Why the lack of love? The reasons are varied, but many tie back to a central thread—Apple’s emphasis on control. It’s hardly surprising that that might raise the hackles of independent developers, who are used to running their businesses as they see fit—as one presentation put it frankly, “we’re all control freaks.” The App Store puts all the power in Apple’s hands, determining when developers can release updates, what they have to charge, and in many cases even how they market their apps. For independent developers, it’s like handing their baby over for someone else to raise.
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Oh Man, That’s Mature
MacDailyNews has a piece titled “Bing bong the bitch is dead: Microsoft’s ‘decision engine’ loses significant share in September.” Here’s a sample:
According to a report by analytics firm StatCounter, Microsoft Bing’s share of the U.S. search market decreased by more than 1 percentage point in September," Oreskovic reports.
“Bing, which Microsoft is backing with a massive marketing campaign, had 8.51 percent share in September compared with 9.64 percent in August,” Oreskovic reports. “Google’s share of the U.S. search market increased to 80.08 percent in September compared with 77.83 percent in August.”
Inside an iTunes LP
In the LP we dissected, Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King, the root directory consisted of 12 items. This included seven folders, an .xml and .plist file — which appears to point to full media files inside an iTunes library — an iTunesArtwork file, an .itlp file with a file size of 0KB, and a standard, run-of-the-the mill index.html file. Inside the HTML file, the doctype is HTML 4.01 with meta name properties set to “hdtv-fullscreen” and “hdtv-cursor-off”. This particular one made use of three stylesheets and 34 JavaScript files, which were marked copyright of Apple Computer.
MobileSafari Gaining Market Share
Apple’s iPhone OS has successfully overtaken Symbian for the lead in all mobile web traffic, according to the latest data from AdMob. The combined iPhone and iPod touch share has jumped from 33 percent in February to 40 percent in August. Symbian, meanwhile, has almost exactly traded positions with Apple and fell from 43 percent near the start of the year to 34 percent in August.
RIM’s BlackBerry OS, Windows Mobile and Palm OS also dropped sharply in the same time frame. The BlackBerry fell more softly, from 10 to 8 percent, but the older platforms have dropped off rapidly; Windows Mobile fell from 7 to 4 percent, and the now-discontinued Palm OS has declined from 3 percent to just 1 percent. The fastest risers outside of Apple were relatively new platforms like Android and Palm’s webOS, which respectively account for 7 percent and 4 percent of the mobile Internet.
FCC Finds Web Speeds Slower Than Advertised
The Washington Post explains.
The Sales Side of the Genius Bar
After my time was done with the Genius Bar folks, I kept my eye on some of the other Genius Bar visitors. Of the five folks I watched, four of them had purchases in hand when they left the store. (I imagine that Apple tracks the revenue generated by Genius Bar visitors, and knows exactly how much money the average Genius Bar visit is worth. It won’t ever happen, but I’d love to see those figures!)
Apple Looking to Redefine Print Media?
Some I’ve talked to believe the initial content will be mere translations of text to tablet form. But while the idea of print on the Tablet is enticing, it’s nothing the Kindle or any E-Ink device couldn’t do. The eventual goal is to have publishers create hybridized content that draws from audio, video, interactive graphics in books, magazines and newspapers, where paper layouts would be static. And with release dates for Microsoft’s Courier set to be quite far away and Kindle stuck with relatively static e-ink, it appears that Apple is moving towards a pole position in distribution of this next-generation print content. First, it’ll get its feet wet with more basic repurposing of the stuff found on dead trees today.
Wifi-Blocking Paint
Researchers say they have created a special kind of paint which can block out wireless signals.
It means security-conscious wireless users could block their neighbours from being able to access their home network - without having to set up encryption.
The paint contains an aluminium-iron oxide which resonates at the same frequency as wi-fi — or other radio waves — meaning the airborne data is absorbed and blocked.
30 Percent
Giz reader Manoj took his iPhone to the Genius Bar to have it looked at because it was dropping calls left and right, and AT&T swore stuff was totally kosher on their end, so he thought something was wrong with his phone. After doing a stat dump, the Genius showed Manoj that his iPhone had actually dropped 22 percent of calls.
The jawdropper: The Genius told Manoj that’s actually excellent compared to most people in the New York area, where a 30 percent dropped call rate is the average. There was nothing Apple could do for Manoj. His phone was totally fine. Which means there’s nothing Apple can do for rest of us.
Dropbox iPhone App Released
I like the idea of Apple’s iDisk service, but I hate how slow it is. So I, like millions of others, have turned to Dropbox to sync files and folders across multiple computers.
The one thing iDisk held over Dropbox’s head was it’s iPhone app. Today, that changed.
The Dropbox app (iTunes link) is out and here’s how they’re touting it:
• Access your Dropbox on the go
• Download files for offline viewing
In Regard to Those Windows 7 Party Ads
If Microsoft had been put in charge of marketing sex, the human race would have ended long ago, because no one would be caught dead doing something that uncool.
Tweetie 2
The main takeaway is that if you’re addicted to Tweetie 1, there isn’t anything in Tweetie 2 that you won’t like, and several things that are greatly improved. It’s simply a must-download.
Hit that link for lots of details, plus some screenshots. Looks like a solid update to an already great app.