Posts in Linked

Apple Updates App Store Guidelines for Children’s and Gambling Apps→

Juli Clover of MacRumors writes about Apple’s latest revisions to the App Store Review Guidelines.

The new section detailing apps for children under age 13 specifies that such apps must include a privacy policy, may not include behavioral advertising (ads based on in-app activity, for example), and must ask for parental permission before allowing children to “link out of the app or engage in commerce.” Apps in the Kids Category of the App Store must be made specifically for children “ages 5 and under, ages 6–8, or ages 9–11.”

In addition to its guideline changes regarding children, Apple implemented two new guidelines that pertain to gambling. Apps that offer real money gaming are now required to be free and are forbidden from using in-app purchases to offer players credit or currency to use in such games.

Emphasis mine. That’s rule 24.3 in the guidelines and it isn’t terribly specific. Not being a parent, I’m not familiar with parental controls, so my initial assumption was that mom or dad would have to enter a password so the child could continue. I asked for specifics on Twitter, and the answer I got clarified that the app will just ask whether you’re a minor. I’m suddenly reminded of this Onion piece.

Parental controls (aka Restrictions) on iOS can also keep your child from installing apps, poking around on the Internet, and from making in-app purchases. Apple’s guide tells you how to turn Restrictions on and set a passcode, but OS X Daily has a quick walkthrough that highlights all the important stuff.

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iOS 7 Apps and Aggressive Adoption→

David Smith, on deciding to go iOS 7-only for his next app updates:

Today, I’ve reverted my position again. I am going to be aggressively adopting iOS 7 exclusively in my apps.

This change is mostly a result not so much of the technical or business implications of supporting legacy versions but of quality assurance needs. I have been able to manage working out the technical needs of supporting both versions but I have found that the time and energy required to test and validate the applications on both is becoming too much of a burden.

Aside from a technological standpoint, I think the most important factor to consider is that users can’t wait to get their hands on iOS 7. The new version is a major change, and – at least based on my survey of non-geeky friends – I suspect that more people will upgrade more quickly than last year (the launch of iOS 6 surely wasn’t helped by doubts surrounding Maps).

With users being so excited for iOS 7, the decision of going iOS 7-only makes sense. At least, it’s a common pattern that I’m observing this summer.

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Pixar Founder Accepts the Disney Legends Award for Steve Jobs→

This weekend, Steve Jobs was awarded the Disney Legends Award. Husain Sumra from MacRumors writes:

Disney Legends was a program that originated 26 years ago, and over the years the program has honored over 250 individuals who have made significant contributions to The Walt Disney Company. Jobs received the award for his “visionary attitude, and penchant for innovation”, his work at Apple, his contributions to Pixar, and his work on the Disney board of directors.

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The Making of the Tri-Tone→

You might be surprised to find that the Tri-tone wasn’t originally engineered for the iPhone. As Kelly Jacklin, the creator of the Tri-tone explains, the sound was originally intended as a confirmation sound for a disc burning feature in what would be the predecessor to iTunes.

I was looking for something “simple” that would grab the user’s attention. I thought a simple sequence of notes, played with a clean-sounding instrument, would cut through the clutter of noise in a home or office. So I had two tasks: pick an instrument, and pick a sequence of notes. Simple, right? Yeah, says you; everyone’s an armchair musician…

For reference, the Tri-tone is the default alert tone used when when receiving an SMS or Voicemail on an iPhone.

[via @drdrang]

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How Apple is Reinventing The Pro Market→

Ken Segall writes about Apple’s commitment to the professional market and how they’re resetting expectations.

In FCP7, the controls are rich and deep. As a consequence, getting proficient with the app is a serious undertaking.

FCPX is very powerful, but less daunting and more seductive — streamlining and automating some of its advanced capabilities.

For a lot of pros, this represents a dumbing down of FCP. In this way of thinking, FCP is evolving into “iMovie Pro.”

But one must be careful to separate two very different issues. First, there is the feature set of the app itself. Then there’s the bigger issue of where video editing is headed. Clearly Apple would like to rethink the fundamentals and build something better.

As a result, Apple does lose some customers. (Some of whom are rather loud about it.) But it keeps a core group of pros happy by pushing the boundaries. At the same time, it invites a larger audience of high-end consumers who can suddenly understand, enjoy and benefit from the app.

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Thoughts on the New AirPort Extreme→

Thomas Brand of Egg Freckles thinking out loud about Apple’s latest AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule.

In the era of Post-PC computing I would like to see an AirPort Extreme of Time Capsule that do more than just desktop backup and wireless networking. A central household cache for iTunes streaming, App Store downloads, and iCloud backups would be a great start. Maybe next year we will see another vertically oriented white box that does just that.

When iCloud Backups became a thing that we started seeing on rumor blogs, I remember quite a few of us positing that our AirPort devices would become an important piece in that equation. We were wrong, but it’s not hard to imagine an iPhone or iPad syncing to a Time Capsule in the same manner that our Macs do with scheduled Time Machine backups.

You can come close to a proposed solution like this today. Take any old USB hard drive, copy your iTunes data to it, plug it in your AirPort Extreme or Time Capsule, and you’re off to the races. Although loading an iTunes library over a network is so slow there’s really no benefit.

The big con in doing any of this of course is what happens when the hard drive in that Time Capsule dies. If all of your music and mobile backups are on this thing you’re suddenly hosed unless Apple has some cloud storage or RAID solution in mind. This is why I think our Macs and iTunes continues to be the gateway for syncing and backing up our iOS devices — data is at least redundantly stored on both your Mac and Time Capsule.

Although Apple claims the vertical departure from the previous AirPort Extreme’s six-year-old design was choosen for better reception, I tend to think it was a cost cutting measure. The new AirPort Extreme and AirPort Time Capsule share the same enclosure along designed around the same 3.5 inch hard drive. The added price of the Time Capsule gets you nothing more than said drive, and the cables needed to connect it. Saving Apple millions on duplicate parts.

I forgot who said it, but the theory I like the most is that the new AirPort Extreme design keeps people from stacking crap on top it.

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The Boy Who Beat Ocarina of Time in 22 Minutes→

This link isn’t strictly about Cosmo Wright’s Ocarina of Time speedrun – which, by the way, is incredible to watch. Make sure to read Computer and Video Games’ feature on it as well.

Rather, I’d like to point out these two tweets by Sonny Fazio in response to Peter Hajas, who originally shared the link to Cosmo Wright’s speedrun last night:

This is an interesting side effect of the App Store that I didn’t think about. Speedruns are an extremely fun-to-watch, but niche use case that, as Fazio notes, are generally facilitated by glitches and bugs in the source code of games. This goes beyond the App Store and extends to games sold on online platforms like Steam and PlayStation Network as well. Because of updates and patches, will it become increasingly difficult – if not impossible – for speedrunners to analyze and play through games in their original form decades from now?

In the video I linked above, for instance, Cosmo explains that a major glitch in Ocarina of Time took 13 years to be discovered and used. That was only possible thanks to the fact that a) Nintendo 64 cartridges are still physically available today and b) Nintendo’s conversion for the Wii’s Virtual Console is a 1:1 port of the original – bugs and glitches included. Can you imagine someone still playing an iOS game in 13 years?

Twenty or thirty years from now, will we see speedruns for iOS, PS3, or Xbox 360 games? Sadly, I think that a mix of retrocompatibility issues, OS and app updates, and lack of physical access to games will hinder speedrunning. Not to mention Apple’s current state of affairs with games and the gaming community.

Overall, Digital preservation is the bigger topic we should be discussing.

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