers to be more sycophantic than ever in their effort to win Apple’s affection.
Developers are pricing iPad games a bit higher than iPhone titles. The iPad game Flight Control HD, for example, is listed for $4.99; the iPhone version costs $0.99. And the iPad game Flick Fishing HD costs $2.99 — $2 more than Flick Fishing for iPhone.
This is just an early sample, and prices are subject to change based on market reactions, but it’s interesting to note that some game developers appear to be experimenting with the price bubble. $0.99 was an extremely popular (and successful) price point for many iPhone apps and games. Perhaps the standard price point for paid iPad apps will be around $2.99? We’ll see soon enough.
Many developers appear to be titling their apps and games to tout their iPad compatibility. Some app titles are tagged with “for the iPad,” and some games are tagged “HD” or “XL” to denote their iPad-ness.
That raises the question of whether iPad apps will be difficult to discern from the 150,000 iPhone apps in the store. A screenshot published by App Advice suggests that iPad apps will have their own separate section. But in most of the screens shown here, iPad apps seem to be sprinkled among iPhone apps, which may exacerbate the issue of overcrowding in the App Store.
Update: MacStories has posted a second video revealing more details about charts, categories and switching to iPhone apps in the store, viewable below the jump.
Browsing the iPad App Store, Part II: Charts, Categories, iPhone Apps from Federico Viticci on Vimeo.
See Also:
The momentum towards HTML5 and away from (or at least in parallel with) Flash seems to be accelerating with today’s launch of the free Brightcove Experience framework for HTML5 — a “way to publish, distribute, and monetize web video for the iPad and other Apple devices” according to the Brightcove press release. While Brightcove might not be a household name, some of its 1,000 customers, including Time Inc. and The New York Times (a Brightcove investor), certainly are — both of whom are already using the new HTML5 solution in preparation for the iPad’s April 3rd US launch. A real coup for the Flash-hating Steve Jobs if you start factoring in the rumored Flash-free NPR and Wall Street Journal iPad sites as well as that little HTML5 iPad test CBS was testing out in the open last week.
Also rumored for launch is an iBookstore filled with 30,000 free e-Books courtesy of the Gutenberg Project. See the screengrab evidence after the break in addition to a purported video walkthrough of the iPad store. The video previews several new “HD” formatted iPad apps that we’ve already seen as well as a few new ones like Twitterific. Sorry, still no Hulu HD. The mouse pointer in the video, however, makes it clear that this is running on desktop somewhere, not on an iPad. Still, it definitely looks the part.
iPad roundup: New York Times and others get HTML5 video, iPad app store demo, and more originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 29 Mar 2010 02:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink 
MacRumors | 
AppAdvice, Brightcove, MacStories | Email this | Comments
Well, look at this. If you’ve been desperate to know what your App Store experience would be like on the iPad, here’s a chance to live the dream. Apparently these shots were discovered while the App Annie folks (an app tracking and analytics site) were “searching for clues” on the device and this “actual feed” was stumbled upon. While that’s all very unclear, what isn’t unclear is that Apple will be using the HD moniker to denote applications that have either been tweaked in a special iPad version, or have had their resolution upped so they wouldn’t just be scaled standard apps. Additionally, we’re seeing some applications that aren’t even available on the iPhone right now, such as the $49.99 OmniGraffle, which we’re assuming will be very close to its desktop counterpart — a good sign that iPad apps are majorly upping the functionality. One more long shot after the break for your viewing pleasure.
Update: Looks like App Advice has even more screenshots for your viewing pleasure.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Continue reading iPad App Store screenshots leaked
iPad App Store screenshots leaked originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Mar 2010 18:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Well, hello! App Annie stumbled onto the “actual iPad feed for the app store” and has produced screenshots of the iPad App Store which are giving us a peek at some of the apps which will be available at launch. More »
Social news aggregator Digg.com has released its free iPhone app in the App Store. Packed with a slick, feature-rich interface, the app is a strong start for the popular website, though there’s plenty of room for it to grow.
Launching the app, you’ll be able to immediately browse popular stories on Digg. You can also view popular stories by topic (e.g., technology, business, science, etc.) or upcoming articles that are about to go popular. You can search through stories by typing a keyword in a search field.
The best part of the app is it makes it really easy to Digg or bury a submission. Tapping a link launches the story inside an in-app browser, and a bar below contains thumbs up and thumbs down buttons to cast your vote. There’s also a button to save a story for reading later. The entire interface is snappy; from my testing on an iPhone 3GS, stories loaded quickly inside Digg’s browser.
With that said, there are some features missing that I’d like to see in version 2. One major minus is you can’t comment on stories like you would on Digg.com. You can view comments, but you can’t actually write any. According to Tap Tap Tap, which developed the app with Digg, the public Digg API doesn’t support adding comments yet. So hopefully we can expect this feature in a later version.
Also, there’s limited interaction between the Digg app and other apps. For example, if you’re browsing your Twitter feed in Tweetie and you tap a Digg link, it doesn’t launch the Digg app. Instead, you’re stuck with viewing the Digg link in the Safari browser. To be fair, you can hit a button to share Digg links through Twitter, Facebook or e-mail, but the inability to use the app to view others’ shared Digg links is stifling.
The free Digg app is downloadable now in the App Store. A video demo of the app is below.
News release [Digg]
See Also:
The iPhone community has reacted strongly to the Wired.com report that some app-review sites have pay-to-play policies.
Last week Gadget Lab reported on payola practices prevalent at several websites dedicated to reviewing iPhone apps. At least two authors of one site, TheiPhoneAppReview.com, recently required money from iPhone developers in exchange for reviews.
Those demands were at odds with TheiPhoneAppReview.com’s stated policy, which says that it only requires a fee for “expedited” reviews — those that are reviewed sooner than others.
Several developers responded to our story by promising to avoid sites with such policies. Jeff Campbell, owner of Tapestry Apps, pledged to blacklist pay-to-play websites and urged other developers to do so as well. Alexandra Peters, community manager of Firemint, which develops the popular iPhone game Flight Control, also said she would avoid sending news releases to pay-to-play sites.
“I encourage fellow developers to publicly pledge their intent to not support these sites by succumbing to their pay-to-play schemes,” wrote Jeff Campbell, owner of Tapestry Apps, in a blog post this week. “The sooner that well of income dries up, the sooner these guys might move on to more journalistically sound practices. Tapestry is willing to make that pledge.”
Paid reviews are not illegal, but critics of the practice say requiring money in exchange for reviews inevitably creates a conflict of interest and brings a publication’s credibility into question. Rich Cleland, a member of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, told Wired.com last week that he frowns on the practice because a paid review can very easily be the same as a paid advertisement. Payment can induce a more favorable evaluation, and consumers, as a result, may be misled into purchasing a product based on a falsely positive review that was bought, he explained.
The FTC in October 2009 issued guidelines requiring bloggers to provide disclosure on reviews whenever goods, such as money or gifts, are exchanged. TheiPhoneAppReview.com and other sites covered by Wired.com disclose their “expedited review” fees in FAQs.
Some app-review websites responded to Wired.com’s coverage as well. Nine new websites have signed up to become part of the Organization for App Testing Standards (OATS), a set of ethical guidelines that rejects payment for reviews, according to Jeff Scott, owner of the app-review site 148Apps and co-creator of OATS.
Apple news publication Macworld, which owns an app-review website called AppGuide, is the latest OATS member. Jason Snell, editorial director of Macworld and a former journalism teacher at UC Berkeley, said the publication already follows “old-school journalistic practices,” so it was easy to join OATS.
“In the end, it’s all about being as transparent as possible so readers can make up their own minds about who to trust, and about not posing as something you’re not,” Snell said. “Readers need to know that true editorial reviews are fair, and aren’t the product of any quid pro quo involving money or any other favors…. People need to know where the opinions they’re reading are coming from.”
Wired.com’s article also sparked some debate among review websites. Michael Vallez, owner of the app-review site Crazy Mike’s Apps, said he charges for reviews, and he does not guarantee positive ratings.
“I provide more than a paid review, and I do not guarantee any positive reviews and have returned developers’ monies, because frankly their apps were horrible,” Vallez said.
Vallez added that websites that charge for advertising of iPhone apps, or benefit from affiliate links to iPhone apps, have financial ties as well.
In response to that argument, Macworld’s Snell said traditional media businesses build walls between editorial and advertising departments so advertising clients cannot influence coverage. He also said the actual dollar amounts from affiliate links are tiny, and that information is also walled off from editorial operations.
“I think it’s a ridiculous, slippery-slope argument — but hey, the payola sites have to find some way to try and hide their shame,” Snell said. “Maybe they should argue that any site that takes advertising is fundamentally compromised. But let’s visit reality: We live in a society with commercial media businesses. The way we’ve traditionally solved this conflict is by building walls between editorial and business, so that sales people can sell ads endlessly but the editors don’t even know who the advertisers are, and don’t care.”
In the journalism industry, the ethical debate surrounding pay-to-play operations has been longstanding, said Kenneth Pybus, an assistant professor of journalism and mass communication at Abilene Christian University. However, he said undisclosed paid reviews are indisputably unethical because they manipulate the public.
“I don’t think it’s defensible to fail to disclose that,” Pybus said. “That’s an easy call to say it’s ethically wrong because that is a disservice to readers. It ought to be information that applies to readers and not information that advances yourself financially.”
See Also:
Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
Can you feel the tension? Opera is now in the throes of the App Store approval process. The wait is on to see if Apple will loosen its grip and approve the fast (very fast) Opera Mini browser for iPhone app that we checked out at MWC. Remember, Opera Mini relies on Opera’s servers to render and compress pages before sending them back to the iPhone for display. As such, there’s no code interpretation being done by the software — a definite no no for approval. So the only thing that could cause Apple to reject the app would be a perceived duplication of core iPhone functionality even though it already approved several WebKit-based browsers. Whatever happens, this is going to be good.
Update: Opera just threw up a counter tracking how long the approval process has taken. You know, ’cause everyone likes to be backed into a corner. Makes you wonder if Opera is serious about this or just doing it for the publicity — one of several angles we mulled earlier.
Continue reading Opera Mini for iPhone submitted to Apple for approval (video)
Opera Mini for iPhone submitted to Apple for approval (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Mar 2010 08:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | Comments
iTunes gifting has always been a nice, lazy way to wish a friend a happy birthday or holiday, but until now that feature has been exclusive to iTunes audio and video media. Now, Apple has added the ability to send iPhone apps as gifts.
After agreeing to the new iTunes Store terms and conditions, you’ll be able to select a “Gift This App” option from the pull-down menu next to an app’s price. From thereon, you can punch in the name and e-mail address of your desired recipient, along with a personal message, and iTunes will send him or her a redemption code to download the app.
It works the same way as gifting music or movies, which has been a popular feature in the iTunes Store. This is especially good news for iPhone developers, as the gifting feature can induce brand new iPhone owners to download their first paid app ever. Gifting might just work as a gateway drug that gets iPhone owners hooked on the addictive experience of paying for new apps and digital media in general, which would further stimulate the app economy.
A hat tip to Rana Sobhany, who first noted the change in her blog.
See Also:
Apple just announced to developers that it’s now accepting iPad applications. From the sound of it, applications submitted now will have a shot at being reviewed and approved before the iPad launch next month, though since most all apps developed so far have only been tested in the emulator, this is more of a “feedback” round for devs looking to be ready for the launch without actually testing their apps on hardware themselves. Apple says that “[o]nly apps submitted for the initial review will be considered for the grand opening of the iPad App Store,” so you probably shouldn’t wait around — unless you’ve got one of those iPad test units headed your way, or you’re a hardware-testing purist that will wait for the iPad launch to start testing apps and miss one of those cushy spots on the opening day iPad App Store. Either way, we can’t really imagine we’ll be seeing true 3rd party iPad app greatness until a month or so after the launch, but who are we to talk down a “gold rush”?
Update: We just saw that the deadline for getting apps in for the first round is March 27 at 5PM PT. Fire up that SDK 3.2 beta 5 and start cracking!
Apple now accepting iPad app submissions, get your jumbo-sized beer drinking simulations in before launch day originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Mar 2010 15:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | TUAW | Email this | Comments
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
