What Makes a Name in the App Store?→

I looked at the top 200 apps in each category for both paid and free iPhone apps, 8400 apps in total. Although some developers use up to 49 words (and all 255 characters), the majority are around 4-5 words (24-35 characters). Around one third of apps use a delimiter / separator like ‘Flipboard: Your Social News Magazine’.

Stuart Hall takes a brief but interesting look at what exactly makes a name for apps in the App Store. Specifically, he is talking about the full app store name such as ‘Wish - Shopping Made Fun’. Whilst Apple allows a name with as many as 255 characters (remember a tweet is only 140 characters), a big chunk of developers stay under 30 characters - which is about as long as it can be on an iPhone before the App Store cuts the name.

Hall also offers some suggestions for coming up with an app name, which are fairly straightforward and make a lot of sense. But one thing missing from the post (through no real fault of Hall’s) is some anecdotal evidence from App developers who may have experimented with different length or style of App names - I’d love to hear how it affected their sales (if at all).

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FiftyThree Releases SDK for Their Pencil Stylus

The FiftyThree SDK has been implemented by Procreate, allowing it to fully support the Pencil Stylus

The FiftyThree SDK has been implemented by Procreate, allowing it to fully support the Pencil Stylus

FiftyThree, the company behind the popular ‘Paper’ sketching app, have today released an SDK for their ‘Pencil’ stylus which is now available internationally. The SDK incorporates advanced features enabled by the Pencil that were previously limited to FiftyThree’s own Paper app. In preparation for today’s release, FiftyThree has worked with the developers of Procreate, Noteshelf, and Squiggle which will offer full support for the FiftyThree SDK.

With the FiftyThree SDK, developers worldwide can now tap into Pencil’s industry­leading technologies and find support from a team that values true partnerships. Developers are already discovering new ways of using Pencil to bring the power of natural creativity to their apps, from professional drawing to making music, starting with our partners Procreate, Noteshelf, and Squiggle.

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Apple Q3 2014 Results: $37.4 Billion Revenue, 35.2 Million iPhones, 13.3 Million iPads Sold

Apple has published their Q3 2014 financial results for the quarter that ended June 28. The company posted revenue of $37.4 billion. The company sold 13.3 million iPads, 35.2 million iPhones, and 4.4 million Macs, earning a quarterly net profit of $6.9 billion.

“Our record June quarter revenue was fueled by strong sales of iPhone and Mac and the continued growth of revenue from the Apple ecosystem, driving our highest EPS growth rate in seven quarters,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We are incredibly excited about the upcoming releases of iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, as well as other new products and services that we can’t wait to introduce.”

Notably, Apple’s gross margin jumped back up to 39.4% this quarter, compared to 36.9% in the year-ago quarter. International sales also accounted for 59% of all Apple’s revenue. You can see all our usual earnings call charts below.

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Stickers Are Front and Center in Apple’s New MacBook Air Ad

Apple today posted a new ad for the MacBook Air, and it has a very different style to what we’ve seen in recent MacBook ads. Titled ‘Stickers’, this short and simple ad, filmed mostly with stop-motion, focuses on the back of the MacBook Air’s display where it is covered in dozens of different stickers. The ad features music from Hudson Mohawke and ends with the slogan “The notebook people love”.

You can view the full advert below, on Apple’s website or on their YouTube channel.

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Marked Released On Mac App Store, Discounted, and Updated→

Marked, developed by Brett Terpstra, is my must-have utility to convert MultiMarkdown to HTML on my Mac. Whenever I need to publish an article from OS X rather than my iPad (usually because I need to record and include GIFs or screencasts), I rely on Marked to handle conversion to valid HTML with a keyboard shortcut. And yet, as we’ve shown before, there is so much that Marked can do, such as printing to a variety of formats, keyword and readability analysis, and more.

Today, Brett released version 2.3 of Marked and made it available on the Mac App Store as well. Both versions of the app share the same features and they are both sandboxed to comply with Apple’s App Store rules. However, in spite of the restrictions, Marked hasn’t lost its functionality – instead, Brett managed to add new options such as full GitHub Flavored Markdown support, improved PDF export stability, a document reading progress bar (I love this), and a mini map for navigation with fast scrolling.

What I still find most impressive about Marked isn’t its feature set per se, but rather how the app can be used as a simple tool for short posts or an advanced solution for writers who are working on a book or long documents. Marked is incredibly powerful and flexible and, at $9.99 on the Mac App Store as a limited time sale, I highly recommend it.

(Check out Brett’s blog post and our previous coverage of Marked.)

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The Eighth Annual iTunes Festival Returns to London This September

Apple today announced that their annual iTunes Festival will once again return to London’s iconic Roundhouse for the eighth year. The month long festival will happen throughout September and will feature Maroon 5, David Guetta, Calvin Harris, Beck, Sam Smith, Blondie, Kylie, 5 Seconds of Summer, Chrissie Hynde and many more of the world’s biggest artists.

“The iTunes Festival in London is back with another stunning line-up of world class performers and tremendous new acts,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “These live shows capture the heart and soul of iTunes and we love bringing them to our customers in the Roundhouse, as well as to the millions of people watching all over the world for free.”

Apple will once again stream the festival live as well as offer the performances on demand to iOS, iTunes and Apple TV users - just as they have for previous iTunes Festivals, including earlier this year in their first SXSW iTunes Festival. For those looking to attend the festival, Apple will be giving tickets away through iTunes and select media partners including Global Radio and the London Evening Standard.

You can read more information in Apple’s Press Release or keep an eye on the iTunes Festival website for more information in the coming weeks.

Sue Wagner Elected To Apple’s Board of Directors, Bill Campbell Retires

Apple’s board of directors received a slight change yesterday when Sue Wagner was elected and Bill Campbell retired from the board. Apple’s chairman, Art Levinson, says the election of Sue Wagner to Apple’s board comes after an exhaustive search by the company, in which they sought to “further strengthen our board’s breadth of talent and background”.

Sue is a pioneer in the financial industry and we are excited to welcome her to Apple’s board of directors,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We believe her strong experience, especially in M&A and building a global business across both developed and emerging markets, will be extremely valuable as Apple continues to grow around the world.

Wagner is the co-founder and director of BlackRock, one of the world’s most successful asset-management companies, and also serves on the boards of BlackRock, DSP BlackRock (India), Swiss Re, Wellesley College and Hackley School.
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Unreal Engine 4.3 Adds Metal Support→

From Unreal Engine’s blog:

Unreal Engine 4.3 includes greatly improved mobile support, awesome new rendering features, improved Blueprint workflows, and strides toward an excellent experience on Mac and laptops. Be sure to check out the new World Composition tools, spline features, and the preview of Paper2D, our 2D toolset! Today we’re also shipping SpeedTree 7 support, our work on Metal API for iOS 8 to date, and new Oculus Rift features such as time warping.

Unreal is one of the most popular engines used by game developers today. With iOS 8 and new devices on the horizon, I can’t wait to see what kind of advancements Metal will bring for mobile graphics.

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