Tag: iOS

Categories
Business

Dear Steve

Craig Hockenberry: “I’m one of the developers that is affected by the Lodsys patent infringement claim. I’m writing not to beg for your support, but rather to give you a better idea of how this legal action affects the average iOS developer.”

Go read the entire article. Craig gets to the point. Paying this troll won’t break the bank, but it opens the door to others.

Something else to keep in mind. Lodsys reserves the right to increase their licensing fee at any time. So, what if 0.5+% goes up to 5% of your revenue, or 10% of your revenue? That would definitely hurt the ecosystem.

Categories
Business

A Call to Boycott In App Purchase

Mike Lee: “If you currently have an app on the App Store that uses in-app purchase, you don’t have a choice. While removing in-app purchase from your app may not protect you from lawsuits, leaving it in at this point is tantamount to asking to be sued.”

I couldn’t agree more.

If you’re using In App Purchase you should remove it, at least until this is settled.

Categories
Business

Prophetic

Mike Lee: “You might think that sounds dramatic. A small cut is not going to kill a thriving business, true, but this is the opening salvo to all-out war. The parasites have taken notice of the goldrush, and would like nothing more than the precedent that allows every modern-day mobster with a patent lawyer on retainer to start cracking nuts.”

That post was on May 16. Today, May 18, we get this lovely news. That’s right, it’s a different company going after patent royalties.

From the article: “Jim McGill, chairman of MacroSolve, has said that the patent covers “thousands of existing apps” that collect data and send it to a central server. “

Thousands of apps. Here we go again.

Categories
How To

Configure @Twitterrific to use @mlkshk

With all the hubbub surrounding the Terms of Service changes at TwitPic I thought I’d share how to configure Twitterrific to use a hot new photo sharing site, mlkshk.

Steps for configuring Twitterrific on an iPhone.

Sorry, I don’t have an iPad, but they should be similar.

First off Twitterrific doesn’t have its configuration settings inside the application. You’ll need to tap the Home button and locate the Setting’s App Icon.

Step #1: Tap the Settings Icon.

Step #2: Scroll down until you find Twitterrific, then tap it. This will open the Twitterrific Settings.

Step #3: Scroll down to Advanced. Tap it.

Step #4: Scroll down to URL, tap the edit field, and type “https://mlkshk.com/upload” minus the quotes, you’re all done! Congratulations! When you add a photo to a tweet it will now show up in your mlkshk Shake.

Steps for configuring on Twitterrific Mac.

Step #1: Start Twitterrific.

Step #2: Select Twitterrific > Preferences…

Step #3: In the “Custom Upload Service” edit field type “https://mlkshk.com/upload” minus the quotes, you’re all done!

The reason this works is both The Icon Factory and mlkshk saw fit to support the TwitPic upload API.

Categories
Business

I very much dislike patent trolls

Patent TrollThe Guardian: Florian Mueller, who closely watches developents in smartphones and patent claims, analysed the claims by H-W Technology and commented: “What’s really disconcerting about this lawsuit is that it’s the first such lawsuit to attack – besides operating system vendors and device makers, which are routinely sued by patent holders – a number of companies because of their smartphone apps. I’m really afraid we’re now going to see more patent lawsuits against application developers. Hopefully this won’t ever affect little guys who can’t afford to defend themselves, but if there’s a major company behind an app, or if an app is commercially very successful, it can happen and it has now apparently started to happen.”

This story contains details related to my earlier post. Darned patent trolls.

Categories
Apple Google

Is Apple Big Brother?

Alex Levinson: “I don’t think that’s a legal battle Apple wants to face considering the sale of over 100 million iDevices worldwide. That raises the question – how is this data used? It’s used all the time by software running on the phone. Built-In applications such as Maps and Camera use this geolocational data to operate. Apple provides an API for access to location awareness called Core Location.”

No, Apple isn’t “Big Brother”, that’s the government’s job. Go read the article, it’s very good, and gives you the truth about how the data is used, including this nice little nugget.

“Apple is not harvesting this data from your device. This is data on the device that you as the customer purchased and unless they can show concrete evidence supporting this claim – network traffic analysis of connections to Apple servers – I rebut this claim in full.”

Oh, and yes, Android devices do something similar.

If you have an iPhone and would like to create a map of the places you’ve been, there’s an app for that.

Categories
Business Development Indie

Chameleon – A UIKit for Mac?

The IconFactory Chameleon Project!
Chameleon: “If you’re an iOS developer, you’re already familiar with UIKit, the framework used to create apps for the iPhone, iPod and iPad. Chameleon is a drop in replacement for UIKit that runs on Mac OS X. In many cases, your iOS code doesn’t need to change at all in order to run on a Mac.”

BRAVO IconFactory!

My wife already said no to a $250.00 T-shirt. Darn.

Categories
Apple

In-App purchase?

Red SockTechCrunch: “Remember when everyone was freaking out over the Apple in-app subscription changes? You should. It was just a month ago. And while some of the fears that arose do appear to be very real, the two things most people focused on were Amazon’s Kindle app and the Netflix app. Well guess what? Both received updates today, and neither includes the supposedly mandatory changes.”

That’s a relief. Let’s hope this doesn’t change.

Categories
Business

The App Store Gold Rush?

tap tap tap: “The reality is the gold rush days of the App Store are long over – that’s not to say there isn’t loads of gold still locked up in the hills, it’s just all the easy gold deposits have been scoured and panned for and found. The market has matured, and App Store customers’ tastes and demands have grown more sophisticated. Success stories these days tend to be of hard earned fortunes and corporate bought victories instead of the parade of indie lottery-winner stories we heard again and again during the App Store’s early days.”

Back when Jay and I were working on RxCalc I was hoping to make a few hundred dollars a month. The reality of it was all together something else. A few dollars a month. On a good day we sell five copies. I haven’t given up on the idea of making a living on iOS or OS X, but it’s not going to be easy.

Categories
Business

On Android and iOS?

BGR: “BGR has learned from multiple trusted sources that Research In Motion is planning to bring its beloved BlackBerry Messenger app and service to Android, and eventually to iOS as well. According to our sources, RIM has not yet finalized details surrounding timing or pricing, but we have heard that the company might make the software free to all users. We’re also told strategy is still being developed, however, and RIM may end up charging users a one-time fee or even a recurring fee for access to its BBM service on third-party platforms.”