Game Strategy, Development & Design for iPhone & mobile app

Come join us tonight at 6 PM at Hurricane Electric in Fremont for Alice in Wonderland: Game Strategy, Development & Design for iPhone & mobile app, an event sponsored by Silicon Valley Web Builder.

Panelists from PlayMesh, Slidetoplay.com, Team4000 Software and Redbot Software will discuss iPhone game development, marketing strategies and working with Apple and the App Store. We hope to see you there!

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The Pains of iPhone Ad Hoc Beta Testing

The guys at Broadersheet talks about the pain of distributing a pre-release version of an iPhone app to beta testers using ad hoc distribution in their recent blog post.

We feel your pain here at Able Pear. :-)  Working with far flung beta testers and consulting clients and walking them through the ad hoc process is one of the least fun parts of iPhone development.

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Apple's App Store: 85,000 apps and more than 2,000,000,000 downloads

Today Apple announced that more than two billion apps have been downloaded form the App Store.  There are now more than 85,000 apps available in the App Store with more than 50 million iPhone and iPod touch customers world wide.

"The App Store has reinvented what you can do with a mobile handheld device, and our users are clearly loving it," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO

Looking at the numbers I see some interesting things such as there are now 85,000 apps in the store and 125,000 developers in Apple's iPhone Developer Program...  So that's each developer  publishing .68th of an app!?  No.  I know that there are several developers working on one app.  For us there are two developers and when you include our clients there's a few more - they don't develop the app, but they do need to retain ownership of the product and it requires participation in the program.

Also, with two billion apps downloaded of the 85,000 apps available that's about 23,530 downloads per app... (ah, if that was only the case.)

Apple enters game space - console and game makers worry

In a recent article written by Hiroko Tabuchi (twitter) of the New York Times, Hiroko talks about the Tokyo Game Show going on this week/weekend and how industry executives are worried about Apples push into the handheld game market with it's iPhone and newly beefed-up iPod touch.

As Able Pear Software develops several applications with several in the game space I found this article to be interesting and insightful. I didn't realize the impact the iPhone and iPod touch with it's App Store was making in the console game industry. But with games as little as .99 cents or free I can see where they would be worried about their $30.00 and up titles and declining hardware sales.

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iPhone's new MMS feature goes live today

Finally, one of the much anticipated features of the Apple iPhone's 3.1 release has gone live today - MMS is finally here.

So grab your iPhone, launch iTunes, sync your data, check for updates, confirm carrier update (that's AT&T 5.5 for us US users), sync, unplug, power cycle your iPhone and presto - MMS.

iPhone Friday - September 25, 2009

Hello and happy Friday.  Todays collection of iPhone and iPod touch wallpapers continues last weeks iPhone Friday with more spectacular images from the Hubble Space Telescope.  Enjoy.

Hubble Space Telescope sets:
iPhone Friday, October 18, 2009 - HST Set 1
iPhone Friday, October 2, 2009 - HST Set 3

iPhone Friday - September 18, 2009

Happy Friday!  In honor of the Hubble Space Telescope getting some much needed love I am posting a set of stellar wallpapers iPhone and iPod touch.  Enjoy!

Hubble Space Telescope sets:
iPhone Friday, September 25, 2009 - HST Set 2
iPhone Friday, October 2, 2009 - HST Set 3

Numbers on the App Store review process

While watching CNET's inaugural episode of Reporters' Roundtable, hosted by Rafe Needleman, CNET News' Apple Reporter Erica Ogg mention some numbers about the App Store review process/department.  She mentioned in her clarification that there is approximately 40 people who review the 8,000 or so applications that are submitted weekly (about 4:30 s from the end or 21:15 s from the start).

Quickly I thought about the numbers: (apps/staff/days per week/ hours per day) and I came up with 8000 / 40 / 5 / 8 = 5...  five apps per hour.  That's one app being given an average of 12 minutes of attention.

I'd like to hear your thoughts about this.  Comment below.

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Orchard's Craps submitted for review

Able Pear is very happy to announce that our latest application, Orchard's Craps, has been submitted to the App Store for review.

Orchard's Craps is an iPhone and iPod touch version of the classic casino dice game and is the first of in the Orchard's Casino series of games.

Stay tuned to this channel for the release announcement...

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iPhone Friday - September 11, 2009

Happy Friday! It's been a busy day as you may have read. So I'm going to post some wallpapers from the Japanese collection. New stuff next week. (^_^)

Apple Announces iTunes 9, New Nano, and more at 9/9/09 press conference

Today's Apple press even focuses on the iTunes/iPod/Music space as it has in the past - the day before the Football season (and barrage of commercials) starts.  Here's the highlights:

Steve Jobs is back - and has the liver of a 20 year old.
30 million iPhones sold in first two years.
75,000 apps in the App Store.
1.8 billion apps downloaded (not including updates).
iPhone OS 3.1
8.5 billion songs have been downloaded from iTunes
More than 100 million iTunes accounts.
iTunes is the No. 1 seller of music.
iTunes 9 is out with the following features:
  Cleaner look and improved UI
  Genius Mixes
  Better syncing
  App management/organization
  Home Sharing
  iTunes LP
  iTunes Extras
20 million iPod touchs sold (of the 220 million iPods sold to date)
Reduced iPod touch pricing (8GB @ $199, 32GB @ $299, new 64GB @ $399)
OpenGL 2.0 now on iPod touch (but not for the 8GB version)
Change in iPod Classic (160GB @ $249)
iPod Shuffle (more colors + limited edition stainless steel) (2GB @ $59, 4GB @ $79)
New iPod Nano with camera, mic, voice recorder, FM radio, pedometer and Voice Over (from the iPod Shuffle) and comes in lots of colors. (8GB @ $159, 16GB @ $179)

For more information visit: Apple, iTunes 9, iPod touch, iPod Nano, CNET's event coverage.

iPhone Friday - September 4, 2009

Hello and Happy Friday!  In honor of our new craps beta going live we are posting a iPhone/iPod touch wallpaper for you...  Love craps (the dice game), then you'll love this wallpaper...

Curious about the wallpaper?  Curious about the beta of Orchard's Craps?  Curious about being a beta tester (also available for the PC/Mac)?  Then comment below or contact me (Kevin) directly...  Cheers!

(Update: Orchard's Craps has been submitted to the App Store for review -- stay tuned!)

The Hummer of Cellphones

Jenna Wortham writes in the New York Times:

Slim and sleek as it is, the iPhone is really the Hummer of cellphones.

She explores AT&T's network woes dealing this the demands of iPhone users.

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Snow Leopard - App Compatibility List

Apple released Snow Leopard, Mac OS X 10.6, to a eagerly anticipating base of loyal fans.  The problem is even though the OS is ready for prime-time, some of your applications may not be ready for it.

It's an issue that faces most OS upgrade cycles: the OS updates and then some of your currently installed apps need to be patched to work  How do you know which mission critical app of your will stop working properly once you upgrade?

The nice people contributing to Wikidot have a page with an extensive list of apps and their compatibility with Snow Leopard.  As a wiki you are encouraged to fill in the blanks.  The site can be viewed here: http://snowleopard.wikidot.com/

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