So the first generation of games and apps is in the iPhone's App Store, and as predicted, we've got more than our share of accelerometer races and the usual gaming standbys -- Tetris, poker, and even some nice tech demos like Andy Qua's Cube Runner. But now it's time to iterate and see if we can't start filling some of the promises a great would-be gaming platform like the iPhone offers. How about an in-depth RPG that uses the clock or camera, or a full-length platformer, or a social game that takes advantage of things like location awareness?
Italian company KikiTechonlogy dropped us a note to say they're doing their part -- they're working on a full-length, console-style RPG for the iPhone called PanfobiA. Unfortunately, we hope the game's translation is better than their blog post -- they're working towards "performing not less than 100 hours in single player," and "Online Gameing Modality," which is supposed to be some type of online gameplay after the singleplayer experience. The pictures provide a little more hope -- they show a nice sense of art direction and some old-school style RPG characters.
But even if PanfobiA is nothing but vaporware, they've got the right idea. For years, PDAs and mobile phones have had games, but they've all boiled down to poker, puzzles, and putrid junk. Now that the App Store is up and running, we can't wait for a developer to step up and provide a really deep and satisfying gaming experience on the platform.
Imagine you are a software development company that has been around for 11 years, with award-winning titles for mobile computing devices. You follow the rules, you submit iPhone versions of your applications to the App Store, and yet you still haven't seen your programs make it to the store.
This is the boat that a lot of developers are in, but it is particularly frustrating for Ilium Software. Ilium has sold two well-respected applications -- eWallet and ListPro -- for Palm OS and Windows Mobile devices for years, and has a number of other commercial and free mobile applications on the market.
According to Ilium spokesperson Ellen Craw, eWallet has been "in the queue" at Apple for over two weeks, and they can't get any word from App Store personnel on when their highly anticipated app will actually appear online. The comments in Ilium's blog are particularly revealing, as longtime customers are also frustrated by the black hole at Apple.
Having used Ilium's products before, I'm waiting for both ListPro and eWallet to show up in the store to fill those niches on my iPhone. What other great products are being held up by Apple? We'd love to know!
Now that the App Store has launched various developers are talking about the iPhone's capabilities as a gaming machine. Gizmodo paraphrases a developer from EA as saying: "On a scale of the three, it's in between the DS and the PSP, but sliding more towards the PSP." Over at Kotaku they have SEGA of America president Simon Jeffery saying that the iPhone is about on a par with the old Sega Dreamcast.
On the downside, control remains a bit of an issue. The EA developer compared the iPhone's accelerometer to "a loose analog stick" with lots of "random data" that has to be smoothed out. In any case, I think it is impressive to hear developers talk about how powerful the iPhone really is. This naturally gives good reason to hope for even more impressive games as developers get more comfortable with the device and its capabilities.
To web developers, scripting is the glue that connects web pages and back-end systems. For example, PHP is a very popular scripting environment that has been used to write web apps like WordPress and phpBB. For those of you who use PHP, you know that it is a dynamic, weakly-typed hypertext preprocessor. In other words, it's a scripting language that is embedded in the HTML code that makes up a web page.
Inspiring Applications, Inc. hopes to catch the imagination of web developers with Yuma, their new strongly-typed, object-oriented scripting tool that is being released today. Rather than the confusing syntax of PHP, Yuma uses a simple REALBasic-like syntax. It is natively compiled to machine code on Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows for high speed.
Yuma Development Server for Mac OS X is available as a free download, complete with example code, a full developer reference, language definition files for BBEdit, TextMate and Text Wrangler, and more. When you're ready to deploy your Yuma web app, you can purchase and install Yuma Enterprise Server ($149). It's a command-line app and may be set up as a daemon.
To run either Yuma Development or Enterprise Server on Mac OS X, you need to be running OS X 10.3 or later on a G4, G5, or Intel-based Mac with at least 1 GB of RAM.
As I'm sure many of you have noticed, many of the applications from the App Store are crashing frequently. Basically, an app I want to launch opens a blank screen, pauses for a moment, and then drops me back to my home screen without so much as an apology. Worse, it may even reset the phone. I've found with most of them that a simple reboot will allow them to launch again, but that's getting old and doesn't always help. You're probably, like me, thinking that it's a shame that so many developers rushed so quickly to make the App Store deadline and ended up putting out unstable applications. According to the development community, though, it's not their fault ... it's Apple's.
Anonymous developer sources are reporting that they've been poring over crash logs and discovering that the reported crash has nothing to do with their application. There's a growing consensus that Apple has released a highly unstable "final" version of the 2.0 firmware. So, maybe it's more of a shame that Apple, who laid the groundwork for a multitude of useful and exciting applications, rushed development and failed to build a better foundation.
Personally, I haven't seen the crash logs, and I am -- legitimately, in my opinion -- accepting the word of veteran developers. I also can't speak for individual applications, there are some pretty shoddy offerings in the App Store which may have their own reasons for crashing (i.e. "I look like I was written by a Windows developer, I can't show my face!"). There are also several applications whose requisite servers were overloaded initially, but are getting back on their feet now. But for a lot of the random crashes, it has nothing to do with the app itself ... so, before you write that complaint email, check your tone ... you might be getting snarky with the wrong party.
The App Store might be only a few days old, but it has already proven itself to be a viable and potentially lucrative outlet for developers. With so many apps (and more being added all the time) for sale, getting exposure is extremely important if a developer wants to stand out in the crowd. Unsurprisingly, the market, especially in the games sector, is very competitive. But is the quest to compete leading to some unfair, and ultimately consumer unfriendly practices? Note: All of this data refers to the U.S. App Store, I'm unsure of the situation in other parts of the world.
We got a tip from an iPhone developer, who requested anonymity, about some shady techniques being employed by some developers to obtain a higher app ranking in the App Store. As it stands right now, if you choose to browse the App Store in iTunes, not using the search but using the "All iPhone Applications" category, apps are visually displayed in alphabetical order. Well, they are supposed to be displayed in alphabetical order. As it stands right now, only five of the 21 titles displayed on the first page actually fit that criteria -- and they are the last five apps on that page.
Some developers have figured out that adding a symbol or space before the game name will promote the app to the first page. Thus, Solitaire City, which alphabetically should be on page 26, is the very first app listed in the store. Other tiles like Whack the Groundhog, $0.99 Sudoku and 'ColorRise 3D' are all listed on the first page, instead of where they should be cataloged.
Okay, yes, that's a really bad set of lyrics. And the tune I'm singing them to is even worse: it's a good thing you can't hear it. Anyway, keep your eyes on the site, which currently says "We'll be right back" and let us know if any of you eagle eyed TUAW readers spots any changes.
(They didn't even give us a yellow sticky for the developer site. Isn't that sad?)
Thanks to everyone who sent this in!
Looks like the site is back up. Anyone see anything new?
According to a recent TechCrunch post, iPhone developers have received an e-mail from the Apple mothership saying the iPhone developer NDAs (non-disclosure agreements; i.e. "hush hush notices") will expire tomorrow at 9 a.m. PST.
What does this mean? Well, it could mean that the AppStore and iPhone 2.0 software might be available to the public at that time as well. iTunes 7.7 has been rumored to be "right around the corner," and .Mac has already already started it's face-lift procedure.
We should note that this is definitely a rumor at this point. We have not been able to verify TechCrunch's rumor. In fact, our sources tell us that they have not received any such e-mail.
am forget my password of mac,did you give me password on new email marko.[redacted]@yahoo.com
Apple -- apparently with no additional research -- reset Karppinen's password, and changed the email address on the account to the perp's. As a result of the login change, the perp had access to Karppinen's credit card details, developer software seed key, and the contents of his iDisk.
Karppinen, understandably, was livid, and sent ADC an email about what happened. A team lead from ADC's European support organization contacted Karppinen, apologizing for the mix-up. The rep promised to find out (from Apple's own logs) what information was compromised.
Apple has so far not commented on the incident, outside of what Karppinen says the ADC rep told him. It's unclear what Apple will do in the future to prevent this from happening again.
I have officially managed to finish sorting and editing all of the footage from WWDC. The last video in our series is a chat with Charlie Wood from Spanning Sync. He managed to make it to an early appointment at my hotel on the morning I was leaving, despite having made the most of a large-scale bash the evening before.
If you're not familiar with Spanning Sync, it's an application that provides synchronization between Google Calendar and iCal. The upcoming release, currently in beta, will be adding contact sync as well. Charlie provides a demo in the video, highlighting the contact photo aspect of the feature.
Justin Williams recently posted a guide to using Spanning Sync with his own application, Today. If you're a Today user who's interested in integrating Google Calendar, have a look. And check out my chat with Charlie after the jump.
Remember those days in high school when you'd frantically write all of the facts and figures you were supposed to memorize onto your arm with a Bic pen?
If you've grown up and are now a FileMaker Pro developer, Steve Wilmes Consulting has just the thing to help you remember all of the functions and operators for FileMaker Pro versions 7 - 9. The Functions and Operators Card for FileMaker Pro can be very useful if you slept through your FileMaker Pro training.
This card is double-sided, 8.5" x 11" in size, UV coated, and absolutely jam-packed with information you'll need to figure out what you're doing in FileMaker Pro. The screenshot to the right shows you just how detailed this info is. The card is spill-proof, so dumping that grande Macchiato on it isn't going to harm anything.
The Functions and Operators Card for FileMaker Pro sells for $8.95 plus shipping. The website notes that a "Scripts and More Card" will soon be available as well.
Nate True, iPhone developer extraordinaire and friend of TUAW (but who isn't, really), has sold off his Tap Tap Revolution game to a company called Tapulous, and they're renaming it Tap Tap Revenge and are going to try selling it in the iPhone's (and iPod touch's) App Store. The game isn't much tweaked from its jailbroken incarnation, but there is a chaotic two-player mode, seen above, that could be a lot of fun. I've never played the original version, so I have no idea what's up with the shaking, but it looks like it incorporates some accelerometer fun as well.
If you're a super TTR fan, Tapulous tells us that they've got a wallpaper to download on their site right now, and that more videos will be coming out over the weekend, so stay tuned. All these games are looking terrific, but of course the one thing we haven't heard confirmed from any of them is when and if they'll be showing up on the App Store. That, it seems, is up to Apple. It doesn't matter how many games you've got ready to go -- if Apple doesn't have them set for download right away, both the devs and iPhone owners will miss a nice opportunity.
The Pragmatic Bookshelf has published a series of Core Animation tutorials, that are available for purchase and download. These four screencasts walk you through the process of building Xcode projects and incorporating Core Animation features into them.
Each tutorial runs for about a twenty to thirty minutes and includes a live voice over by developer Bill Dudney. They take you step-by-step through the development process for several projects.
Don't look for a general overview of Core Animation and the technology behind it in these videos. They take it for granted that you know the vocabulary (such as layers and timing functions) and that you understand what Core Animation should do. The videos help you to move that knowledge into Xcode. These videos are best for the self-reliant programmer who's looking for a little bit of low-cost hand-holding while getting started. Each of the four tutorials cost five dollars and are available in both full-screen and iPod-compatible resolutions.
We've been receiving tips all day about an e-mail some iPhone developers got from Apple today. In the e-mail, Apple is asking developers to submit their iPhone applications to the AppStore in order to be available for the iPhone 2.0 firmware / iPhone 3G launch. The deadline? July 7th ... as in this coming Monday.
World of Apple received a screenshot of the e-mail which reads, "To ensure your application can be considered for the exciting launch of the App Store, submit your application by 12 PM PDT, on July 7, 2008. We will continue to accept applications after this time, however your application may not be available until after the launch of the App Store"
So, for all the iPhone developers out there: get your apps out by July 7th (especially for the Twitterrific and Super Monkey Ball folks).
Cornerstone made a dashing premier as a full release recently, outpacing the much-anticipatedVersions in its development cycle and leaving many of us wondering: why couldn't we have had such polished Subversion clients back when Subversion really mattered? With friendlier and more flexible version control systems like Mercurial and (my recent favorite) Git taking center stage, it just seems odd that two applications devoted to last year's RCS are vying for the spotlight.
After a 10 minute tryout, I have to say that Versions, though still in beta, was more intuitive in general. I really, really like the timeline feature in Cornerstone, though, which allows you to Command-click any two points on the timeline and see a diff with the built-in viewer. For basic Subversion-related tasks (and probably more advanced tasks that I didn't delve into yet), both clients are far ahead of what currently exists, both in usability and aesthetics.
For those who still have a strong interest in Subversion, and who haven't already sworn allegiance to Versions at some point in the year (plus) we've been waiting for it, Cornerstone just crowded the playing field. You can read more on Cornerstone at the Zennaware website.
Addendum: As noted in the comments, my impression that Subversion is being relegated to obscurity (and the bias which that impression created in this article) is entirely without basis. I concede and would like to say that, given the stats, it's great to see some clients with real polish coming out.
So the first generation of games and apps is in the iPhone's App Store, and as predicted, we've got more than our share of accelerometer races and the usual gaming standbys -- Tetris, poker, and even some nice tech demos like Andy Qua's Cube Runner. But now it's time to iterate and see if we can't start filling some of the promises a great would-be gaming platform like the iPhone offers. How about an in-depth RPG that uses the clock or camera, or a full-length platformer, or a social game that takes advantage of things like location awareness?
Imagine you are a software development company that has been around for 11 years, with 
To web developers, scripting is the glue that connects web pages and back-end systems. For example, 
As I'm sure many of you have noticed, many of the applications from the App Store are crashing frequently. Basically, an app I want to launch opens a blank screen, pauses for a moment, and then drops me back to my home screen without so much as an apology. Worse, it may even reset the phone. I've found with most of them that a simple reboot will allow them to launch again, but that's getting old and doesn't always help. You're probably, like me, thinking that it's a shame that so many developers rushed so quickly to make the App Store deadline and ended up putting out unstable applications. According to the development community, though, it's not their fault ... it's Apple's.
The App Store might be only a few days old, but it has already proven itself to be a viable and potentially lucrative outlet for developers. With so many apps (and more being added all the time) for sale, getting exposure is extremely important if a developer wants to stand out in the crowd. Unsurprisingly, the market, especially in the games sector, is very competitive. But is the quest to compete leading to some unfair, and ultimately consumer unfriendly practices? Note: All of this data refers to the U.S. App Store, I'm unsure of the situation in other parts of the world.
According to a recent 
I have officially managed to finish sorting and editing all of the footage from WWDC. The last video in our series is a chat with Charlie Wood from 
Remember those days in high school when you'd frantically write all of the facts and figures you were supposed to memorize onto your arm with a Bic pen? 
