This Week's Sponsor:

Copilot Money

The Apple Editor’s Choice Award App for Tracking Your Money. Start Your Free Trial Today

Good App Store Screenshots→

Good App Store Screenshots

Speaking of good App Store practices for developers, Jen Gordon published (via Jeremy Olson) a nice overview detailing how users browse the App Store looking for screenshots and icons.

An app with a fantastic interface design will definitely increase sales. However, if all you publish are plain screenshots sans description of features and benefits – you’re missing a HUGE selling opportunity.

In the new iOS 6 App Store, icons and screenshots are more relevant than ever. Particularly with the new “cards” interface for search and genius, the application icon and first screenshot are what users immediately tend to look at, as titles get cut off after 12-15 characters and ratings have a smaller font than iOS 5.

On the other hand, because (on the iPhone) cards are displayed one after the other, developers have more chances to catch a user’s attention with good icons and screenshots. While swiping through search results, beautiful icons get immediately noticed, but the first screenshot has to instantly communicate the main purpose of the app, while showing some elements of its interface. It’s undoubtedly hard to find the right balance between communication and appearances (the coolest part of the UI might not be the most informative), but developers need to keep in mind that just like cards can get an app more visibility, it’s easy to swipe away to the next result.

Permalink

Dissecting The iOS 6 App Store→

Dissecting The iOS 6 App Store

Justine Pratt has published (via TUAW) a very thorough overview of the new App Store in iOS 6.

The new AppStore, especially the cards, was really designed for the iPad and the faster processor of the iPhone5. Finally the stores on both devices are common, which should help increase the familiarity when browsing both stores. On older devices, the icons and graphics are slow to load and the cards are slow to scroll on the iPhone. This situation is only temporary, as new devices are released and adopted.

In my iOS 6 review, I took an extensive look at the App Store, its new features, and its most apparent shortcomings; Justine does a much better job at carefully analyzing every single section and change in App Store layout and category organization. I also learned a few tidbits from her overview, such as the new positioning of the “App Support” button next to reviews.

Interestingly, we both came to the conclusion that the new App Store seems to really be optimized for the iPad in terms of layout. In the past few weeks, following the release of iOS 6, I’ve heard quite a few people saying that the opposite was true – that the cards layout was meant for the iPhone first, and eventually brought to the iPad with a larger UI design.

Overall, the App Store still has several visible and deeply annoying bugs that hinder the performance of search, Genius, and Purchased History. Apple still hasn’t fixed many of these, and the improved speed of the iPhone 5 only partially contributes to making the browsing experience slightly better.

As I wrote in my review, there are still some noteworthy additions and changes for developers in the new App Store, so make sure to check out Justine’s article for a detailed analysis.

Permalink

Apple Announces Q4 2012 Conference Call for October 25

Quarter 4 2012 Banner

Quarter 4 2012 Banner

Apple’s fourth quarter earnings report and conference call will take place on October 25th, 2012, according to an Investor Relations update on Apple’s website. At the time of the event, Apple will broadcast the call online.

Apple plans to conduct a conference call to discuss financial results of its fourth fiscal quarter on Thursday, October 25, 2012 at 2:00 p.m. PT / 5:00 p.m. ET.

For the third quarter, ending on July 24th, Apple earned $35 billion in revenue, a net profit of $8.8 billion, with earnings of $9.32 per diluted share. Comparatively, the year ago quarter for Apple’s Q4 2011 conference call brought Apple revenue of $24.98 billion, a net profit of $6.62 million, and earnings of $7.02 per diluted share. For this fiscal quarter, Apple expects revenue of $34 billion and diluted earnings per share of $7.65.

The iPhone 5 was a significant launch this quarter, with over 5 million units sold during the first three days of sale, which does not include the iPhone 5’s launch in 22 additional countries a week later (and 100 more countries by the end of the year). As was the case with the iPhone 4S for Q1 2012, the iPhone 5’s complete sales numbers should be available at the end of the first fiscal quarter for 2013. While the iPhone 5 should prove to be immensely popular, iPod sales will be worth paying attention to as well thanks to refreshed iPod nanos and iPod touches.

We will provide live updates from the conference call on our site’s homepage on October 25th starting at 2 PM PT.

Enforcing Rule 2.25

Apps that display Apps other than your own for purchase or promotion in a manner similar to or confusing with the App Store will be rejected

Earlier today, a number of people noticed a change in the App Store Review Guidelines that took place back on September 12. Specifically, Keith Andrew at PocketGamer noted how the new rule 2.25 could pose serious risks for any app that promotes other apps with direct linking.

The wording is typically vague, but clause 2.25 appears to give Apple carte blanche to put any app that promotes titles from a different developer out of action. At the moment, we understand Apple’s likely prime targets are pure app promotion services, such as (but not necessarily including) FreeAppADay, AppoDay, AppGratis, Daily App Dream and AppShopper, amongst others.

Matthew Panzarino at The Next Web and Darrell Etherington at TechCrunch followed up on the news of the late “discovery” with more details on possible implications and comments from developers of apps that might fall under rule 2.25.

There seems to be a lot of confusion on Twitter in regards to the exact scope of this new rule. In particular, due to some poor sensationalistic headlines that are unfortunately published on a regular basis, some are speculating Apple will start banning all apps that promote other apps or any kind of “aggregator” that collects links to multiple App Store apps. That’s just silly and simply not true. Read more

Visualize OmniFocus As iThoughts Map, OPML, Or Plain Text

iThoughts for OmniFocus

iThoughts for OmniFocus

A few weeks ago, Michael Schechter found a way to export an OmniFocus for Mac database to OPML to visualize it in mind-mapping apps like iThoughts and MindNode. In the post, he wrote that, however, he was reaching to the Mac community to see if anyone would be able to build a more powerful and reliable solution with filters, color options, and more control on the exported data. RobTrew picked up the task and, on the OmniGroup Forums, released an initial script to export from OmniFocus to OPML.

Then, yesterday, Rob released a new version of the script which adds native iThoughts support and plain text exporting options, as well as settings for colors, templates, and filters.

I tested Rob’s script with my OmniFocus database, and after several improvements he made to the script, I feel comfortable enough with linking to it here. Unlike other solutions, Rob’s script looks directly into the SQL OmniFocus database cache to get its data – quite a feat on its own. But there’s so much more the script can do if you start customizing it. Read more

60 Mountain Lion Tips

Published today, 60 Mountain Lion Tips is the latest entry in the MacSparky Field Guides series. Co-authored by Brett Terpstra and David Sparks, the book stands out for its clever use of iBooks 2.0 features (though a PDF version is also available) and embedded screencasts. There are 53 screencasts with 1.5 hours of video for a total of 60 tips organized in sections like Mountain Lion, Keyboard, Mail, and more.

I was able to read the iBooks version on my iPad, and, as usual, everything’s just great. I’m a big fan of David’s screencasts (see here and here for examples), and the format of this new book makes for a quick consumption that, however, doesn’t lack in depth. The tips are laid out clearly on the left side as text (assuming you’re reading in landscape mode, which lets you see more of a page), and screencasts are available as video thumbnails on the right. Both text and video are clear, concise, and to-the-point. David and Brett do the voiceover, and the quality of the videos doesn’t disappoint – they are compressed, but not too much, so they’re still pleasant to watch on the Retina display. The videos contain both voiceover and system audio, as well as on-screen tips for keyboard shortcuts and menus.

The layout of the book is clean, and, like David’s previous Field Guide, compliant with the design standards of iBooks Author. For instance, you can navigate from a page to a chapter by pinching out, you can access a dedicated page for notes and highlights, and you can watch videos inline. Similar to Push Pop Press’ old physics engine, you can also “move” videos on the screen as they play. It’s not that useful, but it’s very cool.

More importantly, 60 Mountain Lion Tips is easy to read and, in just a few hours, I actually got a lot out of it. We had our own Mountain Lion tips in our first eBook, and yet this book taught me a few OS X tricks I didn’t know about. I especially appreciated the section on third-party app tips, which many roundups usually don’t cover (we didn’t).

60 Mountain Lion Tips is only $6.99. Check out the website here for more information and a link to the separate PDF purchase.

iPhone 5 Display Vs. Spectroradiometer→

iPhone 5 Display Vs. Spectroradiometer

According to Apple, the iPhone 5 offers 44% more color saturation than the iPhone 4S. Jeff Yurek of dot color decided to put the claim under direct scientific inspection, and found out (through a spectroradiometer) that, indeed, the display is remarkably improved.

The 44% more color claim for the iPhone 5 is the same claim Apple made for the new iPad. As with the iPad, increasing the color performance of the iPhone 4S by 44% of NTSC 1953 gamut, measured using the CIE 1931 color space, would result in color saturation matching the sRGB color standard. Using these standards as the goal posts, we measured the iPhone 5 at 70% of NTSC 1953 in CIE 1931, a 39% increase from the iPhone 4S, which measured at 50%. That’s 5% less of an improvement than Apple’s 44% claim and just 99% of sRGB (measured against the sRGB primaries). While 5% less might seem like a big deal, getting to 99% of sRGB is a major feat and will result in tremendously noticeable color improvement in the phone. Additionally, color filters are notoriously difficult to manufacture.

I am no display expert, but from personal experience I can say I see a definite improvement of blues and greens on the iPhone 5. Just by looking at the App Store, Phone, and Messages icons on an iPhone 5 and iPhone 4S, you can see that the colors are more vivid and “real” on the new device. Yurek’s scientific measurements put this into better context with factual evidence.

Also worth linking is the photo set of retinal neuroscientist and photographer Bryan Jones. He took macro shots of the iPhone 5 and iPhone 4 to compare color quality, then put them both under a microscope to take a look at the pixels. Check out his results here.

Permalink

Tim Cook Writes Open Letter To Customers, Apologizes For Maps ‘Frustration’

Apple has just posted on its website a letter from Tim Cook to Apple’s customers, apologizing for not delivering the best experience with its new iOS 6 Maps. In the letter, prominently link to from the front page of Apple.com,  Cook describes how Apple “strives” to make products the “deliver the best experience possible”, but that the new Maps app has fallen short of this standard, frustrating millions of customers.

He re-emphasises the previous Apple statement on Maps, by saying that as time goes on and more people use Maps (there have already been nearly half a billion location searches), that the Maps app will get better. But in the mean time, Cook suggests that users try alternative map apps, and actually names some third-party apps available in the App Store such as “Bing, MapQuest and Waze” or alternatively to use “use Google or Nokia maps by going to their websites and creating an icon on your home screen to their web app”. Whilst that is certainly far from ideal, it’s quite extraordinary to see Cook actively name and recommend third party mapping solutions.

Cook explains that since they first shipped the original iPhone, they’ve been wanting to add new features such as “turn-by-turn directions, voice integration, Flyover and vector-based maps”. Cook claims that they had to create a new version “from the ground-up” to achieve these - there is no mention of Google’s role in the letter.

Tim Cook’s full letter to customers:

To our customers,

At Apple, we strive to make world-class products that deliver the best experience possible to our customers. With the launch of our new Maps last week, we fell short on this commitment. We are extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers and we are doing everything we can to make Maps better.

We launched Maps initially with the first version of iOS. As time progressed, we wanted to provide our customers with even better Maps including features such as turn-by-turn directions, voice integration, Flyover and vector-based maps. In order to do this, we had to create a new version of Maps from the ground up.

There are already more than 100 million iOS devices using the new Apple Maps, with more and more joining us every day. In just over a week, iOS users with the new Maps have already searched for nearly half a billion locations. The more our customers use our Maps the better it will get and we greatly appreciate all of the feedback we have received from you.

While we’re improving Maps, you can try alternatives by downloading map apps from the App Store like Bing, MapQuest and Waze, or use Google or Nokia maps by going to their websites and creating an icon on your home screen to their web app.

Everything we do at Apple is aimed at making our products the best in the world. We know that you expect that from us, and we will keep working non-stop until Maps lives up to the same incredibly high standard.

Tim Cook
Apple’s CEO