Will Mac App Store Users Really Miss Demos? Probably Not.

The big news this morning is that Apple clarified its position on demos and trials in the upcoming Mac App Store and confirmed what we thought would happen all along: developers can’t have demo versions of their apps in the Mac App Store. Only full-featured retail versions will be accepted. Clearly, Apple doesn’t want to offer limited-time or “half baked” apps in its new Store, and it’s forcing Mac developers to go the iOS way with either free or paid apps.

That is going to cause a few problems and headaches for many, many OS X developers. For years, they have been trained to release demo / trail versions of applications, with a paid version to purchase immediately or after the trial runs out. And indeed Apple suggests just that: keep hosting trial versions on your website, because you’ll be able to insert a link to it in the App Store description page of the app. Just as it’s possible now in the iPhone and iPad App Store. Read more

iPad At The House of Representatives→

iPad At The House of Representatives

Rep. Henry Cuellar, Democratic congressman, has an iPad. He uses it with an app to check on Congress’ information, and he’s also running a teleprompter on it. He says he’s not the only one:

I’m always looking for the newest technology out there and I’ve done that for many, many years. The iPad is just one of those fabulous pieces of equipment that’s available out there. First thing I do in the morning is get my cup of coffee and start reading the papers. … And at night, before I go to bed, I check my last e-mails and check to see if there’s any new stories online.”

He says he’s not the only one toting the Apple gadget: “I’ve seen a couple of other members that have their iPads.

iPads were also spotted at the White House.

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Borderlands: Game Of The Year Edition for Mac Available→

Borderlands: Game Of The Year Edition for Mac Available

Bloodthirsty bandits. Vicious monsters. Tons of loot. Lock, Load and face the madness. Gearbox Software’s acclaimed sci-fi hit comes to the Mac complete with all four expansion packs. Borderlands is a unique hybrid of first person shooter and role-playing game with a super sharp visual style and a compelling 4 player co-op mode.

The game is out on Amazon now, or you can buy it on Feral Interactive’s website. I played this on a PC months ago, it’s a real gem.

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Weet for Mac: The New Tweetie? More Like A Promising Beta App.

Weet for Mac was released yesterday as a first beta, and it quickly made the rounds of the internet as dozens of blogs covered the app, and thousands of users went ahead and downloaded the beta hosted on Droplr. It seems like until Loren Brichter comes out with his long-awaited Tweetie 2, there’s a real, tangible need of Twitter clients for OS X.

My guess is that, plain and simply, Tweetie still manages to be the best desktop Twitter client for many users. Sure it doesn’t support native retweets, it hasn’t got support for Lists yet and it hasn’t been updated in months – but the interaction and navigation methods developed by Brichter are still far superior than most clients available on the Mac.

That said – we don’t want to write another Tweetie-related post here – let’s take a look at Weet. It’s a first, rough and not-so-stable beta, but I think that it gives us an idea of things to come in this app, the path the developers have chosen with the app’s interface and the overall feeling. Read more

Apple Takes Down AirPrint Hacktivator, But It’s Already Back Online

Remember AirPrint Hacktivator? It was a neat little hack thrown together by the folks over at Netputing which, by copying system files from the old developer betas of OS X 10.6.5, could enable AirPrint support for shared printers on the public version of 10.6.5. Admittedly, it wasn’t the most polished and “legal” hack, but it worked. And people liked it. And blogs covered it.

Too bad that when you publish software that re-distributes Apple’s source code, it comes a point where Apple legal makes a call. That’s exactly what happened to Netputing: they got an email from omm.com (one of Apple’s legal representatives) and were forced to remove the old versions of AirPrint Hacktivator, the one that copied old system files back into OS X 10.6.5. Read more

How Much Money Does A News App Make?→

How Much Money Does A News App Make?

According to the top grossing stats Writer and WIRED generate a similar amount of revenue in the US app store. Which is around $1,200-2,000 or 300-500 downloads per day. It’s hard to say how that translates into global sales, but according to our own stats the US is by far the strongest revenue market (about 75% of Writer’s sales) and as such a good indicator.

Now, what if, as some might argue, the real economical value of iPad apps comes from the ads you can plug into a news app? (Which is the classic anti-paywall position). Well, if so, why not publish the app for free, so you can reach much more readers and become a truly attractive ad platform?

Oliver Reichenstein makes a good argument. For an indie developer, $2000 per day isn’t too bad. But for someone like Wired? Perhaps advertisement is the only option, but with a free app.

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Air Video Update: Retina Graphics, Multitasking - Still A Must-Have

Air Video is one of our favorite iOS apps here at MacStories. Not only does the app come with a nice icon and polished interface, the real deal’s about the functionality: Air Video allows you to effortlessly stream any video from your computer to the iPhone or iPad – even with live conversion. No matter the format, no matter how big the file is (seriously, you can try with music videos or 3GB movie files), Air Video will stream to iOS just fine.

An update to the app was released yesterday, and it’s a pretty sweet update: Air Video 2.4.2 now comes with Retina Display-ready graphics, support for iOS 4.2 multitasking, performance improvements and enhanced file sorting capabilities.

An already must-have app basically got a lot better with these new features, so if you still don’t own Air Video, go buy it right now in the App Store at $2.99. Also, check out a video below of Erica Sadun from TUAW demoing a custom version of Air Video with AirPlay support. We can’t wait for Apple to open up its APIs and allow third-party apps like Air Video to stream to the Apple TV. Read more

Fruit Ninja HD: Now With Online Multiplayer and Game Center Support

One of my favorite iPad games to date, and the reason why I basically can’t use the iPad over the weekend (my friends regularly come to my place to grab it and play), was updated yesterday to include full Game Center support and online multiplayer.

Fruit Ninja HD, the massive hit by Halfbrick Studios which consists in slicing fruits with your fingers, now allows you to play online with a friend – all you have to do is avoid your opponent’s fruit. Sounds like fun, can’t wait to try it. The new update also brings Game Center support with Leaderboards and Achievements.

Fruit Ninja HD is available at $4.99 in the App Store and it’s totally worth your money. Version 1.1.1 changelog embedded below. Read more

This Is How An iPad Goes Crazy

Spotted by 9to5mac and still in development by conradev over at Hackthatifone, Graviboard will basically kill “gravity” on your iPad Springboard. Install it, assign an activation gesture to it and boom – icons will start floating around. You can tilt the device to move the icons, and even drag them around.

We’re not sure if there’s a way back, though. Ok, there is a way back to a normal Springboard, but you don’t have to tell your friend who think his iPad is dead – right? So just watch the video below, and think about the look on your friend’s face when he will see something like this.

Magical.