Today, Apple clearly follows this policy of giving an ‘R’ rating to applications that provide acess to user generated content. This might seem unfair at times, but when you consider the sort of content such apps can offer, you realize this is a good policy. Consider the recently launched app TWI (Texts While Intoxicated). I’ll leave you with a screenshot from this app.

Duplicating an iPhone function:
One iPhone developer who created an app called ‘Podcaster’ found that Apple would not allow this app into the App Store since it replicated a function already implemented on the iPhone, through the iPod app. Of course, when Apple rejected the podcaster app, it was still months away from adding crucial functions to the iPod app that would allow users to download podcasts directly to the iPhones.

Pornographic content:
Well, we know how this works–there are gray areas, there’s artistic freedom, there’s always some debate about interpretation and yet when something is intended to be pornographic, we just know it. Apple has been reasonably consistent with this policy, especially with picture content.

Copyright issues:
Apple is sure to reject any app capable of copyright infringement, or likely to encourage it. Respecting coyright and intellectual property rights is somethign Apple takes very seriously, and always has. Which is why on the good old iPod, you can sync music from the computer to the device, but not the other way round. Apple did not want its iPods to function as cool looking pen drives that would allow people to carry around and exchange music.
For the same reason, Apple has also rejected a UTorrent client for iPhone. This is still fresh news–the rejection was only announced yesterday.

Apps with unacceptable violence:
Similar to the obscenity issue, this one also has a lot of room for interpretation. There are plenty of games in the App Store that feature quite graphic violence, so Apple does seem a little more tolerant towards violence than some of these other factors listed here.

Apps with real people and well-known figures:
A developer I know created an addictive boxing game. This was some time ago, actually–just about three months after the release of the App Store. This was the first boxing game on iPhone and probably still the best one out there. But the game wasn’t accepted right away. The original version allowed you you knock out opponents such as Osama bin Laden, as well as some politicans that were perhaps not very popular at the time. Apple rejected this version, and advised the developers to create a version where there were no references to any public figures or any real people. Curiously enough, Apple later on allowed an upgrade to the game where you could box against Santa who was all clad in red and white. You’d almost think that at Apple they think Santa isn’t real, but that can’t be right!

Apple does often come across some gray areas so far as app rejection is concerned. For the most part the policy is consistent, but there is always some app that makes Apple think hard, and clarify it’s App Store policy in even more detail. Visiting the App Store graveyard, and reading the obits on the tombs of all these dead apps one by one would help us understand this process better.

The most important feature is a customizable home screen. The trick here is that the iPhone will know what your location is, and accordingly display information such as the local weather, nearby landmarks, and the like. Based on your location, the iPhone updates this information automatically. And you will be able to access this information by tapping just that one icon for ‘local home screen’.
This will certainly be a fun feature to use. More importantly, it gives us a glimpse into the directions in which iPhone development will progress in the near future.
There’s some more exciting stuff in the patent. For more details, check out Apple Insider

But I certainly want to buy Michael Arrington’s App Store account.

Let me first explain how this will work:

The way Apple has set up it’s App Store, you need to tie up all your App Store purchases with a single App Store account. This is no big deal, of course.

But the important point is that there is nothing to tie YOU to this App Store account.
You can change the credit card on the account any time you want, and the account isn’t going to be blocked. The account is not linked to a carrier or a phone number or a device ID. I can change all of these, and still use the same App Store account. Which basically means that I can get in touch with Michael Arrington, get his account ID and password (after he’s removed the credit card info from it, of course) and log into iTunes using that account. I can then easily  sync my iPhone with that account.

What’s in it for me? If I start using an iPhone today, I have to purchase everything–from the ancient Super Monkey Ball game, to the latest version of Pocket God or Real Tennis. If I use an account that has already been existence, I’ll get many of them for free, since Apple will tell me that ‘I have already purchased this item, and that I could simply click OK to ‘download it again for free’.

Neat, huh? I have this whole theory about how Apple makes it difficult for you to leave its platform by making sure all your data is tied to your device. And it’s true. Whatever terms T-Mobile may offer people, if they have a few hundred dollars’ worth of games and apps tied to their iPhone, they won’t switch easily.

Enter my brilliant idea: All you need to do is go to ebay, post an ‘App Store account for sale’ kinda ad, mention which store (US / UK, etc.), what is the approximate worth of the apps purchased, and how much you want for it. If you spent $100, sell the account for $75. Apple will never know anything has changed, and will simply offer you everything for free!

So why Michael Arrington, specifically? Coz he is a prolific writer, is working in the Tech world, and probably gets lots of app review requests and promo codes. And I’m sure he’s plenty rich, and has made a ton of purchases on a weekly basis just to stay up to date. Part of his job, you know?

Now that’s all sorted out, but how much would I spend? Let’s talk numbers. If he spent say $500, I’m willing to buy the account for $300–that’s 300 he would never see otherwise, and it still saves me 200! If he sends in a complete list of his purchases, that will help. But I won’t be stuck without it, since I can just look up the ‘purchase history’ for his account from iTunes. (I bet some of you too would like to know about the stuff he’s been buying on his iPhone.)

But seriously, let’s have an App Store account marketplace somewhere. If Apple insists on mishandling the App Store, lots of people like Michael Arrington are going to leave. This sale option is a way to ensure that they can leave, and not be stuck with Apple and iPhone.

So Michael, are you selling?

For developers working on a new, exciting iPhone app idea, the possibility of a competitor releasing an iPhone app that is identical to theirs is a real risk. As such, the focus usually is on rushing the iPhone development process, and getting the first version out there as quickly as possible.

While the concern is valid, this strategy invariably leads to poor first version releases, negative reviews in the App Store, and the loss of the novelty factor for the application. Because in order to get the first version out fast, iPhone developers make some important compromises, which adversely affect the popularity of the app, and its revenue potential.

These compromises most commonly include:

Drop Twitter and other viral promotion features
This is usually considered as the most dispensable feature. ‘If people like the app, we can always add these things’ is the argument most iPhone developers make. The truth is that it is essential for the first version to offer viral promotion options such as posting updates to Facebook or Twitter. Your first version has the novelty factor, and that’s when people are most likely to tell their friends about your app. If it’s been a couple of months, it’s old hat–there are two thousand newer applications to talk about!

Use an ineffective icon
An icon that looks dull, does not convey the right message about your app, and fails to catch the attention of the user is not serving its purpose. And changing the icon later on may not be such a good idea, since users relate to your app based on the app icon they see on their iPhone screens. Getting it right the first time will save a lot of effort later on, and also give that initial push your iPhone application needs. Trying out many different icons before picking the final design is essential.

Average User Interface
The first version of most iPhone apps is generally ‘a pale shadow’ of the real thing that is still inside the developer’s head. This is where people make perhaps the gravest mistake. When they first open the application, users are not going to focus on just the idea the way you want them to and ‘excuse’ the lack of polish or precision of controls. If your app doesn’t have the Save and Resume buttons of just the right size and color, responding precisely to touch and even able to interpret a swipe as a tap in some cases, then the idea itself will have little appeal to users.

Not enough care with presentation
This is another big mistake iPhone application developers make. The screenshots presented in the App Store are usually not attractive enough and are selected rather carelessly, and the description is often too clever and not helpful enough. Such shoddy presentation can be fixed with later versions, but by then thousands of users would have looked at your application and turned away to look for something else.

Dropping basic features like ‘global scoreboard’
This one applies to games in particular. When people play a game for a long time, and set a new record, the one thing they are most interested in is whether they are the best, or whether there is a new level they need to reach. Just about every iPhone game today incorporates a version of global, online scoreboard, and leaving such a basic  feature simply makes people expect less from you, as well as makes the game less appealing to users.

In general, the approach seems to be to just release a simple version first, and then if people download and like the idea, make a proper app / game out of it with all the bells and whistles.

But this strategy is wrong for many reasons. The truth is that there are over 40 million users out there. To get the maximum number of users, you cannot afford to drop the viral promotion features. Also, with the very high volume of application releases on iPhone, there is little chance that you will get any user to look at your application more than once in the App Store.

How well you present your app in those five second in the App Store, and then in the first 15 seconds when the user launches your app for the first time will determine the success of your application. And getting the first version right is key.

For a lot of people, the possibility of Apple rejecting their app seems like very real threat, and an immediate hurdle to overcome. This is a little surprising, though I suppose there are in fact many misconceptions regarding the whole App Store approval process. If you’ve been thinking of getting into iPhone development, or are just toying with an iPhone game idea, the brief observations below should help set some of the record straight.

Apple will  reject the app just because there is another one like it already.
Not true. If you are not convinced, count the number of flashlights and tip calculators in the App Store.

Apple approves apps based on the quality of the idea.
Not true. Apple does not reject apps based on the app idea. You might want to create a tip calculator that functions only in Roman numerals, or requires a virtual abacus to perform all the math. Even if your iPhone development project has resulted in an entirely worthless app, that is no reason for Apple to reject the app.

Apple will reject a lite version that promotes the full version of the app.
Not true. Well, there are some parameters that Apple does look into, but it has nothing to do with promoting the full version. Apple’s requirement is that your lite version should not trick people into believing that there is more in it than you have actually delivered. Let me explain with a hypothetical example. If the lite version of your iPhone game offers 10 levels to users–with the full version offering, say 50–you can promote the full version by saying something like ‘get the full version to play 50 levels’, but you cannot show levels 11-50 in the app, make users think these levels are available, and then when they try to select level 11, display an alert saying they need to purchase a full version.

Apple will reject applications that are priced too high
Not true. Well, they did it just once, with the ‘I am Rich’ application, but even there they didn’t actually reject the application, but only removed it after a whole army of bloggers complained about the possibility of people getting tricked into spending a lot of money for nothing.

While the App Store has its share of fairy tale successes, it is certainly true that iPhone development is nowhere near as lucrative as it used to be. When the going was good, most people’s iPhone development efforts were rewarded dramatically. Steve Demeter is an example. But many such successes are mostly a matter of chance, and it is unlikely that iPhone development will allow people make such quick money any more.

Still, the Apple App Store is in no danger of being overtaken by the WIndows Market place. Not even close. If Apple would just get around to stop calculating it’s ‘Top Ten apps’ by just the number of downloads, and also factor in the actually revenue made by the developer–something Microsoft proposes it will do with its App Marketplace–things would improve drastically for iPhone developers, and may make iPhone development a tempting prospect again.

Umm, scratch that. Anyway. So my iPhone mixed up app icons. Some app I had uninstalled had left its image over an app I had on my iPhone.

This has actually happened a couple of times, and while I found the problem only faintly amusing, today at last I went looking for some information about what’s really happening here.

There is also an annoying bug that causes my apps to change it’s app icon which is pretty stupid. I’ve deleted all my downloaded apps due to that. My IM+ changed it’s icon to Sims3. My need for speed changed to IM+… and the list continues. Although the apps still respond as regular it’s a really ugly look. I tried deleting them and reinstalling, tried restarting my phone but it doesn’t work. Really hope my beejive doesn’t change.

The above report was by a user known as ‘LegendarySwag,’ and the entire discussion is happening on Apple’s discussion forums.

iPhone Hacks offers a couple of fixes to this problem, one of which, (quoted below) can only have been found by chance:

1. Go into App Store on Iphone and start download of an app that you don’t already have. Doesn’t matter which one. Before the download is complete “pause” it by tapping the icon for the new app.
2. Now power off your iphone and then power back on.
3. Mixed up images for apps should now be fixed, you can unpause download     you had going, let it finish and keep it or delete it if you don’t want that app.

That’s really clever I have to say. Now I can’t wait to get rid of some of those icons I absolutely do NOT want on my iPhone.

The iPhone is a very rare tech gadget, in the sense that the whole iPhone development process has been quite unusual. In the two years of its existence, it has changed a lot–gone through entire evolutionary cycles within just a year. But what’s striking is that it has still changed very little in terms of appearance. The screen size, the number of buttons, these things are all the same. There’s only been a minor change in the design of the back panel, and the color options have  changed from silver to black / white.

Compare this with how other phones are developed. Motorola launches a Motorazr flip phone, which is all about the thinness, and the sharp knife-edge look, and then at the same time they’re also offering a curvy, plump MotoPebl.

That doesn’t mean the iPhone hasn’t changed. In many ways, the iPhone development process has been far more dramatic.

Real change, they say, come from within. (I enjoy terrible puns, yes!) So while the standard Motorola offerings have changed very little, except in terms of design and form factor, the iPhone development was all about upgrading the operating system, and offering more, not just a new look.

And this brings me to my point, at last. One way to measure the change in iPhone in terms of its development is to take a look at it’s home screen, and see what has changed.

When the original iPhone launched, the home screen looked like this:

As you can see, there were five empty spaces on the iPhone home screen back then. This version was sensational for its overall smooth user experience, but there wasn’t much you could do in terms of installing apps or playing new games. That changed when, after a considerable effort, iPhone development reached a new stage with the release of the 2.0 Operating System a year later. The new iPhone had a home screen which looked like this:

Three icons had been added: iTunes store, App Store, and Contacts. By default, the Contacts icon was moved to the second screen, leaving two empty spaces. We used the iPhone this way for another year, and then 3.0 was launched. This version added one more icon to the home screen of my iPhone: The voice memo icon. So this is the home screen of my iPhone at present:

Now the question is: what’s the one icon that’s missing? What will iPhone 4.0 offer that I haven’t even thought of? One possibility is that Apple will launch it’s own e-book store, and create new icon for it on the home screen. But that’s rather unlikely. Maybe the new icon won’t be anything so big, but just a small change, like the voice memo app. Still–any guesses, anyone?

Here’s why: I was traveling over the weekend, and suddenly thought of a new article idea for my iPhone development blog. I was excited right then, and had to at least get a detailed outline ready. And of course I wasn’t anywhere near a computer. So I typed it all in the Notes app on my iPhone. I imagine people write about 3 or 4 lines at the most in this tool. By the time I was done, I had nearly 350 words. And I realized that for that kind of use, the Notes app is no good. The yellow background gets very annoying, and the default font–which you can’t change–looks ugly when you have a screen full of text.

So I decided I needed something better, and went looking in the App Store. After some searching, my options were down to about 3 or 4 iPhone apps. Short-listing these 3-4 apps took long enough but the funny thing was, once I had shortlisted these apps, I still couldn’t decide which one to purchase. There was a simple reason for this: For all the care during the iPhone app development, the actual presentation of these apps wasn’t very good. The apps didn’t give me all the information I needed, and they did not answer all the questions I had about the apps.

What went wrong
Let me explain with examples, in some detail. The apps I had shortlisted were:

• Bento
• Evernote (this one’s free)
• Awesome Note
• Documents To Go
• Notebooks-Write Notes and Store Files

What I’m looking for is very specific: a plain, no-frills typing background on my iPhone, with auto-save etc. so I don’t lose any text in case a call comes in, the ability to copy / paste across notes as well as across iPhone apps, and the ability to maintain simple folders.
System-wide copy / paste function is important. I plan to write entire posts for the iPhone development blog using this app, and then copy them into my WordPress iPhone app and publish articles straight from my iPhone. Equally important is the ability to copy paste across notes and folders, so I can edit and modify drafts in progress at will.
There were some pretty good apps, but as it turns out, I simply couldn’t decide which app would work best for me.

Bento

Bento looks pretty good, but it offers too many things that I do not need, and the screenshots show a fancy interface, but I can’t be sure if the actual typing experience is clean and simple. Also, there’s something about requiring their software on my iMac to sync with my iPhone, so I can get the documents out of my iPhone. Does that mean I can’t simply email the drafts from my iPhone to myself? No answers.

Evernote

Evernote was promising but I had to download it (it’s free, so that wasn’t a problem) to figure out I had to always have Internet / 3G access to use it, and I needed an account with Evernote, so they’ll be storing all my drafts on their servers somewhere. Not quite what I was looking for. And again, without actually creating an account, I had no way of telling how good or bad the typing experience would be. No screenshots to help out with that. So ruled out, again.

Awesome Note

Next on my list was Awesome Note. This looked promising. It had all the things I was looking for–copy paste, ability to maintain folders, and the ability to set passwords for folders was thrown in too, for good measure. Still–questions remained. The screenshots all show fancy typefaces and I’m looking for simple Verdana or Arial. Is that something I can change in app settings? There’s a pink background in the only screenshot that shows typing in progress. Nothing against pink, (well, it’s not a color I relate to) but imagine a 500 words draft with a pink background. Maybe I can change the color to a default white? No answers.

Documents To Go
Another app that looks great is Documents To Go. It looks like overkill for what I need, but I don’t mind paying for the extra features as long as I get the ones I want. In fact, the word count feature is something I hadn’t thought of, but I’m sure it can come in handy. This app answers almost all my questions, and gives me the information I need, perhaps simply because the features I’m looking for are all there. But the emphasis on MS Word is a bit too heavy for me. Will I be able to type without that annoying paper clip popping up? I suppose so, but you know what I mean. If toolbars and status bars take up half the screen on my iPhone, then the app is no good for me. (One of the screenshots seems to hint that annoying toolboxes and tool tips can crop up, but I can’t be certain.)

Notebooks-Write Notes and Store Files
The one that I’m most likely to purchase is Notebooks-Write Notes and Store Files. It’s screenshots are well organized, so I know very well what kind of typing experience it will be, and I like the look of it. It mentions copy / paste, and it clearly says, “email the notes.” Password protection is a plus. No word count, but if you’re still reading this, you know I don’t particularly obsess over word count once I start writing!
So Notebooks it will be, almost certainly.

Conclusion: Things missing in iPhone development
But all this searching started me thinking about how, for the user who goes into the App Store looking for something, it’s essentially a question and answer session. I look at the app name, and I have questions. You, as the developer, have the next three or four lines to answer them. What questions are most likely? That’s for you to figure out. Are the screenshots just for the prettiness, or will they help me make a purchase decision? Again, that’s up to the developer. The developer’s job doesn’t end when app development is finished. App Store presentation is an important part of iPhone app deployment.
In the next few posts, which will all be much, much briefer than this one, I’ll be looking at the various aspects of App Store presentation, ranging from selecting screenshots to drafting the descriptions and everything else along the way.

P.S. The article I got excited about is still a draft, but I’ll be posting it right here on this blog sometime this week for sure. Stay tuned.