Hasta La Gadget!

Thought EA had no love for Android or Windows Phone 7? Not quite — it’s just the existing market opportunities that the company doesn’t seem to enjoy. CFO Eric Brown told the Deutsche Bank 2010 Technology Conference that the game publisher is actually quite bullish on Google’s rapidly popularizing mobile OS and plans to ‘position its mobile business’ accordingly, but first he said this: “I think the next big positive way to push better growth in mobile will be the deployment of an App Store equivalent for the Android operating system.” Since we’re fairly certain Brown would be aware of a little thing called the Android Market, we figure he’s talking about the same mysterious reason that caused Gameloft (which produces a number of Android titles already) to circumvent the Market in favor of their own online store. One thing’s for certain on the EA Mobile front: the company really needs to update their smartphone games page to support a wee bit more than the “Google Android-Powered T-Mobile G1.”

Electronic Arts ready to embrace Android, but wishes it had an App Store originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 19 Sep 2010 01:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With their infinitely configurable touch-screens, iDevices make pretty much perfect universal remotes. The iPhone and iPad can already be used to remote-control a DSLR, your iTunes-equipped PC or even your Sonos multi-room sound-system. Soon, you’ll be able to add Elinchrom’s RX flash lights to that list.

Elinchrom make those big, powerful flashes that you see in photographers’ studios, the ones that pull their juice from the mains or large external batteries and put out enough light to beat the Sun into submission. The company has just announced, through a coy, teasing blog post, that it is working on an iApp to let you control the power levels of your various flash-heads, pilot-lights and “many other features of the Elinchrom RX flash units”.

The actual workings of the apps are still top-secret:

We like to give our respected competition the chance to find out themselves. The EL-Skyport system idea lasted at least approximately 4 years, before other companies picked up this great idea.

We can make a guess, though. Elinchrom’s existing solution is a transmitter on the camera, and also a USB-dongle for control from a Mac or a PC. The picture above doesn’t show any extra hardware plugged into the iPhone or iPad, so I assume that the internal Wi-Fi radio of the iDevice is somehow being used. Either that or there is a dongle and it just isn’t in the picture.

We’ll find out soon enough, though, as Elinchrom will be showing off a demo at the Photokina show beginning next Thursday. The app will be available to buy for the “most modest price” in the early part of next year.

Remote Quadra RX with iPhone, iPad [Elinchrom]

We’re guessing Verizon has been pretty happy with the results of its V Cast App store for BlackBerry, as it looks like the carrier’s now accepting submissions in the Android category for software that’ll propagate its eventual marketplace on that mobile platform. According to a purported letter obtained by Android and Me, Big Red has been sending out letters to developers extolling the virtues of using its store in lieu of Google’s: no testing fee, 14-day turnaround, carrier billing (with the promise of an eventual subscription billing option), 70 / 30 split favoring the developer, etc. Froyo is the flavor of choice, and the only version of Android that’ll be supported from the onset — so that includes both flagship Droids, Droid Incredible, and Droid X. Verizon’s Developer Community Conference is the end of this month (21st and 22nd, to be exact), and we imagine the skinny will be gotten by then.

[Thanks, Ryan]

Verizon gearing up for Android V Cast App store? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Sep 2010 03:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple has opened up the App Store review process, dropping its harsh restrictions on the tools developers are allowed to use and at the same time actually publishing the App Store Review Guidelines — a previously secret set of rules that governed whether or not your app would be approved.

Apple did not specifically mention Adobe — though investors drove up shares of the company up 12 percent on the news — but the changes seem to mean that you can use Flash to develop your apps, and then compile them to work on the iPhone and iPad with a tool called Adobe Packager. This could be boon to publishers, including Condé Nast, owner of Wired, which use Adobe’s Creative Suite to make print magazines and would now be able to easily convert them into digital version instead of re-creating them from scratch in the only handful of coding languages Apple had allowed.

To be clear, that doesn’t mean Flash is coming to iOS as a plugin: You still won’t be able to view Flash content on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. This change in Apple’s policy just means developers can use third-party tools such as Flash to create apps sold through the App Store.

And transparent guidelines will go a long way to making iOS a better place for developers. Previously, you wouldn’t know if you had broken a rule until your app was rejected. And if your app had taken months and months and tens of thousands of dollars to develop then you were pretty much screwed.

This uncertainty has kept a lot of professional and talented developers out of the store and caused the rise of quick-to-write fart applications. In fact, the point I have heard spoken over and over is that the developers don’t mind what the rules are, as long as they know about them.

The second part of Apple’s relaxation of restrictions is even less expected. Here’s the relevant point from the press release:

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.

This is a direct reversal of Apple’s previous ban on third-party development-tools. Why? Games. Many games use non-Apple, non-iOS code to make them work: the Unreal Engine behind the stunning Epic Citadel shown off at last weeks’ Apple event, for example, would fall foul of Apple’s previous rules. The “do not download any code” part of this is important. Apple will let you use non-iOS runtimes within your apps as long as it can inspect them first. Anything downloaded after installation which bring out the ban-hammer.

It’s a completely unexpected reversal, and one which will eventually lead to much more complex and refined apps in the iTunes Store. And everyone should be pleased about that.

Statement by Apple on App Store Review Guidelines [Apple]

See Also:

• Steve Jobs Debates Developers Over Apple’s New App Policy
• Adobe Gives Up on Flash for iPhone, iPad
• Apple VP Defends iPhone’s App Store Approval Policy
• Apple App Store Bans Pulitzer-Winning Satirist for Satire …
• Apple App Store Takes Tiny Step Toward Transparency
• Apple’s Delays Could Cost iPhone Developer $600K
• Apple’s App Store Director Sells His Own Fart Apps

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Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

In a surprising announcement—after receiving a mountain of criticism, —Apple has announced that they “are relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create apps” and “publishing app review guidelines.” That’s good. The bad: Arbitrary censorship stays. More »