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iOS will it be the wave of the future or the past?

January 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

will Apple learn that in the day of this modern age, people have the right to do what they want to do, when you try to artifically restrict people to making them do what they do not want to do, then you have this…

Update, with the new Amazon App store for Andriod, could apple be facing the result of a lot of very bad business decisions?

I am attempting to decide if I want to renew membership in the iOS program mostly for two reasons, my clients are not served well by the current distribution method that apparently Apple has chosen to pursue.

The second reason is that the small business market is under served by the approval process.

I find both of these reasons to be disturbing and I would welcome the opportunity to relate to Apple that this does not have to be this way and that Apple by its chosen model of distribution is leaving a huge amount of money just sitting at the table.

For example, lets take mom and pops pizza in a mid western town of 85.000 people, 30 thousand of which use SMS and other methods of communication on smart devices, if mom and pop want an ipad app or an iphone app about their nice pizza and other special offers they might want to allow their customers to place an order through an app, how easy could that be, you get on your iphone and zap a hot pizza shows up at your door, I know I want one now.

But sadly, unless mom and pop are a larger corporation it seems that they have little chance of being approved at the Apple app store, and thus they are limited in how they can achieve their goals of growing as a business.

So what do mom and pop do?

Well they are moving toward Android, and yes I know its a bad word here, but lets have a look at it, anyway, because if we are to be grown up about business then this must be a part of the discussion, many small business owners are moving toward Android because developers are moving over to that platform simply because the market is not being served adequately by Apple.

There is a real opportunity to serve the mom and pop business ventures out there simply by adding a few categories to the App store you could provide mom and pop with a great method of distribution and attract additional developers to the platform, but so far that is not what is happening.

The developers I know are abandoning iOS in favor of platforms that are favorable to the developers clients, that is a problem and I am wondering if Apple is even aware of this problem, that is why I really do not know if I will renew, because, so far, what I see is a lot of questionable apps and a huge list of things you cant do with Apple, will things change?

Because if they do not I fear for the popularity of this platform.

Filed Under: Apple News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Developing Apps for the App store

November 16, 2010 By

can you really develop apps that will get accepted in the app store?

More importantly can you get your app accepted into the app store.

There is sort of a brotherhood, of coders that seem to have a sort of corner on the app market, these app developers, tend to have one thing in common, deep corporate pockets, now it is possible to get your app in the app store, but there are a fair few things you should be aware of, they will deny your app, for every reason under the sun plus some reasons that make no sense at all.

I have heard all kinds of reasons,
Even allegedly that they did not like the colors of the app background?

one was actually that they did not think that the app would have massive curb appeal.

I am like curb appeal, your nuts right, apparently they are.

So this is likely one of the reasons that so many developers are abandoning the Xcode platform.

There are so many things at work in this app store, but political correctness is actually one of those things.

So if you want to create a product that does well in the app store what do you do and how do you do it.

There are some decent guidelines, apparently, the strangle hold of apple on its developers continues, you cannot have more than two views that proceed a URL, (seriously) nuts folks, also there is the rule about how you cant do anything that anyone might find offensive, like if you do one about meat then peta might allegedly complain so allegedly apple will not approve an app on that basis alone.

Filed Under: iPad Apps Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

App Store how to get that app in there

November 11, 2010 By Leave a Comment

One of the hardest things to do is to actually get your app into the app store, trust me on that one as well there are thousands of developers that have been unable to get their app into the app store, for one reason or another.

Developing or having an app developed does not guarantee that you will get that coveted app into the app store.

There are many considerations, where the moon is in apogee, to the correlation to the stars?
Perhaps, the app store can decline to accept your app for any reason they wish from not enough curb appeal to
you just dont get it, do you dummy.

Apple can do what ever they want, you pay your $99.00 fee and you get the pleasure of listening to someone tell you that your design or your the graphics in your app do not look good enough for the app store, no really, it can happen.

The process is not fair and some have suggested that it is outsourced by non English speaking personal to review it.

Which means that you could be dealing with someone that does not understand how to read in english, I know it seems crazy but for some of the turn downs we have seen it is the only explanation that makes sense.

So rule number one.

1. the app must do something useful or provide some form of lasting entertainment.
The famous ifart app, not going to happen, so gum chewing is also out, and how to grow your hair yep also out.

2. parental controls don’t work unless the parents set it up and many will not or just dont care, so apple has decided to do the job that the parents will or choose not to do, so apple is looking out for the kids, great gesture, I sure wish I could get them to watch my kids for a few days.

3. If your App looks like it is not as professional as the outsourced non native english speaking people hired to review the apps, you might want to think that over again, because once again apple is on the look out for those poor graphics.

4. Apple has an appeal board, go figure, “we have a Review Board that you can appeal to. If you run to the press and trash us, it never helps.” from the apple guidelines, amazing stuff, so how subjective is this process and can anyone thread the eye of the amazing apple needle?

Apparently it is not as easy as anyone ever told you more so if your not a fortune 500 company.

So sorry to all those people who bought into the make a million in the app store ebook, well your in for a real surprise.

Because the chances of you ever getting an app into the app store are probably about zero yep a big fat goose egg.

We are not saying that you cannot be successful just that apple has allegedly gone out of its way to be exclusive and to allegedly prevent anyone from gaining access to the app store unless your a corporate entity with deep pockets then you can afford to get your app submitted and accepted right away.

Sadly the rest of the 100 thousand other developers, that dont have millions in advertising revenue but have just as good an idea for an app, well look for the rejection letter soon.

For the most part, it appears that apple, well needs some serious management, help, perhaps even a psychiatrist.

But I guess that is what you get when an alleged mad man is in charge of your company, well see what happens next but one thing for sure look for lots of other app stores to show up in the near future, and watch for jail broken devices to rise above 50 percent, because as hard as it is for apple to understand this, when people buy something they want to be able to use it…

Think about that…

Before you buy your nice new neat, ipad device.

Filed Under: Apple News, How To, iPad Apps Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

iPads Will they last?

October 23, 2010 By

With sales mounting now more than one million units, in fact more than 2 million units sold and counting…

The idea that the iPad is still here and is not going away, is not so hard to believe.

If you listen to Steve Jobs, his new iPad will make a ding in the universe, well perhaps, eventually, all though there may be one thing that Steve forgot to mention, that was he allegedly has less than desirable people skills, (allegedly)

Putting that aside for now, at least, and the fact that Steve offended, (again allegedly) millions of developers around the world with his most recent SDK 4.o and you still have a very nice product offering, one that could very well be one of the best selling christmas items of this year and perhaps beyond, setting sales records, for the last two years, was the iPod, now we have what could be even a more popular product in the iPad, however, some have suggested that there are some issues, that perhaps the lofty mind of Steve Jobs has not considered…

Many are openly weeping about the way that the unit was designed, without a camera, but I guess that because of cost considerations, Steve wanted to have a unit that just about anyone could afford, or charge to a credit card, LOL.

Still, the app store, is another thing if you are keeping up with the latest information in many of the developer forums, there are several companies, (that have supported MAC for years and years, and with the latest license terms)

These companies that have literally supported MAC for so long now, find themselves on the outside looking in,

Now that is disturbing, knowing one company in particular, RunRev LTD, which spent literally thousands and thousands and did I say thousands, getting ready for a big product offering, for the iPad and iPhone, yet were slapped down like dogs, by the great and wonderful, OZ.

To me it appears to be a really bad, thing, bad PR, bad move all around, but the public, may not realize that all these things are going on in the background…

While the stock price may be going up for now, once all this really perverse, (again allegedly), only allegedly, we would not want the all powerful OZ, to come down and reject our app that is pending review in the app store, (it is an iPad app and it has been in review for a long long long time now.)

You just have to wonder, with only a few iPad apps out there, rumors say that the commercials are not as accurate as they might want you to believe, allegedly…

Because of the problems at the iTunes app store, huge I hear, (allegedly)

I sure hope to see some better and more friendly news from Apple soon, but in the time being, I guess I can read a book on my new iPad, if not much else…

Filed Under: iPad Apps Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Apple Does the Right thing.

October 12, 2010 By

Well now we have some good news for developers who spent thousands and thousands of dollars depending on apple to do the right thing they did and for me, I can say thanks apple.

Developers are giddy after the most recent reprieve, was granted, that lifted the third party tools restrictions, while some say it was due to pressure that ended up being more than the ego of SJ, however, I hope that they just did the right thing.

Now in a fantastic news story today Apple did the right thing in allowing Thousands of paying customers to actually use their favorite tools to develop iOS apps, this is great news, it is great to see some sanity over at Apple.

Cheers to Apple for doing the right thing.

Filed Under: iPad Apps Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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