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How to screw over your existing app store customers

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 16:52:00 +0000

One of the best Twitter clients for the iPhone platform – Twitterrific – has been provided by The Iconfactory. Until recently, there used to be a free version with ads and limited features and a paid “Premium” version with support for multiple accounts and without any ads. Both those apps have disappeared from the app store without notice. The Iconfactory has now released a new version, limited in features and ad supported that can be upgraded to a “Premium” version by making an in-app purchase for the same amount the old Premium app cost.

All of this is legitimate and I would not complain and bash The Iconfactory if not for one little thing. Twitter has changed its authentication API which means that existing clients cannot connect to Twitter anymore unless they update to the new Twitter API. Thus, my old Premium version does not work anymore and it will never work again as The Iconfactory killed the app in the app store. I’m forced to buy the new Premium version again. What’s making this worse is that there has been no warning ahead of this from The Iconfactory and there still is no usable explanation about this upgrade path on The Iconfactory’s website. Way to screw your paying customers, you morons!

I’m not going to buy any products from them again, given how they treat paying customers. It’s OK that a product has a limited lifetime, even though by common standards on the app store I would expect a little different from a so called “Premium” app. But a little bit of communication and consideration might have been all it needed to keep me a content customer.

THQ's 'Star Wars: The Force Unleashed' on sale in Apple's App Store

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:25:00 +0000

THQ‘s apps in Apple’s App Store are usually overpriced and not very creative. Most of the THQ apps rely on Star Wars fans to cough up a relative high amount of money to purchase a relative small amount of gameplay for Star Wars themed applications. For example, THQ’s ‘Star Wars: Trench Run’ costs 3.99€ and offers about 20 minutes of unique gameplay. It’s not much different for THQ’s ‘Star Wars The Force Unleashed’, which originally cost $9.99 when it was released first. It’s usually available around 5€. THQ has now lowered the price to 0.79€ for a limited time.

The game has mixed ratings and comments in the App Store. I have played the demo version, dubbed with the addition ‘lite’ some time ago. While it’s not really that bad, one of the main drawbacks of the game is the rather lame MIDI style sound quality and not so great graphics. I have last heard this kind of in game sound while playing at my dad’s 286 PC when I was fifteen. Also, the game is rather short. It offers six chapters of gameplay (worth around 1.5 hours of entertainment).

The purpose of the game is to draw gestures with your fingers, using the right timing, which will make the game character perform different force moves on opponents. It’s not really the most interesting gaming experience. There are cutscenes interrupting the game. Dialogue text is not spoken, you have to read it from the screen. The cutscenes cannot be interrupted, which is rather annoying because they are not that good.

In general, I would advise everybody to avoid spending any money on THQ apps (probably all of them are a ripoff). For a price of 0.79€ it might be worth to check out if you’re a die hard Star Wars fan. Don’t expect too much though.

5 reasons to be disappointed about the iPad

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:14:00 +0000

The web is full of opinions about Apple’s new tablet ‘computer’, the iPad. With all that buzz and information at hand I can’t help but put my own opinion online. Because it’s my own opinion and nobody else’s it’s just fair that I offer some information where I’m coming from here:

I’m a content user of Apple products. I’ve owned Apple notebooks for many years now and I thoroughly enjoy the Mac user experience on my MacBook Pro with Mac OS X.
I’m using an iPhone 3G for almost a year now and I like it very much, in spite of its obvious shortcomings. I’ve spent a small fortune on applications from the App Store, a lot of those are fun games.
I’m a software engineer and technical consultant by day. I deal with software technology for a living.
Although I enjoy using Apple’s Mac OS X a lot, I spend even more time in front of computers running GNU/Linux with a 100% Open Source software application stack.

So here we go. I’ll give you the short version of my opinion in just one sentence, if you don’t like it you won’t be forced to read on through the rest of this. In my humble opinion, all Apple did was to super-size the iPod Touch and give it a new name. Basically. Add a microphone, tweak the underlying software a bit to take advantage of the bigger screen but basically the iPad is a bigger version of the iPod Touch at almost the same price (ever wondered if the iPod Touch will now be getting much cheaper to compensate for this?!). So what’s the buzz? Because the iPad is basically just a bigger and better version of the iPod Touch, it shares all of its disadvantages that didn’t matter as long as you compared the iPod Touch to other media players. The iPad however will have to measure up against so called netbooks and other tablet PCs. And when you do that, you’ll be utterly disappointed.

Before Apple introduced the iPad, almost everybody wondered what it is that you do with it. What’s the use case for an Apple tablet? Where and why will there be demand for such a device? The great thing about Apple is that they are able to actually make that demand and the use cases spring into existence when they introduce new products. Before they introduce something, nobody ever missed not having it. But afterwards, nobody wants to live without it. Well, how about the iPad? Do I want to live without it? Most definitely. I just don’t see any serious use case I could use that iPad for.

Actually, there’s at least five core reasons to be disappointed:

The Name

“iPad”. Feminine hygiene products anyone? And it seems like I’m not the only one with that association. The rumored “iSlate” would have been so much cooler. Hey, but have it your way Apple…

No Multitasking

Imagine yourself lying lazily on the couch with the iPad in your lap. You are listening to music from your iTunes library on the iPad while surfing the web with Safari, the iPad’s browser. That’s about as much multitasking as you get. What I really want to do with the iPad is to start an application like Skype and let it run in the background, so that I’m able to receive incoming calls while I’m happily browsing in Safari and listening to music. Well, that’s not possible. The only way you can receive feedback from applications not running in the background is by push notifications. In my opinion, the biggest drawback of the iPad is the use of the iPhone OS which does not allow for true multitasking, something that every Windows PC manages since Windows 95. Things that seem so natural for almost everybody today, like switching between several running applications is not possible on the iPad. Apple takes a great technical platform and gives it a crippled OS which was designed for limited devices such as MP3 players and mobile phones. That really sucks.

No Interfaces

The iPad has no interface to the world around it other than the port with which to connect to an iTunes enabled computer, WiFi and optionally UMTS at a higher price. You have a digital camera and want to copy the images to your Apple tablet? Well sorry, you first need to put those images on a real, grown up computer before you can put them on that iPad toy as there is no way you can connect the camera’s memory card to the tablet directly by use of a card slot or attaching a USB card reader to the non-existent USB slot. You have an external hard drive and want to connect it directly to the iPad? Sorry, no can do. Somebody hands you a USB stick with some files and you just want to copy them? No can do with the iPad. You’re traveling abroad and the place you’re staying at doesn’t have WiFi and UMTS use makes your roaming bill go through the roof? Want to connect an ethernet cable instead? Oops, no can do. As innovative as the hardware of the iPad is, its lacking connectivity to other media is simply embarrassing. As I already mentioned, the iPad is not a computer, it’s simply a super-sized iPod Touch. Any netbook for about 300€ copes better.

No Flash

The iPad promotion video on Apple.com states that the “iPad is the best way to surf the web”. Well be sure to remember that whenever you hit a web site with Adobe Flash elements that Apple’s crippled iPhone OS running the iPad does not support. Apple must hate Adobe’s Flash platform a lot as neither the iPhone, the iPod Touch or the iPad support it and it’s probably not going to change. According to this Techcrunch article, Flash will be supported on the iPad sometime. However, if you read closely, it’s only about porting Flash applications to native iPhone OS applications to be distributed from within the App Store. So in other words, forget about using Flash from within web sites. The reason for this lack of support is probably not even of a technical nature but simply to the fact that Flash is a competing technology that would allow to distribute applications to devices like the iPad by circumventing Apple’s App Store. This is leading me to the next big issue. Read along…

Too much Control, no Freedom

The iPod Touch, the iPhone and the iPad are 200% proprietary. The only way to put any software on them is by going through Apple’s App Store. There’s no way you can choose the origin of the software you install yourself. If for some reason Apple denies a software vendor to distribute a specific software product via the App Store you simply cannot use that software, even though you want it and a vendor would be willing to supply. Again: if Apple doesn’t want you to be able to use specific software on your device, you won’t be able to. For example, the only web browser you are ever going to use on the iPad is Safari. You want Opera or Firefox? Screw you, because Apple says no! While this restriction is something I can live with on a device like an MP3 player or a smart phone, the boundary is most definitely crossed when it comes to a tablet computer. I wouldn’t tolerate this kind of external control over my MacBook Pro and I’m not tolerating it for a tablet computer I would be interested in.

Another threat posed by distribution models such as Apple’s proprietary App Store is the lack of openness as witnessed in the Open Source universe. While there are a few Open Source applications available on the App Store that doesn’t necessarily mean that users get to experience the freedoms granted by typical Open Source licenses – because Apple doesn’t let them. Essentially, Open Source software grants its users the freedom to modify the software they licensed under an Open Source license. If I download Firefox and its sources I can make changes to it, rebuild it and use that modified version on my computer (and even if you can’t do that technically, someone else could do it for you). With the iPhone OS platform in general and the iPad specifically you cannot modify any application you download from the App Store, even if it’s an Open Source application. You would need to register for Apple’s iPhone developer’s program (and pay the fees) and put your modified version of the software forth for an application so that it’s available in the App Store again. So Apple decides again – not the user.

While this kind of control exercised by Apple is tolerable for devices like media players and smart phones (folks like Richard M. Stallman would utterly disagree here), I am very much afraid of the inclinations this trend will have on future home computer use. If Apple manages to establish this kind of environment for distributing software to home computers and the market accepts this kind of model, there is no future for Open Source software anymore. It would be very harmful for consumers as it narrows choice and freedom of use. The iPad is crossing a line here and it’s not pretty on the other side of that line.

I don’t think the iPad is going to be a big success like the iPhone. Maybe I’m wrong, but don’t say I did not warn you. In my eyes the iPad is simply an unnecessary luxury toy – an iPod Touch grown too big. Have fun with it if you buy it though.

My most useful iPhone applications in 2009

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 00:12:00 +0000

The old year is over and it’s time to look back. I joined the hype and got the iPhone 3GS last year and have used it extensively. I also spent more money in iTunes and the App Store than I originally wanted to. Not all of the applications I downloaded were worth it. Some however, I use day to day. My usage of applications is very specific to the way I live my life, so you’ve probably come up with a different list yourself.

Social applications

Depending if you’re into the microblogging hype at all, you’re probably using a Twitter client on your iPhone. It’s difficult to pick one since there’s so many of them. I tried a couple of the freely available Twitter clients and decided to pick Twitterific Premium after trying the free (but advertised) version. Twitterific is a sleek and beautiful Twitter client with a lot of features. It doesn’t get into your way and helps you filter the information you’re looking for. Posting text, links, images and your geographical location is easy too. If you’re twittering, check out Twitterific Premium. I had to disable that annoying bird sound and the vibration feedback whenever new tweeds were loaded. It drove me crazy…

Another microblogging service of kinds is Tumblr. While Twitter’s essence lies in its 140 character limit, Tumblr is not limited in such a way and is much closer to regular blogging – if you want it to be. Tumblr offers templates for uploading text, photos, quotes, links, chat dialogues, audio and video files. Creating an account is free and you even can connect a domain name to your Tumblr blog (you must own it of course). You can customize your blog by choosing a theme, modify existing themes or create your own HTML theme from scratch. While services such as Wordpress basically just host your blog, Tumblr lets you maintain a social network with other Tumblr users, much like on Twitter. There is a great (and free) Tumblr iPhone application that let’s you use the Tumblr service from your iPhone. What’s great about Tumblr on the iPhone is that you can easily upload text and media in style while you’re on the go.

Facebook is probably one of the most hyped web sites on the Internet. To sum it up: I was reluctant to sign up, now I’m reluctant to sign off. Although I’m not a die-hard user who’s using an insane amount of applications, ranging from “what kind of pet are you” to “wasting time playing some farm games online”, I like to leave messages and check back with overseas friends from time to time. For these core features, there’s nothing better than the iPhone Facebook application.

Spending money, managing money

One of my hobbies is photography with Minolta manual focus cameras as they were produced and sold in the 1980s and earlier. I’ve spent quite some money on obtaining what I desired and the place to go for these sorts of desires is eBay. The most annoying thing about eBay is to miss the end of an auction. If you don’t want to miss out on an auction, then you should use the eBay application. It will send you push notifications about events on eBay and you can perform all the usual actions you would otherwise perform on the eBay site.

Do you own a checking account in Germany? Do you hate balancing your checkbook? Do you lose track of your checking account and your spendings? Would you love taking control of your finances whenever you feel like it, even if you’re just sitting on a bus? Maybe iControl – Onlinebanking und mehr can help you. iControl is developed by an individual by the name of Truong Hoang, a software developer of Vietnamese origin living in Germany. He steadily improves the application. Recently, the application became Paypal account aware for example. The application offers everything you can expect from a good online banking software. Data is AES encrypted on your phone with 256bit. A password unlocks the application. It will also help you set up and monitor budgets. Just check out the application’s web site for a walkthrough. I’m afraid much of the documentation is in German, the application is available in English though as well. The application’s author is very responsive to support requests and helped me out fast when I had trouble setting the application up for my bank account. Compared to the more expensive banking applications, this one is probably a real insider tip and a true bargain.

Out and about

I’m a frequent flyer since a couple of months now, taking two flights a week with Lufthansa. They offer a very basic but decent iPhone application that let’s you check in and retrieve useful information about flights and such. Basically, Lufthansa Launcher itself acts as a bridge to Lufthansa’s mobile web application. You start the iPhone application, it takes your credentials (Miles & More account…) and opens Safari with the Lufthansa mobile website. Essentially, the app is a better bookmark with an icon you can place on the screen. This is convenient enough for me though. What’s positive about the app is that you can retrieve your mobile boarding pass from the application anytime as long as you have Internet access. Usually, the mobile boarding pass is sent to you by text message or email. The critical part about the boarding pass is a two-dimensional barcode which is included as an attachment. I usually retrieve the mail from my employer’s Exchange server and save the barcode attachment to the Photos on the iPhone. Once in a while I get sloppy about that and forget – usually at 06:00am while I’m already sitting on the train to the airport. That’s also usually the time when the Exchange server decides to break down and I’m stuck without the email. If you can see yourself in that situation, then you’ll be glad to know that Lufthansa Launcher can save your butt.

When I’m on the road, I love to take walks and take pictures. I rarely travel without a camera, even if I can’t use it at all or just do some random snapshots. Most of the time, I’d like to be able to know where I’ve been. I want to be able to retrace my steps and potentially link those pictures I’ve taken to their geographical location. Geotagging is the keyword here. There are a lot of apps for that purpose but few are suitable to my needs. Most apps require that you sign up for a service account on the Internet that you use in conjunction with recording your route. Most apps don’t allow export of the recorded data in a common format like GPX or KML files. Most apps also require you to use bandwidth while you’re using it – a real pain if you’re roaming. The application of choice to counter all that – and a lot more – is Trails. It’s highly acclaimed – rightfully so.

How do you kill time while you’re on a train or waiting to board a plane? You can “waste” time by playing games on your iPhone or you can actually do something useful and read. The iPhone’s display is just barely big enough so you can enjoy it to read eBooks and the eBook application that’s on almost every list of useful iPhone applications is Stanza. Stanza lets you download countless classics for free. It also connects to a number of bookstores (even O’Reilly books). You can add any book you’ve got in ePub format. I did that for a tech eBook I bought from Pragmatic Programmers. It works great. Especially with tech books, I need to read most bits at least twice until my brain permanently stores that information. Either I read it the first time on the iPhone while on the road, or I rehearse the information on the iPhone after I read it on the big screen the first time.

Photography

When talking about photography and the iPhone there is a lot of utter crap available in the App Store. Most of that crap actually costs money. Two absolute gems however are CameraBag and Photogene. If you had to pick only two photography related apps for your iPhone, it should be those two. Photogene is as good a photo editor on the iPhone as it gets. It lets you perform the most essential photo manipulations plus some extras. CameraBag offers a set of filters you can apply to your image. It makes a crappy mobile phone picture look like a picture taken with a classic camera. It features a number of black&white filters as well as stuff ranging from fisheye to Polaroid. CameraBag has its own Flickr group you might want to check out. There’s some really creative shots there.

What about you?

I picked ten useful apps I used a lot last year. What about you? What are your picks?