In-appPurchases
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Watch Google's Android event in full: Honeycomb on the Xoom, Android Market website, in-app purchases, and Cee-Lo Green
There was plenty about yesterday's Android event that didn't make headlines but was worth noting. Hardware acceleration of both 2D and 3D UI elements -- shown off to great effect by Google's Hugo Barra, who managed to scroll through three lists simultaneously without inducing any lag on the Motorola Xoom -- should make Honeycomb as delicious to look at as it sounds, while our personal favorite, the new tablet-specific email interface, should be part of Gmail yesterday. The email UI is built out of elements Google calls fragments, which will supposedly be easy to transition down to smartphones, so thumbs up all around. The video above also runs you through the big news of the day, namely that Android Market can now be accessed via a dedicated website and apps downloaded to your device remotely, along with the equally important (for devs) addition of in-app purchases. Finally, Cee-Lo Green pops in for a video chat session from wherever he is on the internets, and we're all treated to an exhibition of lag-afflicted, awkward conversation. What's not to love?
BlackBerry App World 2.1 gets in-app payments, too
Well, isn't that just an adorable quirk of corporate timing? RIM just announced that BlackBerry App World 2.1 is now live with support for in-app payments using the BlackBerry Payment Service, matching Google's similar Android Market announcement earlier today. Users should see the 2.1 update rolling out over the course of the day, and devs have had the appropriate SDK since January 5, so progs that use the service should be arriving shortly. Ah, commerce -- ain't it grand?
Android in-app purchases hands-on (video)
Today Google announced that Android in-app purchases are coming to the platform and we were able to get a demo by Paul Sebastien of Disney. He showed us how to buy a track pack (Far East Movement, for those who care) in Tap Tap Revenge 4 over 3G on a Nexus S, and using a fake credit card! It's interesting to note that the in-app purchase UI matches the look and feel of the new Android Market and developers can implement the functionality in a few simple steps. In-app purchases should start rolling out in various Android apps this spring. In the meantime, take a look at our video after the break.
Android Market gets a web store with OTA installations, in-app purchases coming soon
Google's Android Market now has a web client. Finally! And guess what else, it's already live. Hit the source link below to get exploring. It's very simple, really, you can browse the entire Market catalog on your desktop or however else you're accessing the web, you can purchase anything that takes your fancy, and then -- via the magic of over-the-air transfers -- it downloads and installs onto your Android handset. A neat My Market Account section will let you nickname your registered devices to make them more recognizable as well. Google has also just announced that Android will soon support in-app purchases. Widespread developer interest has been cited as the major reason for doing it, so you've got those lovable coders to thank for the oncoming wave of micropayments you'll have to deal with in your Android apps. The in-app purchasing SDK is releasing to devs today and will be "live to users prior to the end of this quarter." Update: Invalid request. Yep, that's the message we keep getting when we try and download an app. Google promises that it should be working soon... Update 2: And now it appears to be working!
Google 'not happy' with Android Market purchase rates, many changes coming
Having a Market full of apps is a very good thing for owners of Android handsets, but those owners buying few premium apps is a bad thing for developers who keep that Market full. That, of course, is also bad news for Google, which is making a variety of changes to appease devs, some of which Android Platform Manager Eric Chu outlined at the Inside Social Apps conference yesterday. After already nuking the 24 hour trial period Google is now working on an in-app payment system, which would enable the direct-selling of add-ons, costumes, and enough other bits and bobs to ensure you'll never buy a fully-featured app again. Google is also negotiating with more carriers to allow users to have app purchases appear on their bill, rather than using a separate payment system, as is already possible on AT&T. Finally, a team of honest to gosh humans is working on helping to weed out apps that violate the company's terms of service, sifting through the Market to find bogus downloads, perhaps an admission that the "open and unobstructed environment" ideal isn't working out. We wonder if they'll also be looking for free apps that quite capably provide the functionality of premium ones. Those, it seems, are the greatest threat to the paid apps -- and perhaps the greatest asset of the Market itself.
Parental supervision shocker! iPad use leads to costly in-app Smurfberry orders
After the Soviet Union collapsed, many of its so-called satellite states had to struggle to find ways to keep afloat -- none more so than Smurf Village, that bastion of communal living where everyone looks nearly identical, has the same surname, and works "according to his ability" (and in return lives "according to his needs"). How has Papa Smurf and Co. survived in the post-Soviet geopolitical climate? It seems that Capcom's Smurfs' Village game for iOS might be free, but the in-app purchases will cost you dearly. Actually, it's the in-app purchases that your pre-literate toddlers make that will cost you dearly. And this is a lesson that a lot of parents are finding out, according to a recent AP article, which notes that "warnings may alert parents, but it's doubtful that they'd deter children who can't read and don't understand money." Sure, Smurfberries may grow freely on magical trees, but a virtual wheelbarrow full of 'em will run you $60.
Mac App Store launching in January sans Game Center and in-app purchases?
"Less" and "later" are some of our least favorite words, but they may apply to the Mac App Store, as one source claims it will miss Christmas, and another says the marketplace will have fewer features than its iOS counterpart. First off, The Loop's Jim Dalrymple believes that December 13th isn't the magic date, claiming that his inside sources say the store will actually arrive in January -- which, we must admit, would still be within the window of Apple's October promise to launch within 90 days. Second and perhaps more importantly, 9to5 Mac reports that App Store developers are being told that their Mac endeavors will have a number of substantial limitations, namely no Game Center support, no in-app purchases, and no ability to offer demos, trials or betas. Sounds like those high-denomination iTunes gift cards you've been stockpiling in your basement will finally come in handy.
Capcom's free-to-play Smurfs' Village out-grossing Angry Birds
If you, like me, responded to the release of Smurfs' Village by saying, "Really? A freemium game from Capcom? Based on the Smurfs franchise?" then you probably want to rethink how the App Store works, because apparently it's a hit -- Smurfs' Village has topped even Angry Birds recently for the top grossing app on the App Store. The game is free-to-play, though players can buy "smurfberries" via in-app purchase that work like mojo in We Rule to speed up growth of players' crops or buildings. And those smurfberries must be selling like hotcakes, because the game is trouncing Angry Birds' millions and millions of 99-cent downloads. It'll be really interesting to see what effect this has on the market as a whole. Sega just released a freemium MMO in the form of a game called Kingdom Conquest, and EA is scheduled to do the same very soon. Capcom has been fumbling around for a big hit on the iPhone with all of their various properties, and while the Street Fighter IV game has been doing well, it hasn't seen nearly the intake that this Smurfs game has. Which probably means we can see some more freemium games coming from Capcom and other big companies in the future. You have to wonder who's spending all this money on these things -- are there legitimate game buyers out there shelling out for smurfberries instead of Starbucks, or is this all kids whose parents will be extremely surprised when the iTunes bill comes in next month?
TUAW's Daily App: Landformer
Owen Goss is the mind behind Streaming Colour Studios, makers of Dapple and Monkeys in Space. I first met Goss earlier this year at at the 360iDev conference, and during his panel there (in which he created a game about bacon farming in just 90 minutes), he showed off a few early shots of a puzzle game called LandFormer. LandFormer is now out in the App Store, and it's a puzzle game with a pretty steep slope in difficulty and a really excellent look and feel. The goal of the game is to level out all of the lands in a little playing field, which you do by raising and lowering them in a few different patterns. You're given a target number of moves, and the challenge comes in leveling the land before the move timer runs out. The app is free, but it only comes with 10 beginner levels to start. 50 more levels can be bought within the app for US$1.99 (and a premium theme can be picked up for 99 cents), with presumably more levels to come. Fortunately, Goss has created a fully featured level editor with the free version -- you can make and share levels with anyone, and even "download" new levels through an ingenious URL system. If you're up for a few mindbending puzzles (and maybe have a few friends to create and share levels with), definitely give LandFormer a look.
C64 creators also bringing Amiga, Atari 2600 emulators to iPhone
I just posted at the end of last week about Manomio's decision to go free with its licensed C64 emulator for the iPhone, but today it let us know that there are even more plans in the works. Given the success in porting C64 games (with official licenses) over to the iPhone, Manomio is working on two more emulators right now, including the Atari 2600 emulator seen above (Frogger! Space Invaders!) and an Amiga 500 emulator as well. Both apps are simply tech demos at the moment, and while Apple generally hasn't been very friendly to emulators on the iPhone, Manomio has put in its dues -- the company sorted out the emulator code in such a way that it's Apple-approved, and it's already worked with C64 license owners to make sure the games can be legally released on the iPhone, some free and some as in-app purchases. Of course, chasing down the Atari licenses might be a little tougher than the more obscure C64 titles, but if it's possible to get these old gaming gems on the iPhone, Manumio will probably pull it off. Stay tuned -- when you can play the original Frogger on your iPhone, we'll let you know.
Found Footage: Urban Airship's AirMail takes push notifications to the next level
Here's an exclusive TUAW video preview of Urban Airship's latest product, AirMail. Like their other products, AirMail is powered by a precompiled drop-in library that developers add to their iPhone applications. AirMail adds a whole new spin on push notifications by transforming them from lightweight messaging into a more durable and interactive product. Normally push notifications give a simple heads-up to users along the lines of "You have mail" or "Someone tweeted your name." AirMail goes further. It uses the iPhone's push notification infrastructure to enhance two-way communications between service providers and their customers. As this video shows, push notifications are no longer throwaway products. Using AirMail, they can be stored and referenced through an in-app library. Applications can create message histories that persist well beyond the life of a normal push message. What's more, those notifications can involve the user in a multi-directional process, whether confirming that they have taken their pills (as shown here), are ready to take a meeting, or that they acknowledge that a security alarm was triggered in error, among other uses.
GDC 2010: How to develop an app with EA Mobile
For the first panel of day two here at the 2010 Game Developers Conference's iPhone gaming track, Oliver Miao of Centerscore Studios took the stage to talk about working on Surviving High School for the iPhone as a part of Electronic Arts' Mobile division. As Miao made clear early on, he's an "insider outsider" at EA: his company was started with a few friends, purchased by Vivendi in 2006, created a hit mobile game called Surviving High School in 2007, and was bought by EA in 2008. Last year, they were commissioned to recreate their game for the iPhone. In one of the most interesting iPhone panels at the conference yet, he talked about the ins and outs of working with EA on an iPhone title, and explained both, what it was like to work with the company, and his own philosophies on game design, especially concerning in-app purchases and microtransactions. Most users seem to believe that microtransactions and episodic content are, at the very least, a pain to deal with (and are, at worst, a scam), but Miao is convinced that they're actually necessary to having a successful game -- he said that every developer, going forward, "will need to have them." Read on to find out why.
TUAW Interview: Freeverse CEO Ian Lynch Smith on the Ngmoco purchase
We were all pretty gobsmacked last night with the news that iPhone gaming developer Ngmoco had purchased longtime Mac game developer Freeverse, so we went hunting for answers. Fortunately, Freeverse CEO and founder Ian Lynch Smith was nice enough to sit down and take our questions this morning, and he provided a little more background and insight on the deal. The first thing we wanted to do was what would happen to Freeverse's extensive Mac catalog, and we were told conclusively that "it's not going anywhere at all." While Freeverse will still "sell and maintain" their Mac titles, Smith did tell us that they've "been pretty much exclusively focused on the iPhone for the last 18 months anyway," so while they have a legacy in the Mac, the company believes that OS X is "on a collision course with the iPad," and that the main opportunities and user bases for Mac software are now using the iPhone and, soon, Apple's tablet. "It's very hard," we were told, "to get the volume that the iTunes App Store has" for purely Mac software. The other big question we had was what Freeverse thinks of Ngmoco's insistent support on the "freemium" model (where games are free-to-play, with extra content or add-ons to purchase later), something that has a lot of customers up in arms. Hit the "read more" link below to see what he said both about that and what he thinks about the iPad and the future of computing.
Fieldrunners updated to 1.3, offers two new maps as in-app purchases
Touch Arcade has word that one of 2008's best iPhone games (our 2009 list is coming out this week), Fieldrunners [iTunes link, $2.99], has released an update (1.3), in which they've released two new maps available as in-app purchases, and they've included OpenFeint 2.4 functionality, with messaging, chat, and everything else the in-game social network portends. The two new maps are called Skyway and Frostbite. Skyway boasts a metal floor with a few holes in it, which limit where you can place your units in the tower defense classic. Frostbite is a snowfield with a base in the middle to defend from attackers on all sides. Seems like both offer up some interesting twists on the gameplay -- they're 99 cents each (a fact that has the most recent iTunes reviews up in arms), but if you ask us, two bucks for new content is cheap, especially if you're a big Fieldrunners fan already. The update itself is a free download for paid users, though, so if you want that OpenFeint functionality, hit up the App Store and load the game up yet again.
C64 emulator back on the App Store
The C64 emulator that was pulled from the App Store by Apple for leaving a BASIC interpreter intact has now returned, though we presume it's minus the Apple-offending code. But while it will no longer run your own code, it will run some old-school C64 games, including eight for free with the app, and more coming with in-app purchases. It's got everything you'd expect from an emulator, including original sound and graphics, an auto-save, and the option to play in fullscreen portrait or landscape. In fact, the only thing it doesn't have is an interpreter, but of course you know why that is by now: Apple doesn't want anyone running code on their devices that they haven't approved through the App Store. The app sells for $4.99 right now, and they expect to release the in-app purchases sometime this December, with no price announced yet.
Free iPhone apps can now include in-app purchases
One of Apple's many curious restrictions on iPhone apps has now been lifted. It used to be that, in order for developers to have microtransactions / in-app purchases, they had to charge something upfront for the software, essentially requiring consumers to pay at least twice, or not at all. Well, all that's changed, as the company has sent word to its developer community that the restriction has been lifted, meaning those annoying "Lite" and "Full" versions cluttering the app store can now be one and the same, with folks downloading the demo and paying to upgrade from within the app itself, a model that's worked to success in other software ecosystems like Xbox Live. Sure, there's gonna be developers out there that abuse the newly-minted business model, but it's not like anything was stopping them before when they charged $2 upfront only to get you again later. The mass email announcement is reprinted after the break. [Warning: read link requires iPhone developer account] [Via Daring Fireball]
Apple relents: in-app purchase for free apps allows demo-to-paid
Big news coming down the pike today for App Store developers. Apple has finally relented on a sticking point in the developer agreement, allowing in-app purchases for free applications. Finally, developers can distribute a free trial version of their applications, unlocking features from directly within the app as users request them (and pay for them). Until now, developers had to deliver two applications, with two unique identities, and no simple way to share data from the trial to the full version. (Yes, you could have used servers and shared keychains, but that's burdensome and kind of pointless.) What this news means is that developers can unify into a single application. One project to maintain and support, one place to consolidate reviews, one application sandbox for a single set of application data. Earlier today, Mike S. mentioned Gas Cubby and Gas Cubby Lite -- now there could be only one version of the app, with an 'upsell' inside to go from the light to full feature set. Expect to see these free-to-paid apps hit the store within the next few weeks. Apple will likely be deluged with new apps to review based on this news. Visit the App Store Resource Center for more details and check your e-mail account for the developer news that went out to all iPhone devs today. Q&A: Readers ask: "How will this affect the no reviews situation for free apps." Good question. Apple is going to need to sort that out. Since in-app purchases are registered to an iTunes account and associated with an application, it shouldn't take much work to limit reviews to those who have purchased something in a free app. We'll have to watch for this to happen because as things stand now, if you download an app, you get to rate it and developers know that free apps are thoughtless review magnets. "How will you deliver binaries?" All the functionality must already be built into the app. StoreKit allows you to unlock those features when users pay a fee. You can download data or extend a web based service but you can't download additional executable binary components. "Will I have to buy this twice for myself and other members of my family?" No, not if you both sync to the same iTunes account. It works the same as with applications. One app that has bought an upgrade extends to all apps for that same account. Each time your app launches, developers will check with App Store and restore any purchases that have already been made. So if you buy your upgrade on an iPhone, that upgrade will propagate to your iPod touch when it checks in."Will this help in anti-piracy measures?" Definitely. StoreKit allows developers to validate receipts, ensuring that unlock codes are only sent to paying customers. Add a hash-check algorithm for the current device and developers have better control over who gets to use their applications."What about promo codes?" I think Apple has learned its lesson about free apps/promo codes. I'm betting that they've already thought about a way to distribute in-app purchases via promo codes."What about people who have already bought apps?" Admittedly, this news is currently best suited for new products than existing ones. Devs who have built in shared keychains already have a slight leg up but for the time being you'll likely want to at least consider a new product that leverages this ability rather than trying to retrofit. As for people who have already bought a paid version whom you want to support while migrating to a free demo/in-app purchase model, you're likely going to encounter trouble until Apple irons out its policies and its solutions. Again, I expect Apple to provide some sort of solution shortly. And why all this trust in Apple? Any move that benefits developers ends up benefiting Apple in the end. This was a smart move on Apple's part, it's a good move for users, and for developers too. And it still has a long way to play out so keep watching for Apple's next steps."Who are the biggest winners here?" It's the people who have been putting out free and ad-support apps. They now have a way to turn off those ads and to solicit donations. In-app purchase doesn't have to be about buying and unlocking features. It provides a real solution for free apps to monetize, and for Apple to transform a huge part of their store into a paying model."Can free app devs charge an in-app purchase for nothing (i.e. donation)? Can the user repeat purchases or pick the amount?" Apple provides several kinds of purchase types and those purchases can be applied in multiples. For example, you can buy 5 hit point boosters or make 5 donations of $1. So yes, that model does work for donations."Can devs now charge for updates?" Not unless those new features are added as unlockable items. Again, this is something that Apple will likely address given the great demand for exactly that. Expect to see new App Store terms of service should that happen because the current one uses a "buy once, use and upgrade forever" model."What kinds of limitations should I think about?" TUAW reader Scott Kveton suggest the following in the comments for this post. He writes, "The key is keeping the app under 10 MB so it can be downloaded without wi-fi. A lot of developers can just 'unlock' functionality but when you get into actually delivery potentially large(ish) content to the device that's not possible. It also opens up the possibility to make the apps that much smaller on initial 'purchase' and then download content on the fly."
