Apple has been criticized once again for its App Store review policies, as Macworld.com complains of frustrating inconsistencies between different members of the review team. The company has worked to publish its first book, the "iPhone & iPod touch Superguide," as both a PDF version and an app available on Apple's portable devices.
Apple's latest Mac OS X 10.6.2 beta, build 10C540, reportedly includes a wide variety of new bug fixes for software and hardware issues, according to AppleInsider. The software addresses problems with graphics drivers, AirPort performance on the new iMacs, and the latest VMWare Fusion virtualization software.
RemObjects has launched a new development tool for the Mac and iPhone, Data Abstract for OS X. The framework focuses on databases, allowing developers to focus on front-end presentation. It contains an Objective-C library supporting Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6, as well as the iPhone OS. It is said to work well alongside Cocoa and Xcode.
In Brief: macProVideo.com has released a new tutorial video that provides lessons for working with Apple's MainStage 2 software. PlayHaven has announced a new platform that allows iPhone developers to create community sites for their games. Meanwhile, Infinity Data Systems has extended free phone support to customers using MailForge.
Apple has begun distributing a new developer build of Mac OS X 10.6.2, 10C535. The release follows a week after 10C531, and is mainly said to address graphics issues, specifically relating to drivers, QuartzCore and ColorSync. Separately fixed are problems with the Dock; as with the past two builds, Apple has identified no outstanding issues.
Unity Technologies has launched Unity 2.6, a new version of its 3D creation tool for designing iPhone games. The upgrade offers a variety of enhanced graphical features such as improved shadow map rendering, anti-aliasing, and integration of ambient occlusion. It provides users with a profile maker that displays where computer resources are being sent or what scripts are currently running, as well as a hierarchical CPU-usage data. Additional support has been added for Visual Studio and Utility Pro, enabling use with Subversion, Perforce and Bazaar apps.
Excel Software has announced an update to its project- and document-protection application, DocProtect 1.1. The program is designed to protect rights and prevent access to HTML projects, image collections, video and audio files, PDFs, and Excel spreadsheets for all non-licensed users. The latest version enables users to release and restore licenses between computers, while adding a new PDF-style subscription model for newsletter and magazine publishers.
Despite previous efforts to bring support for the ZFS file-system to Mac OS X, Apple has dropped the project. Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz several years ago publicly claimed Leopard would utilize ZFS instead of HFS+, although Apple only provided limited support for the new technology. Even the read-only functionality was dropped with the transition to Snow Leopard.
Absoft has launched Pro Fortran 11 for the Mac. Version 11 includes both 32- and 64-bit compilers, allowing developers to design code for Mac, Windows and Linux using a single code source. Similarly present is support for OpenMP multi-core parallel programming standards when using Nehalem-era Xeon processors.
NVIDIA has teamed with a rendering technology company, mental images, to introduce the RealityServer platform for cloud computing. The technology integrates GPUs and software capable of supporting 3D web-based applications for consumers and enterprise users.
Apple has scheduled the dates and places for the 2009 iPhone Tech Talk World Tour. Each event brings educational sessions normally reserved for WWDC to a different city, in select countries around the world. Some topics include push notification, OpenGL ES, improving general performance and integrating web content.
Apple is not playing fair in terms of supporting video hosting services beyond YouTube, claims the chief technical officer of Dailymotion. Olivier Poitrey comments that the iPhone edition of Safari relies on a special plug-in for YouTube videos, allowing it to jump straight to H.264-encoded copies. Because of Apple's battery and processor worries, Flash is not supported in any form on iPhones or iPod touches.
Grand Central Dispatch, originally introduced with Mac OS X Snow Leopard, has been ported to its first third-party operating system, says the team behind FreeBSD. When it is released, FreeBSD 8.1 is expected to support Grand Central by default. The technology is said to have been harder to adapt than some other Unix-compatible frameworks, due to the need to make kernel modifications. Mac OS X blends elements of BSD and Mach.
Apple is already distributing a third beta seed of Mac OS X 10.6.2 to developers, sources say. Called 10C527f, the build adds fixes for 13 different components of the OS. Of special emphasis are corrections for video errors, including several GraphicsDrivers problems which can cause screen flickering, crashes in OpenCL or stuttering while playing 1080p movies in QuickTime X. QuickTime itself has been fixed to allow some movies to play properly.
Apple has changed its SDK policy to allow in-app purchases for free iPhone apps, according to Daring Fireball blogger John Gruber. The service previously was restricted to apps requiring payment for the initial download, although the limitations have been criticized by a variety of developers.
atPurpose has launched a new iPhone development tool, atPeek 1.0. The software is designed for professionals, but said to be simple enough for casual users. Through Apple's Quick Look architecture, it explores and displays fully-functional previews of the resources found in iPhone apps. The tool can discover normally inaccessible details, and export specific assets or entire folders for follow-up viewings.
Piracy is a minor but still important problem for iPhone app developers, says analytics firm Pinch Media. The company notes that shortly after the launch of the App Store in 2008, it began receiving complaints that Pinch tallies of new users were exceeding official figures displayed by iTunes Connect. The discrepancy is now believed to be attributable to piracy, tracked by Pinch since May of 2009.
NewsGator has formally announced TapLynx, a new development framework for iPhone and iPod touch applications. Titles produced through the framework are meant to display constantly-updating media content, delievered via RSS feeds. Text, images and video clips can be arranged inline, and sharing options can be integrated in the form of e-mail, Twitter and Facebook support.
Apple is facing new media criticism over the absence of a comprehensive App Store refund policy, most prominently from the New York Times. One writer notes that while people can get refunds if a download is delayed, or not properly executed, it is impossible to get money back based purely on quality complaints. The issue can become serious when dealing with more expensive iPhone apps, such as navigation software. It may also impact people buying less expensive titles which do not work, in spite of Apple's quality assurance.
Syncro Soft has released updates to Oxygen XML Editor and XML Author, bringing the versions of both to 11. Editor provides tools for creating basic XML code, as well as handling XML Schema languages and multiple forms of debugging. Author meanwhile contains only the relevant authoring features of XML Editor, and is now available as a standalone app as opposed to simply part of the Oxygen software.
Developer Cramzy claims that although its Celebrity Birthday Match app was approved for the App Store on October 4th, it never appeared in the list of recently-released apps. The program was more importantly submitted on September 24th, which is said to be around the same time a number of developers were reporting difficulty with iTunes Connect. Due to Connect being used for everything from app delivery to software management, developers experienced severe problems when submitting new apps or updates.
Despite initial impressions given by Apple and the media, success stories at the App Store are actually rare, a new report suggests. Apple has enjoyed pointing to Trism developer Steve Demeter as an example of App Store profits, as well as a new egalitarian footing for independent developers. Demeter managed to accumulate $250,000 in two months through his iPhone app; while some observers believed he would be able to retire on future iPhone profits, Demeter now admits that he is only living a wealthy lifestyle because he invested in Palm stock, which jumped in value from $1.76 to $12.
Pearson has introduced four new instructional books titled Cocoa Design Patterns, iPhone for Programmers, Sams Teach Yourself Cocoa Touch Programming in 24 Hours and Sams Teach Yourself iPhone Application Development in 24 Hours. The first book explains the object-oriented design patterns used in Apple's Cocoa frameworks and other software libraries. The book aims to supply an understanding of the design and logic of Cocoa so to be used while programming original software.
Graphic Remedy says it has released the completed version of gDEBugger iPhone, its latest development tool. The software debugs OpenGL ES-based graphics engines intended for iPhone apps; programmers can thus work on improving rendering speed, as well as reducing memory footprints. gDEBugger operates on top of the Apple iPhone Simulator and supports iPhone 2.2.1, 3.0 and 3.1 SDKs, as well as both OpenGL ES 1.1 and 2.0.
Adobe's mobile website contains new information that directly blames Apple for preventing the company's Flash Player from being allowed onto the iPhone platform. Visitors attempting to install Flash Player on their iPhone are reminded that the project has stagnated due to Apple's rules.
Adobe is well into the production of updated Flash Authoring software, allowing the creation of iPhone apps, says an Adobe product manager. Mike Chambers notes that a private beta of the new software is already in effect, and some titles built with Flash have already reached the App Store, such as Fickleblox and Trading Stuff. A public beta of the tool will be released by the end of the year, alongside Flash CS5.
Apple has frustrated yet another developer, as the company allegedly rejected an iPhone app, iSinglePayer, which promotes health insurance reform in the US. The app displays charts and information regarding single-payer health care systems, while GPS information can be used to find a local congressperson. Users can even view the donations to each congressperson from the health sector.
The popularity of the iPhone is having a major impact on developers, claims iPhoneAppQuotes, a company that pairs iPhone developers with institutions needing custom work. Outfits that have recently added app development as a service are now said to have an average of 34 percent of their business taken up by iPhone projects. On top of this, mobile development is said to create an average growth of 39 percent for "most" developers.
REAL has launched a new update, Release 4, for REALbasic and REALbasic Studio 2009. The software development suites are cross-platform, and object-oriented. Supported elements include the likes of RTI, vector graphics, QuickTime and XML.
NVIDIA has announced that a public beta release of the PGI CUDA-enabled Fortran compiler is now available for download. The compiler was developed by NVIDIA and the Portland Group, and is billed as the first Fortran compiler that works with CUDA-enabled GPUs. The compiler translates the Fortran programming language into binary code that CUDA GPUs can interpret.
GarageGames has released its Torque 3D cross-platform game-creation software, after its six-month beta period. The app features a variety of tools for designing and editing either a game or simulated environment. The software's rendering capabilities work with photo-realistic simulation to create custom styles, and supports per-pixel dynamic lighting or normal and parallax occlusion mapping. With the integrated “world editor” users get full-access to all Torque subsystems, along with shader definition, terrain editing, or river and road creation functions.
Two Web-based programming advocates, Dion Almaer and Ben Galbraith, announced on Friday their departure from Mozilla, stepping into new roles as directors of the Palm Developer Relations team. Almaer voiced concerns in his blog about the control companies have over the apps people can use on their phones saying "some view this revolution as a chance to seize power in downright Orwellian ways by constraining what we, as developers, can say, dictating what kinds of apps we can create, controlling how we distribute our apps, and placing all kinds of limits on what [we] can do to our computing devices."
Developers are experiencing severe problems using iTunes Connect, scattered reports say. The service is the conduit through which apps are submitted to the App Store, and during this week it has allegedly been stalling during uploads. The problem is said to be independent of browser or operating system choices, and to typically involve hangs midway through an upload, though some developers complain they cannot even begin the process.
TigerLogic has released Omnis Studio 5, an upgraded application development suite. Mac, Linux and Windows versions are available, and the software can create web- or enterprise-level apps which tap into a variety of database formats. These include Oracle, Sybase, DB2, PostgreSQL, MySQL and MS SQL Server.
Apple is giving special support treatment to at least one iPhone developer, according to the latter party. CEO Mike Simon of LogMeIn has revealed that he now has a private phone number he can call regarding Ignition, the company's remote access app. The software has an unusually high price of $30, and is said to have generated at least $1 million for LogMeIn since its December introduction.
Monkeybread has released v9.6 of its REALbasic plug-ins, which expand the development platform. New in the update are special Snow Leopard classes, such as ones for OpenCL, Core Location and spellchecking. Also present are a variety of new classes and methods for Cocoa, and a variety of Core Image filters, such as CISpotColor and CIBumpDistortionLinear.
Developers working with Khronos Group are currently testing a new standard, WebGL, that aims to bring hardware-accelerated 3D graphics to a wide range of browsers without requiring a dedicated plug-in. The system is based on the Canvas element within HTML5, but adds the ability for OpenGL functionality to be accessible using JavaScript.
The LP and Extras features introduced in iTunes 9 are built around new JavaScript framework, probing is said to show. Called TuneKit, the standard is not only aimed at supporting interactive bonus media, but handling it without the need for plug-ins such as Flash, typically used to deal with animations. TuneKit is otherwise paired mainly with HTML and CSS code.
Through its open-source Mono Project, Novell has released MonoTouch 1.0, a software development kit for the iPhone and iPod touch. The SDK allows programming apps within Microsoft's .NET framework, which incorporates languages such as C#. Most iPhone development is handled using C and Objective-C, which Novell notes will necessarily exclude many people working with .NET.
Apple has taken the decision to make Grand Central Dispatch, a key feature of Mac OS X Snow Leopard, available as an open-source project. Developers can now find the component's services API on the web. Grand Central is intended to simplify multi-core support in Mac OS X, which without an intermediate layer can be difficult to program for.
Adobe has posted a revised version of its Adobe TV website for developers. The site provides video training for various Adobe titles, such as Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash Catalyst. More significant changes include a resizable pop-up window, which allows for videos and programs to be viewed simultaneously. A reorganized homepage is claimed to provide faster access to episodes, with options for sorting by popularity, rating or date.
(Updated with Snow Leopard Server info) Apple has seeded a new build of Mac OS X 10.6.1 to developers, sources say. Titled 10B504, the build is notably only one increment number over that of the initial seed, released approximately a week ago. The turnaround could indicate a short development track, in contrast with some v10.5.x updates, which took several weeks to reach the public.
In brief: Elixir has announced the immediate release of three new RapidWeaver themes along with three new bundle promotions. The Ultimate Bundle contains every theme available from Elixir at a price discounted by more than $250, while the Business and Blogger Bundles include eight themes each. Meanwhile, a new web portal has been launched with hopes of bringing companies and iPhone developers together. Get Apps Done provides a place where people with ideas for iPhone apps can come in search of a developer who can create the software.
HP has introduced the App Studio, a new service attached to a recent printer, the Photosmart Premium with TouchSmart Web. Apps allow the printer to quickly print off sanctioned content, such as movie tickets, art projects from Disney, photos from Flickr or 60 Minutes articles from CBS. The service uses an open API, and HP is hoping to introduce a variety of new print apps in the future, in some cases based on user suggestions.
GameSalad has announced it will soon launch an iPhone publishing system for titles produced with its game creation utility. The tool is free, and meant for non-programmers, as it is capable of implementing AI and other gameplay components using drag-and-drop construction. The software features project, scene and actor editors, and can uproot asset formats like Ogg Vorbis, PNG and JPG.
Just days after the operating system's launch, Apple has already begun a closed test of the first major update to Snow Leopard, according to anonymous sources. Mac OS X 10.6.1 allegedly became available to a small number of developers on Monday, specifically groups of coders invited by Apple. Distribution to all members of the Apple Developer Connection could begin within a week or two, if historical trends serve as a precedent.
A recent update for an iPhone game has been rejected for purely cosmetic reasons, according to the title's developer. Joe Stump observes that although he was merely submitting bug corrections for Chess Wars, he was called on Tuesday by an Apple representative, who said that after a six-week wait his update was being rejected for having "shiny" chat bubbles. That look is trademarked by Apple, the representative is said to have claimed.
atPurpose Technologies and Abracode have both announced the latest version of their applications are now compatible with the new Max OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. atPurpose’s atMonitor 2.1 application allows users to keep track of important system activity in real-time. It displays information such as disk reading and writing performance, network activity, memory specifications, and allows users to log all monitored values which are saved in an XML format. The program also offers three different ways for it to display information, via the menu-bar, a dock icon, or a floating window on the desktop.
Creative has begun its first shipments of the Zii Egg, reports say. The device is Creative's first touchscreen media player, equipped with a 3.5-inch, 480x320 multi-touch display. It supports Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPS, and it is also notable for including two VGA cameras, plus HDMI output at resolutions up to 1080p. The current model is actually meant for developers, and uses an open-source operating system.
