Craig Hockenberry
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Daily Update for August 5, 2013
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
Over half of surveyed developers will require iOS 7 for their apps
Twitterrific developer Craig Hockenberry has posted the results of an interesting survey he performed over on his blog. Hockenberry was deep into the development cycle of getting his apps ready for iOS 7 when he wondered if many other developers out there are doing what he's doing -- that is, dropping support for any version of iOS below iOS 7. So Hockenberry ran an informal survey and discovered some interesting things. Out of 575 responses: 95 percent of developers said they are working on updating their apps for iOS 7. 52 percent of developers said they will drop support for any iOS below iOS 7 in the next major version of their app. The first finding isn't surprising, as developers are keen to be on Apple's latest iOS. However, the second finding is a bit shocking, but that's a reflection of the work developers need to undertake to make sure their apps run fluidly and look good on iOS 7. What this means for users is that most apps are going to have an iOS 7 look and feel so they will get a continued uniformity on their iOS devices. However, those users with older devices that don't support iOS 7 may find that it's time to upgrade or else some of their favorite apps may leave them behind.
iPad tech specs reveal Cortex A8, 256MB Ram, PowerVR SGX 535
Now that the iPad has been out and tested for a few days, developers have a much better idea of what's exactly under that perfectly-formed hood. Turns out the A4 processor is modeled on the Cortex A8, a fact which was not only expected, but gives a little extra credence to the theory that chipmaker Intrinsity (who are behind the A8) was recently purchased by Apple. Elsewhere on the iPad, you can find the same PowerVR SGX 535 GPU and 256MB RAM that can be seen in the iPhone 3GS. But apparently the whole is better than the parts -- our buddy Craig Hockenberry sat down last weekend and did some serious benchmarking, and found that the iPad is actually many times faster than the iPhone 3GS at all sorts of tasks. As Craig said, this is doubly remarkable when you think about it: not only did they get these kinds of speed improvements in just a matter of years, but they've increased the battery life as well. Apple's purchase of PA Semi (and possibly Intrinsity) and their commitment to make their own chips has paid off in spades already. In other words, the hardware tells us what we already knew about the iPad: it's a beautiful and amazing device. And since there is so much shared hardware, it'll be interesting to see what kinds of speeds we get out of the next version of the iPhone. Lots of these changes and updates in the hardware seem directly transferable right back there.
Apple puts limits on location-based advertising in the App Store
Apple's excited about mobile advertising (and it certainly seems like they're setting up a plan for local ads), but to devs, they say, "not so much." Apparently they've sent out a message that says location services should only be used to provide "beneficial information," not targeted advertising. Any apps that include ads targeted to where you and your iPhone are will be rejected posthaste, says Apple. There's a few things going on here -- Mobile Entertainment wonders just what "beneficial information" means. Certainly apps like Foursquare and MyTown provide business information based on your iPhone's location, and Foursquare especially is working on local deals with places that you've checked-in to -- is that considered advertising? And a few developers, including our friend Craig Hockenberry (MacNN messed up Chock's name in their post) say that Apple wants location-based ads for themselves. Kind of a jerk move by Apple, but if that's where the money is, I guess you can't blame them.
Muxtape works on iPhone
If you are a Web 2.0 fanatic (which, come on, who isn't these days?) then you probably know about Muxtape. For those of you who aren't religiously reading the latest Web application news at DownloadSquad, Muxtape is basically a way to share your personalized mp3 mixtape. Not only can you subscribe to the tape's RSS via iTunes, but it turns out that you can also listen to Muxtapes on your iPhone! Just navigate over to the Muxtape page of your choosing and select a song. Mobile Safari will then load the file and begin to play it like normal mp3 audio. How cool is that?Thanks for the info, Craig!
Craig Hockenberry on iPhone SDK and backgrounding
Craig Hockenberry is the man, the myth, and the legend behind the absolute best Twitter application on the Mac (he works for the Iconfactory). We would all love to see Twitterrific on the iPhone, but Craig offers up a "healthy dose of reality" regarding the iPhone SDK and backgrounding services (applications that run in the background even though the phone is running a different foreground app).In a recent blog post, Craig attempts to explain why Apple will not be giving developers access to backgrounding services on the iPhone. He points out that in a mockup design of "Mobile Twitterrific," based on the jailbreak/community toolchain, refreshing the XML data from Twitter every 5 minutes led to a dead iPhone battery in only 4 hours. "The heart of the problem [is] the radios. Both the EDGE and Wi-Fi transceivers have significant power requirements," he says. "Whenever that hardware is on, your battery life is going to suck."He also reiterated what Apple said about the "Core Location" feature that Apple provided in the SDK: use it only on an "as-needed" basis. Craig said that the issue of backgrounding services may get addressed later on, but right now Apple is preventing iPhone developers from "shooting themselves in the foot." He said that it will take months before the desktop developers have gotten the mindset of an iPhone developer, and that thinking like a desktop developer will lead to bad designs.
