Taste Android 2.0 ‘Eclair’ From Your Own Computer

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If you’d like to explore the latest version of Android, aka Eclair, you can wait until Verizon starts selling the Motorola Droid, which is scheduled to be unveiled Wednesday. Or you can download the free Android 2.0 software development kit, which includes a spiffy emulator.

Google made available its latest software development kit for Eclair on Tuesday and the emulator bundled inside allows anyone to explore the upcoming features of Android.

The emulator mimics the Android OS. Developers use it to test their applications so they don’t have to use a handset to see every single change. But you can use it to get an idea of what’s inside Eclair. (Hint: It’s not a creamy filling.)

Every phone is different, so the emulator is a general representation. You can explore the entire OS, from browsing the web to making a mock phone call.

There are also quite a few updates and added features found in Eclair, including:

• Microsoft Exchange support
• An inbox allowing multiple email accounts
• HTML5 support
• Double-tap zooming in the browser
• Digital zoom for the camera
• Improved dictionary for your keyboard (it learns words you frequently use and suggests contact names)
• Improved graphics architecture for better hardware acceleration

The nice folks at Android and Me have posted step-by-step directions on how to install the SDK on your computer and run the emulator.

Whether you’re interested in buying an Android or a curious iPhone diehard, you can taste a sample of Eclair from the comfort of your own computer.

[via Android and Me]

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Photo: Azh7/Wikimedia Commons, with Android logo added by Wired.com


Apple Allows In-App Purchases in Free iPhone Apps

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iPhone owners can now purchase extra content through free iPhone apps, whereas before in-app purchasing was only available in apps that cost money.


Apple on Thursday sent e-mails to developers stating in-app purchases are now permitted in free apps.

“In App Purchase is being rapidly adopted by developers in their paid apps,” Apple wrote in the letter. “Now you can use In App Purchase in your free apps to sell content, subscriptions, and digital services.”

Some examples of what this means: You can download a free game, and after you complete the levels, you can decide to buy more levels within the app. Or you could download a free news content app, and if you liked what you read, you can opt to pay for some exclusive premium content.

We’re surprised in-app purchases weren’t allowed in free apps in the first place. In September, Wired.com reported on a digital literary magazine called Scarab. The app cost $1, and then users are required to pay $3 per magazine issue. The problem? After paying the initial $1 for the app, it came with zero content; customers must shell out $3 for an issue without even getting to do anything with the app.

We felt Scarab should have been a free app so iPhone users could try out the interface and then decide whether they wished to purchase an issue. However, Apple did not allow in-app purchases through free apps, so the developers had to charge $1 for the app (even though they admitted to Wired.com they didn’t want to).

Apple’s change Thursday should come as good news for app developers. Offering apps for free should prove an effective marketing method to lure people into paying for more content eventually. This is the the “freemium” model, as Wired magazine’s Chris Anderson would describe it: The general idea is you get customers used to the service provided for free, so they’ll keep wanting more and eventually pay for the goods.

Will the App Store see a lot of paid apps that were offering in-app purchases convert into free apps? We’re willing to bet that’s going to happen.

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Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com


How the iPhone’s App Store Could Stimulate the Flash Economy

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Thanks to new tools provided by Adobe, the iPhone has the potential to transform the Flash programmer community from an experimental playground into a lucrative industry.


Adobe last week announced that its new version of the Flash Professional CS5 developer kit will include tools to convert software written in Flash into standalone iPhone apps. That creates the opportunity for Flash developers to submit Flash-ported iPhone apps to Apple; if Apple approves those apps, they can then be sold through the iTunes App Store.

The community of Flash programmers is 1 million strong, according to Adobe, but very few of them make any decent money since the platform lacks a clear and consistent business model. Thus, the prospect of selling software through the App Store, which has served over 2 billion downloads and earned some developers hundreds of thousands of dollars, could be enticing to many Flash developers.

The result could be a large flood of new Flash-ported iPhone apps, as well as heightened interest in developing for the Flash platform.

“Whether the iPhone can bolster a good enough performance to do intensive mobile Flash games we are unsure of,” said John Cooney, head of game development at Flash game company Armor Games. “But if it can it’s going to open up doors for several Flash game developers, including myself personally, to become iPhone developers.”

Why aren’t many Flash programmers making a living off their code? It’s just not very easy to do. If you’re in the Flash industry and you’re not a big studio-affiliated website like Hulu — or if you’re not employed to develop Flash for larger companies — you’re most likely an independent developer coding games. For creators of Flash games, there are three primary sources of revenue: 1.) Up-front sponsorship deals with larger websites (such as Kongregate.com or AddictingGames.com), in which developers agree to brand their games with the website’s company name; 2.) Selling licenses of their games to other web portals, allowing visitors to play the game for free; 3.) Embedding advertising into their games.

The major hurdle for independent Flash programmers is the difficulty of getting people to pay for website-based games, said Greg McClanahan, game sponsorship director of Kongregate. And that’s where the App Store might help.

“Flash developers can already get a few million views of their game and it wouldn’t be a huge deal, nor would they necessarily make significant money from it,” McClanahan said. “They’re coming from an industry where it’s very difficult to charge people for their games, though I imagine it would be a lot easier on the iPhone than on the web, due to the different mentalities of the potential customers.”

Because Flash programming isn’t a highly lucrative business, many of the game developers in the Flash community are teenagers or college students making games for the sake of learning and experimentation; money is a side goal, McClanahan said. Also, Flash development is popular in third-world countries. Thanks to currency exchange rates, that means a little bit of revenue can still add up to a lot of money for an overseas programmer. If, for example, a programmer receives sponsorship from U.S.-based Kongregate, he’ll receive U.S. dollars no matter where he’s coding — even a third-world country where the dollar is strong.

“A guy in Indonesia made enough off his Flash game and bought a house,” McClanahan said. However, he added, “[those] results [are] not typical.”

Whether bigger entrepreneurs are going to step into Flash programming because of the iPhone will depend on the results for Flash-ported iPhone apps in the App Store.

There have, in fact, already been a few big App Store hits from Flash developers who manually recoded their games using the iPhone SDK. In June, Armor Games’ $1 puzzle game Shift reached no. 6 in Apple’s list of top paid apps for over 40 days, according to iPhone app review site 148Apps. That translated into $30,000 in revenue, and the game is continuing to sell 1,000 copies per month, according to Shift developer Daniel McNeely.

Another popular Flash-ported iPhone game was Bloons, which reached as high as no. 2 in the App Store in May and spent over 100 days in the top 100 paid apps list, according to 148Apps.

“I think I’d call that a success,” said Jeff Scott, editor of 148Apps.

Whether the iPhone will dramatically stimulate the Flash economy is up for debate. Adobe’s new conversion tools won’t be available until the end of the year, so concrete data won’t be available until early 2010. Also, Flash developers might be turned off by horror stories uttered by iPhone programmers who have failed to make money, largely due to Apple’s inconsistent and unclear App Store approval policies.

However, what is clear is what Adobe has in mind with this new Flash-to-iPhone conversion tool: Evangelizing more developers and getting them to join the Flash community, said James McQuivey, a Forrester analyst.

“From Adobe’s side what they’re hoping for is that people who are currently developing using Apple’s tools might be able to do future versions of their product with Flash,” McQuivey said. “From a developer’s perspective you’d rather write once and port to one common application on several devices. It’s not going to be Apple’s development language that ports to the connected TVs and netbook computers and so on. It’s more likely it’s going to be Flash.”

Regardless of whether or not Adobe’s Flash-convertion tool will produce an impact, the Flash programmers will definitely benefit from having the option to port their software into iPhone apps, Cooney said.

“If I can make a game, stick it on a web page, stick it on my iPhone, and then stick it wherever else Flash decides to go, then I am most certainly going to find it much more lucrative,” Cooney said.

Updated 12 p.m. PDT to draw a clearer comparison between independent iPhone app developers and independent Flash developers.

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Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com


Flash Lands on iPhone — One App at a Time

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Adobe on Monday announced plans to roll out mobile versions of its Flash platform to several smartphones. Apple’s popular iPhone, however, is gaining a lesser Flash experience.

At its worldwide developer conference in Los Angeles, Adobe said it would be releasing Flash for mobile platforms including Microsoft Windows Mobile, Palm’s webOS and Google Android. But don’t expect Flash to come to the iPhone’s Safari mobile browser. Instead, Adobe is adding support to its Flash Professional CS5 developer kit to convert software written in Flash into standalone iPhone applications.

Let’s put it this way as an example: Ever watch videos on Hulu? If you own a Windows Mobile-powered phone, or the Google-Android G1, you’ll be able to watch Hulu videos through your phone’s browser. But for the iPhone, Hulu would have to use Adobe’s new development tools to create an iPhone app containing the Hulu experience.

Why the segmented experience for iPhone customers? Apple declined to comment, but some iPhone developers speculate Apple opted against a full Flash experience because of technical problems it could raise on the handset, such as battery drainage or sluggish web browsing. They also noted Flash apps could pose potential conflicts with Apple’s App Store policies. By requiring such applications to be submitted to Apple for inspection and approval, the Cupertino corporation retains control over the iPhone OS experience.

“These [smartphone] processors are going to become a lot more powerful now, but I think right now between battery and memory and raw processing power, performance is a major issue,” said Bart Decrem, CEO of Tapulous, developer of the popular iPhone game Tap Tap Revenge. “As an app developer I’m very focused on performance. I can see how Flash may not have the right performance characteristics yet.”

Many consumers have complained that the lack of Flash on the iPhone causes them to miss a major chunk of the internet. Several websites rely on Flash to support their streaming video, and a plethora of Flash applications and games are also available on the web. In the UK, two customers complained that Apple was falsely advertising the iPhone in a TV commercial by saying “all the parts of the internet are on the iPhone” when the handset does not support Flash. The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority deemed the ad misleading and pulled the ad.

In November 2008, iPhone developers told Wired.com they did not foresee a full Flash experience appearing on the iPhone at any point. The iPhone developers’ terms-of-service agreement prohibits Flash from appearing on the iPhone.

“An Application may not itself install or launch other executable code by any means, including without limitation through the use of a plug-in architecture, calling other frameworks, other APIs or otherwise,” reads clause 3.3.2 of the iPhone SDK agreement. “No interpreted code may be downloaded and used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple’s Published APIs and built-in interpreter(s).”

Previously, iPhone programmers also pointed out that supporting the Flash framework would open a backdoor for Flash apps to appear on the iPhone, which could conflict with Apple’s approval guidelines for its App Store. Third-party software that Apple would prohibit from the App Store, such as apps containing malicious code, could possibly make it onto the iPhone via Flash.

Also, Flash apps could pose competition with Apple’s App Store. And while the App Store continues to flourish, recently exceeding two billion downloads served, there’s no economic incentive for Apple to rush to deliver a full Flash experience, said Scott Meinzer, co-creator of iPhone development house Tap Tap Tap.

Meinzer added that he wouldn’t expect a full Flash experience to arrive on the iPhone anytime soon. He said even on desktops, Flash is not a smooth experience, often causing sluggish browsing and frequent crashes. Thus, running on a phone, a full Flash experience would not be any better, he said.

“It seems like for Flash to work well on the iPhone, Apple has to bless it in some way,” Meinzer said in a phone interview prior to Adobe’s announcement that it would support coding Flash apps for iPhone. This compromise of Flash apps rather than a full Flash experience, then, appears to be Apple’s blessing.

Adobe said a public beta of Flash Professional CS5 will be available by end of 2009. Some Flash iPhone apps are already available in the App Store.

The jury is out on whether consumers will find individual Flash iPhone apps a sufficient substitute for a full Flash experience. What are your thoughts? Vote in the poll or add your comments below.

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Photo: Steve Rhodes/Flickr


Apple’s Grand Central Dispatch goes open source — get at those cores, people

Grand Central Dispatch may not exactly be a household name to the average Apple user, but it’s certainly a hot topic among developers, who may know it better as “libdispatch,” and are no doubt thrilled that Apple has now made the whole thing open source. Among other things, that means developers are now able to take full advantage of multi-core processors in Snow Leopard, which obviously has some fairly big implications for applications as soon as those developers are able to get a handle on things. Know what you’re doing? Just like to get in over your head? Then you can find the complete source code and other necessary information at the read link below.

[Via Slashdot]

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Apple’s Grand Central Dispatch goes open source — get at those cores, people originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Palm launches e-commerce beta for the App Catalog

Love the Pre? Love code? Love money? Well it’s your lucky day. Palm has just announced that it will begin accepting applications for developers interested in producing for-pay apps for the webOS App Catalog. The company says that requests taken now will make devs eligible for inclusion in the mid-September launch of its e-commerce program. Just like Apple and Google, Palm will be splitting profits of paid apps with developers 70 / 30 (the devs get 70 percent, don’t worry), and go figure — credit cards will be accepted. Of course we’re pumped about paying $.99 for a to-do app someday soon, but we’re hoping this will also herald in a new age of steady releases for the Catalog, which is still looking frighteningly bare to us. Hey, that’s what homebrew is for, right? Full PR after the break.

Continue reading Palm launches e-commerce beta for the App Catalog

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Palm launches e-commerce beta for the App Catalog originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iPhone devs offered cash to code for the Zune HD?

We’ve all been a bit up in arms about the apparent lack of a push for apps on the Zune HD given the platform’s obvious strengths, but news from Daring Fireball seems to suggest that may not be the whole story. According to John Gruber, after publishing a short story on the ZHD and Microsoft’s seeming lack of developer interest, he was contacted by an iPhone dev who claimed to have been pinged by Redmond to code for the new device. According to the source — a Twitter client-maker — he was asked to port his software to the Zune platform for “a bucket of money,” though he ultimately declined the offer. Details beyond that fact are scarce, though apparently this dev is “certain” the offer was for the Zune. We won’t argue for the benefits of having your application on two high-profile devices (clearly a personal decision), but it is extremely encouraging to hear that Microsoft sees the need to bring more than just basic functionality to a device like the Zune HD. Now, it’s just a question of how smartly they go about it.

[Via The iPhone Blog]

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iPhone devs offered cash to code for the Zune HD? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 Aug 2009 10:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony’s PlayStation Eye to gain facial recognition capabilities


It was almost two weeks ago that we first heard about the patent for Sony’s PlayStation Eye-powered object motion detection, and now the company’s announcing facial recognition for the console. According to Gamasutra, Kish Hirani, SCEE’s Head of Developer Services, said that the facial recognition software would “detect gender and even the age of the face, separate facial features such as the nose, eyes and ears, and even detect whether you’re smiling or not.” This new gear will also work with the Sony Motion Controller, with the camera tracking X, Y and Z motion by using the glowing ball. Speaking at the Develop Conference in Brighton, Hirani stressed that companies won’t need to develop their own tech to work with the new controllers. “If you are working with the PlayStation Eye and think there is some new tech you’re going to have to develop for the motion controllers, just get in touch with us. We have a wealth of libraries available, and the chances are you won’t have to develop any technology yourself.” You hear that, guys? get to work!

[Via SlashGear]

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Sony’s PlayStation Eye to gain facial recognition capabilities originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 18 Jul 2009 19:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Palm says no webOS SDK till end of Summer

So, you want to be a webOS developer, huh? That’s great kid, we’re excited for you, but there’s a catch: Palm won’t be handing out an actual SDK to most people until the end of Summer. In a post just published on the Palm Developer Network Blog, reps from the company say that although they’ve been cranking away on getting their full SDK in shipshape (the version given out to current devs is apparently pretty rough), they won’t have anything for a broader audience anytime soon. In their words:

With the Pre now in customers’ hands and reports of webOS hacks in the news, we know that you are more anxious than ever to get access to the SDK and start developing for webOS.

We’ve been working very hard on the SDK and are eager to open access on a wider scale, but the software and the developer services to support it just aren’t ready yet.

This should come as a bit of a blow to developers hoping to get cracking on Pre software, and will unquestionably turn those who can’t bear the wait towards the fully stocked iPhone or Android platforms. However, Palm does say that they’ll be opening the program up a bit wider, stating in the post that they plan to crank the number of devs with the early SDK in their hands up from “hundreds to thousands” over the next few weeks. Apparently, that’s part of process the company is beginning to ration out access, building to a full release.

Another bit of puzzling wordsmithing in this post comes in the form of the company’s stance on homebrew and DIYexperiments” (their words) which have come to light in the past couple of weeks. So says Palm:

As on any popular platform, we recognize that some developers will experiment in ways that cross official boundaries, but we believe that our formal offerings – and community efforts built around those offerings – will provide the best experience for the vast majority of webOS developers and users.

So while it’s not exactly a keep-off-the-grass statement, it certainly reads vaguely as to whether or not the company will lock out jailbreakers hoping to dive deeper into webOS. Further confusing the matter? Palm has just released the Linux source code used to compile the Pre’s firmware, making the possibility of cooked / custom ROMs a very serious reality, and obviously opening the floor to a lot of said experimentation. Mixed messages? Yes. Our word to Palm right now? Put every effort into getting that SDK out, or you’re at risk of quickly burning through all the good will you’ve just engendered.

Update:
We’ve added some info above which reflects Palm’s statement that it will be considerably widening its pool of developers over the next few weeks with access to the early SDK.

Read – An update on the early access program and the SDK
Read – Open source packages

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Palm says no webOS SDK till end of Summer originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft’s Marketplace for Mobile developer portal now open for business

Microsoft's Marketplace for Mobile developer portal now open for businessRemember the 12 rules of Windows Marketplace for Mobile Microsoft posted a few weeks back? For coders, those were just the beginning. The Windows Mobile Developer portal is now live, serving pages upon pages of PDFs with rules, regulations, and plenty of fees, too. A 10-page license agreement describes the account fee ($99 per year), transaction fees (30 percent of each sale), and, most importantly, the license fee, which is the monthly amount paid out to the developer based on their app sales. A further 32-pages worth of submission guidelines advise on everything a registered developer needs to know to get an app through certification, including thrilling subjects like shortcut placement and icon design, DLL installation directories, and details of the fearful Hopper test — two hours of random inputs and waterboarding. Apps will also be tested for memory leaks and to ensure that they play nicely with on-screen keyboards, two things many current third-party WinMo CABs have issues with. Marketplace will drop whenever Windows Mobile 6.5 starts hitting handsets — officially, that is.

[Thanks, the::unwired]

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Microsoft’s Marketplace for Mobile developer portal now open for business originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 May 2009 07:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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