iPhone App Archives – Tom Altman’s Wedia Conversation

Archive for the ‘iPhone App’ Category

Apps trump hardware – by Fred Wilson

Posted by tom.altman on January 14th, 2010

: Image via CrunchBase

Fred Wilson is a cool VC in New York who I have been following and enjoying his comments and stories. This is a great one – he basically explains how he solves his remotes issues with a iPhone Touch.

Of course, for this to work you’ll need to have a $200 iTouch handy. But honestly, I could have spent $200 on the iTouch and added $2 for the Air Mouse and it would not have been much more than what I spent on the keyboard and mouse.

Here’s a link to the post.

Fred Wilson @ Clickable Interesting Cafe (webmetricsguru.com)

Posted in iPhone, iPhone App, technology

Tags: Fred Wilson, iPhone, universal remote

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iPhone apps go HTML5?

Posted by tom.altman on December 18th, 2009

: Image by Thomas Hawk via Flickr

There are some good points here:

Lately I’ve noticed that some developers are avoiding building apps and, instead, are building custom web pages that are designed specifically for the iPhone.

And in a post I did back in November.

Also – these are cross-platform. Which will definitely come into play as more players enter the game.

Evernote Launches Android App (gigaom.com)
Appify: A City-by-City App Store (readwriteweb.com)
Pastebot: Command Your Clipboard, Manage Your Data Library. (macstories.net)

Posted in Quick Post, iPhone, iPhone App

Tags: App Store, Handhelds, iPhone, Smartphone, Web page

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iPhone webapps to kick the AppStore habit

Posted by tom.altman on November 30th, 2009

: Image via Wikipedia

I love my iPhone. I hate the AppStore.

I have not built my own iPhone app – partially because I haven’t found something I couldn;t already buy. But partly because it seems complicated. That’s probably why I don’t build desktop apps. I came across a post by John Gruber called “iPhone Web Apps as an Alternative to the App Store” whih points to an article by Peter-Paul Koch “Apple is not evil. iPhone developers are stupid.” and they reaffirmed what I was thinking.

from Peter-Paul
“The fundamental problem on the iPhone is not Apple’s App Store approval policies, but the iPhone developers’ arrogant disdain for Web technologies.”

“Apple is not evil. iPhone developers are stupid. Their problems with the App Store approval process are entirely their own fault and they deserve no commiseration.”

Yea. This is the exact arugment I’ve been having the desktop developers for 10 years – why hadn’t I connected the dots.

Although Peter-Paul has been “put in his place” and written a rebuttal – I think the issues will also be “fixed” with the competition with Android.

So – if you’re so inclined to write the iPhone app:

But the best proof is what I pointed out above: Apple itself created almost no iPhone web apps. Successful iPhone developers don’t just want to write software that works on the iPhone. They want to write software for the iPhone that’s just as good as Apple’s. Today that means using Cocoa Touch and the native SDK.

When you write a Cocoa Touch app for the iPhone, you’re not starting from scratch. You’re starting with the Cocoa Touch framework. As Faruk Ateş astutely points out in his response to Koch, to discount the framework is to discount everything that sets the iPhone apart as a development platform. Not only are native iPhone apps faster and more capable than their web-app equivalents, but they’re easier to write.

Nothing will be solved today – but as Android continues to spread in it’s open and loving ways…we’re be waiting with our web code ready to spring into action.

iPhone App Freelancer launches – Turn Great Ideas into iPhone Apps (themactrack.com)
Apple pulls C64 App after Manomio shenanigans revealed (engadget.com)
Apple God Gruber may or may not be the kingmaker of iPhone apps world (fakesteve.net)
iPhone Facebook Developer Quits (ubergizmo.com)
Cupertino, You Have a Problem (gigaom.com)

Posted in Featured Post, iPhone, iPhone App, programming, technology

Tags: apple, AppStore, Cocoa Touch, iPhone, John Gruber

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70% of print publishers step up mobile efforts | Emilio Castellanos' Blog

Posted by tom.altman on September 22nd, 2009

“More than 70% of US print publishers in a recent survey say that mobile is receiving more attention at their publication this year than last, though only about one-third believe they have a well-developed plan for attacking and conquering the mobile market, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC), which conducted the research.”

Heck, we don’t even have a mac we could build an iPhone app on if we wanted to at my work. (A media company!) Oh boy!

70% of print publishers step up mobile efforts | Emilio Castellanos’ Blog.

Posted in Quick Post, iPhone App, innovation, new media, wedia

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How to Price Your iPhone App

Posted by tom.altman on September 9th, 2009

How to Price Your iPhone App.

I’m a fan of freemium in iPhone apps. I don;t mind paying, but it better be good.

Posted in Quick Post, iPhone, iPhone App

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Woah – real time video overlay

Posted by tom.altman on July 7th, 2009

How cool is this – realtime video overlay/GPS-ish mashup. This is very cool. (Only for the iPhone 3GS)

Posted in Quick Post, iPhone App, innovation

Tags: GPS, iPhone, mashup, realtime video

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Ripdev: The iPhone Authority

Posted by tom.altman on March 24th, 2009

Ripdev: The iPhone Authority.

Apple is losing the death grip on the iPhone.

InstallerApp is a native Mac OS X application (soon — for Windows too) that allows you easily download applications from Installer and Cydia directly onto your computer, and install them to the iPhone connected with USB cable.

Posted in Quick Post, iPhone App, technology

Tags: apple, iPhone, Smartphones

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iPhone Apps: $32k Spent vs $535 Revenue

Posted by tom.altman on March 12th, 2009

Owen had a development budget of $32,000 for the game but in the first month made $535 in revenue, despite a glowing review from major gaming site Kotaku.

via Some Brutally Honest iPhone App Sales Numbers: $32k Spent vs $535 Revenue.

Um, how do I pull that email to the dev team back through the amil server?

Seriously – I wonder how much extra traffic and users the free app people are driving back to their sites?