I’m a developer. I have one fun app in the app store, iMoo. I’ll have more.

I am also someone who needs to feed my family and pay the mortgage. Read day to day problems.

When one decides to take a risk and develop software, the normal model, say for a Mac or Windows application, goes something like this:

1. Come up with an idea
2. Find some funding
3. Spend a lot of time and money developing the product
4. Spend a lot of time and money creating the marketing (website, etc)
5. Find a financial system to take payments
6. Put your software on your site, or press CD-ROMs
7. Send out press releases
8. Provide support
9. Release updates

The Apple iTunes App Store process goes something like this:

1. Come up with an idea
2. Find some funding
3. Spend a lot of time and money developing the product
4. Spend a lot of time and money creating (some of) the marketing (website, etc)
5. Submit application to Apple. Wait 3 days – Unknown days
6. Apple says Yes/No.
7. If Yes, see #9
8. If no:
   1. Ask Apple Why
   2. Spend more time/money trying to figure out a resolution
   3. If you can’t find one, foreclose on your house
9. Spend the rest of your marketing money on website, etc
10. Apple takes payments, pays you 45 days later or so, making interest/etc on your money
11. Send out press releases
12. Provide support
13. Release updates
14. Wake up to find out Apple has pulled your application from the store

So you can see that in the normal model, developers have to do more work, but their success is left up to them.

In Apple’s world, the developer has to spend all of the time and money upfront, only to find out much later if they’ll even be allowed to make any money.

Even worse is that Apple says ok, you’re good to go, and then later pulls the rug out from under you.

This has happened twice recently. Once with adult apps and now with wi-fi trackers.

In the former case, I am still not sure I’ve heard Apple give a good reason for why they pulled the applications. If Apple didn’t do a good job separating these apps, why does the small developer have to suffer? It is Apple’s job to fix the problem.

In the wi-fi case, Apple seems to be claiming that the applications used private frameworks, which is indeed a no-no. But again, why should the developer suffer?

1. Apple approved the apps. Apple really should not be able to change it’s mind like this. People spend money, make plans and in this economy, it is just not right to toy around with a company’s product.
2. If Apple is really serious about private frameworks, then they should simply release a tool that can be used as part of the build process which scans the application and pre-rejects the build. Simple as that. You use something not approved, you will be rejected.

Sure, a developer can work around the tool, but should they do so, say for example copying the private framework, renaming it, putting into the developer’s framework space, etc, then all bets are off. You lose Mr. Crafty Developer.

But if you do something inadvertently wrong (and I am not saying these guys are innocent, but they were approved after all) you’ll know well before you spend a ton of time and money.

Everybody wins. Apple is happier. Developers are happier.

However, that still leaves the arbitrary hand of the great wizard behind the curtain playing with your financial future.

That aspect is what I simply don’t like.

Of course we’re still going to develop for the iPhone because it is a fantastic product with a very large market. That doesn’t mean we should stop telling Apple to make the process better.

Fix the App Store once and for all, Apple.

Here is an example of what can be done with HTML 5. A very pretty video player that will be free soon.

Sublime Video

Now, to replace Flash animations…….

While at the Blazer’s game tonight I tried to check email.

5 bars. 3G. No Data.

Nothing.

Then after 30 seconds, no bars.

Then 5 bars, then 3G. But no data.

All the while, a Verizon “Droid Does” ad is running around the arena.

Way to go, AT&T. This isn’t even SF nor NY!

Hey AT&T, here is a tip:

If one of your customers doesn’t have a data connection, they can’t mark the spot with your app.

Maybe you should consider saving off a record and submitting it later when the customer has a data connection again.

Report dropped calls with AT&T’s new iPhone application. And yes, it will let you report them later when you’re back in an area with signal.

iTunes Link

iMoo, a fun little iPhone/iPod app that lets you relive your fond childhood memories of a cow in a can is now available in the iTunes App Store!

With iMoo you can have fun tipping your phone over to play your favorite moo, or you can record your own moo! Pass iMoo around to friends and record all of their moos – Collect them all!

Pick up your copy of iMoo today! – Only 99 cents!

AT&T may be pleased with their MMS launch, but unless MMS stands for Missing Messaging Service, I can’t say I am pleased.

I have yet to successfully send a video or photo to my brother, and he gets endless red exclamation marks in L.A.

AT&T just says to “keep trying.”

I’d hate to see what a launch that AT&T was not pleased with would look like.

Update: I received an email from TomTom Support:

All updates will be provided through iTunes. This application is not compatible with TomTom HOME. This application is not compatible with MapShare.

I picked up TomTom for iPhone for $99. It is really expensive, and we have a TomTom 720, but I’ve been interested in the all-in-phone concept so here we are.

We took it out for a spin today and it worked fairly well. Unlike the 720, it does not announce street names, just turn left/right etc. It does show lane changes.

The software does not appear to use the compass, as it had me facing the wrong way in the driveway. Maybe this is due to being used vertically or horizontally. The compass in the iPhone seems to stink and even then only works well when the phone is horizontal, which is not how you’d be using the GPS.

I have not tried receiving a call yet but I read that it quits the TomTom app, however, you can re-launch it and remain on your call. If this is the case, then it seems like a software update can make this better.

The TomTom support site sucks. It mentions using TomTom Home to upload maps, etc, but that just doesn’t seem right for the iPhone. Other support pages show the handheld device UI, not the iPhone’s, so that makes me believe their knowledge base is matching similar articles, not the right articles.

The performance is fine, and you can even look up addresses in the contacts list. However, two out of three of mine so far could not be recognized. It did allow me to “enter them manually” but in reality, that just confirmed the data that was already there, so I didn’t have to enter much. I believe the bug has to do with parsing the state field, as it was trying to find my address in the right city, but wrong state.

What I don’t know is how the map updates and IQ updates work. Nothing in the manual and nothing on the site about this. It should just work over the 3G/WiFi connection, but I have no clue.

The other thing TomTom could do better is handling blocked streets. We ran into a right-turn-only that TomTom wanted us to make a left on. The only option (which was buried, these should be on the top menu!) was to mark the street as blocked. TomTom should know it was asking me to make a left and offer a “Right turn only” option, which would give the software the exact input it needed.

The TomTom app seems to disable sleep on your iPhone, so don’t leave it running on battery. This includes the preferences screen too, not just the navigation map screens.

Is it worth $100? Depends if you want a GPS on the iPhone. You can’t sell this TomTom, you can’t give it to a friend. The software is yours forever. But if you don’t want charge/carry two devices, you might want to check TomTom for iPhone out.

Get it by checking for updates for your phone in iTunes!

Not bad press, and the quality was decent, too!

News segment filmed with iPhone 3GS

(Thanks Andy)

This story rocks and you know someone on the Find my iPhone team at Apple is very proud today.

Great job everyone!

How popular is the iPhone one might ask? Well the iPhone (at least up until the 3Gs) has had a fairly cruddy camera. It does ok, but even now, no flash, low megapixels, which to be fair, compares to other phones, but still, not great.

Check out the Flickr charts on camera usage. The first one is all cameras, then the third chart are phone cameras.

That will tell you how popular the iPhone really is:

Flickr Camera Usage Charts

I picked up my iPhone 3Gs this morning. Because this is the third iPhone model, the lines were much shorter than two years ago. Only 40 or so people ahead of me, and it took an hour in line to pick up the phone and head out the door.

So, how does it compare to my generation 1 phone?

1. Lighter. This could be said of the 3G as well, but it is a nice change
2. The oil resistant screen kinda works, but it is still fairly oily. My old phone wasn’t hard to clean, either
3. The video works, and isn’t bad
4. The camera’s auto focus/auto exposure is nice. I took a photo of Elizabeth, with a window behind her. She was totally dark, and tapping on her face didn’t help, but tapping on the pink shirt she was wearing did bring it into proper exposure. Said photo is not available due to a take-down notice by the copyright holder. (Apparently 8am photos are a no-no)
5. Application launching is much, much faster, easily twice as fast if not more
6. The voice dialing works. The first number I tried was “goog 411.” Then I tried Elizabeth, but I didn’t wait for the menu of phone choices to finish before speaking, and it gave up. You can’t interrupt it like you can with the goog 411 voice menu. Once I waited, it was happy.
7. 32gb > 8gb. Finally, my full music library back, and videos
8. Setup was easy. In the store, I entered my mobileme info and before I got out of the mall, the phone had all of my contacts. That makes mobileme so worthwhile. Once I got home, I restored from backup.
9. Standing in line at 6:10am paid off with an activated phone. I know two people who have been waiting for awhile now, and this story claims it could take up to two days. Ouch.
10. The compass is cool. I guess it needs calibration by moving the phone in a figure 8. The Apple Store employee must have done it for me.
11. The water and pastry the Apple Store supplied were much appreciated.
12. The GPS initially put me in my neighbor’s house, the it stuck me in my garage. I think the mapping data for our neighborhood is off.
13. Signal coverage for 3g seems better; Usually 4-5 bars. I saw it dip to 1 bar once, then back up to 5. I have not made any real calls on it yet.
14. Compass + GPS kicks ass. Can spin around and always know which way I am facing on the map
15. My gmail password didn’t sync, nor did my app profiles, not sure why. For a friend, they all did.

Sync Issues

After syncing with my laptop for apps, and then syncing with the desktop for videos, I have 5.3gb of videos in 81 items I cannot get off the phone, according to itunes. No idea where this media is.

Well, it was all in older podcasts, and iTunes refused to unsync them, so I had to delete every podcast episode, then and only then did itunes delete the content from the iPhone

The Mobile Wiki Server is now available on iTunes.

If you’d like to carry a wiki around with you and share the contents over WiFi, this might be the product for you!

Google Cache of a story linked by Daring Fireball of an initial experience with a Microsoft Surface,

After reading that article, and thinking about how easy my iPhone was to use on day one, hell, sitting on the floor in the mall no less, I thought about something I hadn’t thought of in two years:

The iPhone needed no calibration. The touch screen just worked. No touch this cross hair, touch that cross hair.

Those little technological improvements really go a long way in initial user experience. Clearly something Microsoft doesn’t pay much attention to. Yeah, plug this keyboard and mouse in so you can click the EULA on your new $17,000 touch screen computer.

Go Microsoft.

I’ve had my revision 1 2G iPhone since day one (literally) and have been wanting 3G speeds and GPS for some time.

With the recent peek into iPhone OS 3.0, I am hoping Apple is planning on shipping new hardware this June or so. If so, that will coincide with my 2 year contract anniversary and open up a number of options, such as buying a new phone out of contract.

With the rumors of OLED screens at some point, video support, tethering support and faster 3G, I am perfectly willing to wait to upgrade.

Meanwhile, I’ll keep plodding along at EDGE speeds.

Barry tipped me off about a couple of RSS feeds people are generating.

Since the iTunes App Store has removed lists of new applications, etc, these guys are generating the data for you.

Price Drops

148 apps gives us:

http://www.148apps.com/includes/itms_pricedrops.rss

This feed will tell you about apps whose prices have dropped.

Free Applications

Pinch Media gives us:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/RecentlyAddedFreeIphoneApplications-PinchMedia?format=xml

This feed will show you new applications that are free.

Use these feeds in Safari or the most excellent and free NetNewsWire

Any development endeavor is a risk. Will I choose the right feature sets? Will the design be appealing? Will I deliver it to market on time? How will I find customers? How will I secure my software? How will I do billing?

Every developer has these and a thousand other questions. Apple’s iPhone App store presents a wonderful marketplace for developers. Write your application and Apple takes care of getting eyeballs onto your application. They take care of the distribution. They take care of reviews management. They take care of billing. They only take 30% which I find very fair.

But then Apple also has the Big Stick of Rejection. Apple has wielded the BSOR several times. Once for a thousand dollar scam. Once for a application that didn’t follow the AT&T contractual obligations. Then Apple started getting unfair.

Apple rejected a comic book application due to content. Really? Censorship? What if the contents of my application do not appeal to some reviewer at Apple? Am I supposed to put the sweat, blood and tears into a product only after the fact to learn I’d been banned from the library?

Apple rejected an application because it duplicated functionality. Many applications duplicate functionality, but maybe Apple saw Podcaster as duplicating potentially revenue generating functionality. The reason does not matter, Apple told someone who had baked the pie that their cake was not welcome. Apple already had some Lemon Merengue.

The App Store is as much a library as it is a market place. There are free applications as well as for sale applications. There is content masked as applications simply because that is the delivery medium.

The most bothersome issue as a developer is trying to figure out how to limit the risks imposed by Apple.

Should I submit a slide-show application which merely shows some screenshots of what I’d like to do? I can submit applications without pushing them live to the store, so should I submit a plan before I develop?

If I do this, is my intellectual property at risk? Will Apple just become pissed off at me and reject everything I submit?

I have decided that if Apple is going to wield a Big Stick of Rejection, then Apple should institute a formal submission process for allowing developers to determine if developing an application is even worthwhile. Sure this will mean more work for Apple, much slower time to market for applications and likely fewer applications, especially the thousands of free applications.

Or Apple could just accept applications, put the stick away and separate the Apple business model from the App Store business model.

Let the market decide if the developer did something worthy of income. Then everyone wins.

You too can download the lite version (ie free) of my first iPhone application, Mix ‘n Match.

My brother Matt did a great job on the artwork and I’m already hard at work on the next version!.

Download -> Mix ‘n Match

Mix ‘n Match allows you to mix up different hair, eyes and mouths by sliding the sections of the face left or right.

While the lite version only includes three faces, the full version will contain many more, allow you to use your own photos as well as save your creations!

So this spring Elizabeth lost her Verizon phone. She could have used an old phone, but decided that since she wanted a new iPhone coming in June, she’d go ahead and switch to AT&T.

Went in, told them our plans and asked if signing up now or getting a phone would screw us in June when the new phones came out. “No,” was the response.

Lies.

Went today at 9am to get a phone at Washington Square. The Apple Store was already open and we were 5th in line, sweet!

After 15 minutes in line, it’s our turn. They bring out a 16gb white phone, but it won’t authorize.

So they try another one, then the nice Apple employee informs us that AT&T says she is not eligible for the cheaper, subsidized price until October, 2009.

He tried to call AT&T, as he said this is happening a lot, but they are closed on Sundays.

So we left. The iPhone is not worth an extra $200 to her.

We spent $100 of that on the way home at Home Depot and IKEA. Apple’s loss.

We’ll see what AT&T has to say tomorrow, as the store really did a bait-n-switch. Sure, we can get a phone, but if we had known it was going to cost us $200 more, we’d have waited to switch, waited to pay AT&T for months of service, waited entirely.

I’ll report when I hear from them.