Apple Changes The Way It Handles AppStore Updates, Freaks Out Developers

Link

Previously when a developer updates an application, the updated app used to show up in the main category page in iTunes. This meant better visibility to the updated application which resulted in good spike in sales whenever an update is rolled out. These spikes in sales during the updates was the key motivation for developers to keep pushing out updates and to keep improving the apps.

With this new ‘upgrade’, newly updated applications don’t show up in iTunes category page. This means, when a developer updates an application, the update will be pushed directly to existing users and that’s pretty much it. There is no way for new users to know about those newly added features/improvements. Apple killed the key motivation for developers to improve apps, which I think is a BIG mistake.

Hey, Apple!

This.Is.A.Huge.Mistake.

Interview: James Hoover - Creator of Bean

Link

I’ve heard artists say that you can’t wait for the magic to happen, you have to sit at your desk in your office and make it happen. So I sat there looking at my clamshell iBook’s screen for about two weeks, trying to rid myself of the torpor. I was using Microsoft’s Office X at the time, which was very old school. At the bottom of your document window in Word you had this row of winkie blinkies with cryptic labels like REC, TRK, EXT, and OVR. I thought, “What are those things? Does anybody know?” People where complaining then about the endless rows of tiny icons you had to deal with in Word. Dozens and dozens of them. Back then, there was almost no other option for a Mac word processor. Microsoft had crushed all of its competition.

Interesting interview to the developer of Bean, a nice word processor for Mac OS X.

Mein Kampf Complete With Nazi Logo Approved

TechCrunch link

Ok Apple, this is embarassing. Let’s face it.

Now, I wonder how does Apple exactly “organize” the approval process. Is there a staff of drunk monkeys sitting in front of Powerbooks? Is it a team of - ehm - droids?

Or is it just a way to make people talk about the AppStore? I wonder how many people have bought that Mein Kampf thing today.

You’re smart Apple.

Dropzone: Your Dock Wants This.

I am a blogger, and my daily workflow often consists of repeating and boring tasks. That’s a given: I have to upload pictures, shorten URLs, send emails,install new apps. But if you’re not a blogger like me, it’s very likely that you repeat common tasks too.

Now, Mac OS is an excellent platform from this point of view: everything is simplified but yet powerful and thanks to some tecniques like Applescript or Smart Folders you can let the OS do stuff for you. But still, I missed an real application which would do tasks for me. By “real application” I mean an app that would sit in my Dock and not some scripts or complicated folder rules.

Here comes Dropzone.

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Snow Leopard: Disabling Exposé in Dock menus

Betalogue link

You just need to enter this command in Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.dock show-expose-menus -bool no

After restarting the Dock (with killall Dock or with another utility), you will now have a Dock where clicking and holding on an application icon gives you the same menu as the one you get with control-clicking. And it’s instantaneous. Yey!

And just so you know, changing this setting does not disable the other feature, i.e. the “Minimize windows into application icon” feature. It still works. You just don’t have to deal with slow Exposé crap anymore.

Great tip aimed to those who can’t stand the new Exposè menu feature.

iTunes LP Now Available For Apple TV Customers

TUAW link

“With the latest versions of iTunes (9.0.2) and Apple TV software (3.0), you can now use iTunes LP on your Apple TV. We have updated the iTunes LP that was included with [your previous purchase here] so that it can now be viewed on Apple TV in addition to your Mac or PC….”

Still, I don’t get the point of Apple TV.