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Live chat tomorrow: Application Development for the (mythical) Apple Tablet
From a developer's point of view, what do these rumors mean? Is it enough to assume that App Store products will "just work" out of the box on a new device class? Will adherence to Apple's resolution independence design principles allow well-built iPhone applications to adapt to new window sizes? Or are there greater concerns of memory, processor, and the overall user experience that need to be taken into account? On Friday, TUAW will chat with Craig Hockenberry and Daniel Jalkut. Hockenberry is the senior software engineer for the Iconfactory, a software and design house that ships both Macintosh and iPhone products. Jalkut, formerly of Apple, is the founder of Red Sweater Software (aka the "MarsEdit" people). Both Hockenberry and Jalkut bring multi-platform Apple development expertise to the table for our discussion of possible hardware directions and how developers can proactively prepare their place in a new market. Please join us at 10AM Pacific/1PM Eastern for this live chat. There's a reminder widget in the continuation of this post. Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/takomabibelot/ / CC BY 2.0
Macworld 2009: Interview with Iconfactory's Craig Hockenberry
Twitter is arguably one of the most popular social networking platforms in use today. And, one of the most popular ways to use Twitter is via applications for your Mac and the iPhone. In that space, one particular app seems to dominate -- Iconfactory's Twitterrific.TUAW's own Christina Warren (A.K.A. @film_girl) sat down with Iconfactory's Craig Hockenberry (A.K.A @chockenberry) to get all the latest on Twitterirfic, and to find out what else he has in store for Twitter users and elegantly designed icon fans everywhere. Click through to check out the video.
Hockenberry, Maheux respond in exclusive TUAW talkcast interview
On last night's talkcast, the Iconfactory's Gedeon Maheux and Craig Hockenberry joined us to discuss their concerns with the App Store, and they noted that Friday's layout changes are a step in the right direction. "It's another of many steps that Apple's making to make the iTunes infrastructure work better with applications for the iPhone," Hockenberry said. Even so, they explained there's still room for improvement. Hockenberry would like to see a popularity algorithm that takes into account the price of an app along with the number of times its been downloaded. "If you sell ... ten apps at $100 or a hundred apps at $10 or a thousand apps at $1, you're all equal." He also wanted to see a kind of demo system implemented, but knew that would involve more work for Apple. Maheux said he would prefer to see more data about where apps are being sold: on a category page versus a tile on the App Store home page, for example. He also pointed out that having an app displayed on the home page results in an astronomical increase in sales. "All those people who say that ... you can market your way to the top: I completely disagree with them. They don't know what they're talking about. ... Being on the [App Store] front page is all that matters." He said the Iconfactory applauds Apple for responding to developer feedback and improving the App Store. "Anything that starts a dialogue about this stuff is a good thing." The Iconfactory has released two iPhone apps: the popular twitter client Twitterrific, and strategy game Frenzic. You can listen to the interview at our Talkshoe page, or via iTunes. The interview starts at about the 25 minute mark. Don't skip the the first part of the talkcast, though, where Dave, Mel and I discuss Apple's netbook possibilities and the ideal kitchen computer.
App Store changes layout, threat of the fleshy palm still looms
TouchMeme notes that the App Store has changed layout to separate free and paid applications, perhaps in response to developer grumbling about competition in a crowded market. Free apps and paid apps now occupy sidebars to the right and left, respectively, of a major category index page. The center still allows you to sort the results by release date, name, or popularity (which doesn't appear to work yet: it only displays an alphabetical list). The separation of free and paid apps brings iTunes more closely in line with the mobile App Store experience. The changes affect every category except Games. The concerns, though, of the Iconfactory's Craig Hockenberry (who earlier this week published an open letter to Steve Jobs detailing his frustration with marketing iPhone apps) may not be entirely assuaged. He argues that the price appeal of 99-cent apps (which may not be supported by the data) stifles the development of larger, more expensive apps that earn less prominent placement in the App Store. The issues of price popularity and developer ROI aren't exactly solved by this furniture rearrangement, but perhaps it will let more high-quality apps bubble to the top of the Paid App charts. Otherwise, Apple might yet see the fleshy part of Hockenberry's palm. [Via AppleInsider.]
iPhone Backup Extractor helps kill bugs dead
iPhone developer Pádraig Kennedy sent us news of this jewel of a tool: iPhone Backup Extractor, a way to read the backups that iTunes automatically makes for your iPhone or iPod touch using the Finder. Kennedy already had a command-line tool to do this, but he wrapped an easy-to-use GUI around the whole process. Just select a backup, select an application, and away you go. What makes this useful, writes ADC award-winning iPhone developer Craig Hockenberry, is that it allows developers to track down customer bugs that they can't reproduce themselves. "You can instruct your customer to download the application, sync their device with iTunes and then have them select the latest backup and your application within that backup. ... Getting this information into your development environment is then just a matter of hacking around with the Simulator folder structure." "The bug won't stand a chance at this point." iPhone Backup Extractor is donationware, Leopard-only, and available directly from Kennedy's site (which has the best URL ever, incidentally).
Iconfactory releases Twitterrific 1.1 for iPhone
The Iconfactory and its chief typist, Craig Hockenberry, have been hard at work on Twitterrific 1.1, a substantial update to their mobile Twitter client for the iPhone and iPod touch. The update features much smoother scrolling, larger tweet capacity, the ability to save pictures to the camera roll before uploading them to TwitPic, and secure HTTPS server communication. It also squashes a large number of bugs. A full accounting of the changes is available on Twitterrific's app store page and on the Iconfactory's website. The app was included in both Mike's and Steve's list of favorite apps for their respective iPhones. Twitterrific is still available in two flavors. Twitterrific (the free version) periodically shows ads via The Deck, similar to its free counterpart for the desktop. Twitterrific Premium is $9.99, and omits the advertising.
Make your content look good on the iPhone
Some might think that I hate iPhone specific websites based on this opinion piece I wrote in which said I hate iPhone specific websites. Actually, it didn't say anything of the sort, but many read it that way. The point I was trying to make was that crafting websites which use browser detection to only allow the iPhone in is a step in the wrong direction (Eric Meyer, CSS guru, agrees with me so I really can't be that wrong.). That being said, since I have long been a mobile Internet user I am all for variants of websites that work well on smaller screens. The Iconfactory's Craig Hockenberry has penned a great article (the first in a two part) all about making your website shine on the iPhone. He covers everything a budding iPhone web developer should know (which boils down to, ';Use standards!'), and points out some specific iPhone tags and tricks that you can use on your site. [via furbo.org]
