Year: 2012

On Fraudulent iOS Apps

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Rene Ritchie:

Recently there’s been a dramatic rise in the number of fraudulent apps getting attention — even top sales positions — in the iPhone and iPad App Store. Some scam apps are copy-cats that duplicate as closely as possible the name and icon of popular games in order to confuse consumers and get them to buy a scam app instead of the real thing. This costs the consumer money for the scam app and developers money for the lost sale. Others scam apps appear to be byte-for-byte copies, stolen whole-cloth and offered for sale side-by-side with the original. This still costs the developer money for the lost sale, and while consumers get a functioning app, it’s likely not one with any support going forward. Still other scam apps rip off the copyright of a popular brand (like Pokemon) for bogus apps that do nothing but cheat customers out of their money.

Apple really needs to pay attention to this. When I was on Android, this sort of crap clogged up the Market. It’s one reason Android felt so unruly to me. With Apple reviewing apps, there’s no reason this sort of thing should happen.

On Scrup

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For some time, I’ve been using Droplr, but I’ve always had a few reservations about it:

  • I only ever use it for screen shots.
  • I don’t have access to the files on my own server, as Droplr uses an S3 account they control.

This morning, in an attempt to avoid a big project I should be working on, I decided to try to find an alternative. I have, in Scrup.

Scrup in an open-source menubar app that — when coupled with your own FTP server — re-creates the main functionality of Droplr — easy sharing.

Setup was as easy as creating a directory on my server and adding a .php file to it. Now, when I take a screenshot, I get a new window, allowing me to edit it quickly, then off it goes to the 512 Pixels server. Once it’s uploaded, Scrup puts the URL — which it creates — on my clipboard. I even have it set to trash the screenshot afterwards, as the only reason I take screen shots normally is to share them via Twitter or email.

It’s just what I need — and nothing I don’t. I don’t share files over Droplr — those are usually handled by Dropbox. And since everything is on my own server, I have access to them as long as my own server is up and running.

It’s All About the Experience, Baby

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There’s been a lot of talk about if Apple is making OS X more like iOS or not. It’s gone from a debate to a philosophical battle, but I think everyone’s missing a big point:

Mountain Lion is all about the features, baby.[1]

Just look at the new apps Apple is adding to OS X:

(And that’s without talking about AirPlay mirroring, Gatekeeper or other features that aren’t stand-alone apps.)

It’s obvious the iOS/OS X question comes up when looking at all of this, but instead of the what, what if we looked at the why.

John Gruber recently said that Apple is an experience company. I think he’s right, and I think Mountain Lion proves it.

Thanks to these new apps and the magical glue that is iCloud, users can move between the Mac and iOS easier then ever, with less friction than ever.[^2]

That’s what Apple cares about. No one in Cupertino is thinking, “How do we make OS X more like iOS?” right now. There are lots of smart people thinking how to make the Apple experience better, though.

And that’s what matters about Mountain Lion. The rest of it is just noise.

  1. So you don’t email me, here’s the original.
    [^2]: It kind of reminds me of Microsoft’s Three Screens and a Cloud saying from a few years back.  ↩

‘Moving In Together’

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Matt Alexander:

And then yesterday, OS X and iOS announced an impromptu decision. Many had already (reluctantly) seen it coming but most chose to ignore the possibility, hurt that OS X might do that to them (to them!). But now it’s real, the two are moving in together, and that means a lot of things for the end-user.

The only thing I dislike is the use of impromptu. Mountain Lion is the result of years of work and planning.