Publishers whom haven’t yet submitted their magazine or news publication to the App Store fear that consumers will simply opt-out of sharing personal information if given the choice. While only names, email addresses, and zip codes can be gathered by publishers, the possible road block via a simple pop-up notification was enough to scare off the likes of Time, Inc. The New York Times, Conde Nast, and others have given the App Store a shot despite the limitation to easily retrieve customer data, and Forbes’ Jeff Bercovici has confirmed that people aren’t that uncomfortable giving that information away.
Posts tagged with "apple"
Apple’s Eddy Cue Confirms Half of iPad Subscriber Base Shares Personal Info
Apple Reaches 100th iAd Campaign
The Loop reports Apple has successfully launched its 100th iAd campaign in late March with real estate company Coldwell Banker:
Apple on Wednesday said it had launched the 100th iAd campaign with real estate company Coldwell Banker.
The iAd allows iPhone and iPod touch users to search for their dream home, scrolling through visually driven search features to find specific homes matching their criteria. You can search by price, zip code, and include images of the homes.
So far, the campaign is bringing “glowing results” with 11 pages on average viewed per visit, engagement time above one minute and conversion rates four times higher than standard search ads. Apple’s iAd is currently live in 7 countries across America and Europe, with a minimum buy of $500,000, lowered from $1 million to allow smaller companies to launch campaigns to display on iOS devices. iPhones, iPod touches and iPads are supported, but a recent email from a member of the iAd team suggested Apple, following a request from advertisers, has shifted its targeting focus to hide advertisements from some kids-oriented apps.
Labels Hoping Apple’s Music Service Will Launch at WWDC
According to a new report by Cnet, multiple “music industry sources” have told the publication the four major music labels in the US (Warner Music Group, EMI, Sony, Universal) are hoping Apple’s rumored cloud music service will launch next month during the WWDC. The labels, Cnet reports, are counting on Apple to provide a full-featured music service with iTunes Store integration that would force competitors like Amazon and Google to start paying licensing fees for their “music locker” services, which allow users to upload songs to the cloud, but have in no way official support or backing from the labels. The labels are seemingly unhappy with Amazon and Google services as users might be able to upload songs they illegally downloaded from the Internet, and it also appears that Google transcodes some uploads to a new format (making a copy), thus raising some questions on copyright issues as well.
Apple is in a strong position to deliver a cloud service that allows for both uploading and streaming of songs thanks to deals negotiated with the labels. Last month, it was indeed reported that Apple had inked a deal with the Warner Music Group, with more labels to follow soon or already signed according to other rumors.
But the services offered by Amazon and Google are not all that they can be because those companies had to tippy-toe around copyright issues. Since neither company was either able or willing to obtain licenses from the four major labels, neither of them could deliver the same range of options that Apple will be able to offer with its upcoming cloud service, according to multiple music industry sources.
Lots of people at the four major labels, however, now hope the service launch at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference on June 7. The risk for the record labels is that the services from Amazon and Google could prove good enough for most music consumers and that the companies don’t feel compelled to upgrade.
The WWDC ‘11 kicks off on June 6 in San Francisco, and previous speculation suggested it would be a software-focused event with on-stage demoes of iOS 5 and OS X Lion. iOS 5 has been in the middle of a debate recently, mainly as to whether Apple will really showcase its new cloud offerings revolving around a revamped MobileMe or other functionalities such as voice recognition, postponing the launch of all cloud services to this Fall. Reuters reported a few weeks ago that work on Apple’s new music service had been finalized on the technical side, and Apple was simply completing the process of signing deals with music labels to offer both upload features and streaming of songs you don’t own, likely through a subscription system. Google launched its new “Music Beta” service yesterday and, similarly to Amazon’s Cloud Player, it allows users to upload songs and albums to an online locker, but doesn’t provide any sort of subscription à la Spotify to enable users to listen to music without uploading it first.
Report: Buyers Go With Either The Most Expensive Or Cheapest iPad
Apple offers quite a number of variations on the iPad 2, you can get it in white or black, with 3G or just WiFi, and in sizes of 16GB, 32GB and 64GB. Well it turns out that the most popular model, according to research firm Context, is the 64GB 3G iPad.
The research was done by Context in Western Europe and it found that more than half of all iPad buyers would choose either the 64GB 3G model (also the most expensive), which accounted for roughly 33% of sales, or the 16GB Wi-Fi-only model (curiously the least expensive model), which received 22% of sales. On that evidence, as TheAppleBlog points out, consumers are going “all or nothing” – and many more seem to be saying “all”.
The report also discovered that the iPad represented 80% of tablets sold during the first quarter of 2011 – in line with a Nielsen report from last week. Yet this is a 5% drop from the previous quarter, a consequence of some take up of Android tablets. Curiously, one of the analysts from Context noted that it is likely that less publicised Android tablets such as the Acer Iconia will do better than the Xoom or Galaxy Tab. Nonetheless, Context has no doubts that at least by the end of this year, Apple will still hold top spot for tablet market share.
Apple’s In-App Purchase Policy Forces iFlowReader to Shut Down
BeamItDown Software, developers of iFlowReader, today announced that they will be forced to cease their operations at the end of this month. The move comes after Apple decided to enforce rule 11.13 of the ‘App Store Review Guidelines for iOS Apps’ – with Apple set to begin removing apps that do not conform to this rule by June 30. This means iFlowReader, which sold eBooks through an online store, would have to offer the same books within the app through In App Purchases – consequently meaning Apple gets its 30% cut of every sale made through the app.
In a statement on its website, BeamItDown Software makes it clear how if they went ahead and followed Apple’s guidelines, they would have to take a loss on every e-book sold – clearly not a sustainable business model. They explain that this occurs because the largest publishers (which account for more than 90% of the e-books they sell) have adopted an “agency model” in which means resellers, such as BeamItDown, receive a margin of less than 30% after paying the publisher. They say that the big publishers adopted this agency model after Apple negotiated with them over the iBooks deal. Prior to the agency model, resellers would typically receive a 50% discount on e-books.
The end result of BeamItDown Software and their iFlowReader, which had become quite a popular iOS e-reader with over six million downloads, is that it has, in essence, been shoved out of the iOS e-book market by the power Apple has over developers who rely on the iOS platform.
“We bet everything on Apple and iOS and then Apple killed us by changing the rules in the middle of the game.”
If you are a user of the app and its service, the short story is you will still be able to read your e-books, but you will have to jump through some hoops to ensure this. You will have until May 31st this year (the end of this month!) to do a few things related to back-up and downloading all your e-books from the site, which is shutting down. Jump to their statement for the details on this.
It was back in February when it was reported that Apple was tightening its hold on the iOS walled garden after it was revealed that Sony’s e-reader app was rejected for re-directing users to an online store for e-book purchases. Apple responded shortly after saying;
We have not changed our developer terms or guidelines,” Apple spokesperson, Trudy Muller, told The Loop. “We are now requiring that if an app offers customers the ability to purchase books outside of the app, that the same option is also available to customers from within the app with in-app purchase.
The impending shutdown of BeamItDown does raise the question over whether Apple is using monopolistic behavior to force out other e-book services. In their statement they highlight that with one swift change in policy application, Apple will be able to sell e-books at a cheaper rate than every other service on iOS and likely force a number of services, like iFlow Reader to completely shut down because they cannot afford that 30% cut.
What sounds like a reasonable demand when packaged by Apple’s extraordinary public relations department is essentially an eviction notice to all e-book sellers on iOS…They want all e-book business on iOS and since they have the unilateral power to get it, we are out of business and the iFlow Reader is dead.
In the face of such questions, many will argue that Apple deserves to have complete control over its own App ecosystem, and that Android and the Kindle offer strong competition to Apple and iBooks. However, at least in my mind, I get the sense that Apple, with it’s large user base, may have unfairly forced this company out of the e-book market to advance the use of iBooks.
Section 11.13 of App Store Review Guidelines for iOS Apps
Apps can read or play approved content (magazines, newspapers, books, audio, music, video) that is sold outside of the app, for which Apple will not receive any portion of the revenues, provided that the same content is also offered in the app using IAP at the same price or less than it is offered outside the app. This applies to both purchased content and subscriptions.
Apple’s Guy L. “Bud” Tribble Explains Location Tracking at Senate Hearing
At a U.S. Senate hearing this morning entitled “Protecting Mobile Privacy: Your Smartphones, Tablets, Cell Phones and Your Privacy”, Apple’s Vice President of Software Technology Guy L. “Bud” Tribble offered his remarks about Apple’s privacy policy, location tracking system implemented in iOS devices and App Store app control, reiterating many of the points already explained by Apple two weeks ago in the Q&A on Location Data.
As summarized by AppleInsider, Tribble testified before Senate members that Apple doesn’t collect personal information about its users nor does the company share any information with advertisers – rather, the cache file that was discovered by security researchers (which was incorrectly large in size and backed up to a computer during the sync process) is meant to store information about nearby cell towers and WiFi hotspots to enable iPhones and iPads 3G to quickly get signal without having to rely on real-time GPS data all the time. This is a crowd-sourced database that Apple keeps in a small amount on every device as an offline cache – personal data and device identifiers are never sent to Apple, Tribble explained.
Sen. Al Franken also asked both Apple and Google representatives at the hearing whether the two companies could add a fixed privacy policy to their app marketplaces to ensure users always know how their personal data is being treated, and what’s going on behind the scenes of an app. Tribble replied a privacy policy in App Store apps wouldn’t be enough as users are likely to skip that every single time – and that’s why Apple believed that adding actual graphical elements to the user interface would be a better, and more elegant solution to inform users about the usage of Location Services. In iOS, an icon in the status bar indicates when an app is sharing your location; every app must ask a user to share his location through a dialog box; in the Settings, users can revoke location access on app-by-app basis and manage other location preferences as well.
Tribble also went on to explain Apple does random audits on App Store apps and follows the tech press and iOS community to find out which apps are violating the privacy rules:
The Apple executive also detailed how his company conducts random audits on applications to make sure they’re playing by the rules. He admitted that Apple does not audit every single one of its 350,000 iPhone applications, just like it would be impossible for the federal government to audit every single taxpayer. Apple also keeps an eye on blogs and its “active community” of application users for potential violations. If a violation is discovered and the issue cannot be resolved, applications will be removed within 24 hours and the developer will be notified.
In most cases, Tribble said, developers quickly correct the issue, as they want to keep their application available in the App Store.
Tribble was joined today by Google’s Alan Davidson. A video of Senator Franken’s opening statement is embedded after the break. Read more
Adobe Finally Releases Its Photoshop Touch SDK iPad Apps
It was supposed to happen last week, but today Adobe finally released its three iPad apps that use the Photoshop Touch SDK. The three apps, including Adobe Eazel, Adobe Nav, Adobe Color Lava, were built be Adobe to demonstrate the potential of the Photoshop SDK for creating powerful companion apps for mobile devices from the iPad and iPhone to Android and BlackBerry. See below for brief descriptions of each of the three apps and if you want more information be sure to check out our original coverage of the apps and the Photoshop Touch SDK. Screenshots are included after the break.
Adobe Color Lava ($2.99) is a simple utility that allows you to mix colors, organize and save palettes and color groups to send to Photoshop wirelessly. Upon sending a palette to Photoshop, you’ll be able to see details on the colors you mixed, and send via email to someone else if you don’t want to share colors with your local Photoshop installation. The colors will appear in the Swatches panel of desktop Photoshop.
Adobe Eazel ($4.99) is perhaps the most innovative app of the initial rollout, as it features some interesting multitouch controls and menu choices I haven’t seen in any other iPad app before. Eazel is a drawing app, but instead of placing controls for brush sizes, colors, or opacity in dedicated toolbars, Adobe decided to develop a “five-finger touch UI” that takes a bit of learning, but it’s actually pretty clever once you get used to it. Basically, controls are placed above each finger, through a series of overlays that you can interact with using your fingertips after selecting an item. Sounds more complex than it really is, at least after some practice. When you’re done painting, you can send your creation to Photoshop and keep editing or refining there.
Last, Adobe Nav ($1.99) is the app we believe will be most successful among Photoshop users, as it drives the application’s UI remotely and allows you to see open documents on the iPad’s screen. Most of Photoshop’s tools and palettes are displayed on the iPad’s screen as bigger buttons meant for touch interactions, enabling you to select and modify the controls that you see on the desktop. There’s no doubt Nav will be tested by many as a complete replacement for Photoshop’s on-screen controls, which may get a little obtrusive on smaller portable computers. Alternatively, you can also browse open documents in Nav and instantly change the file you’re working with in Photoshop for Mac or Windows.
Adobe’s new iPad apps are available for download on the company’s App Store developer page. Check out the official promo videos and screenshots after the break.
Read more
Mobile Devices Claim Largest Share Of Digital Game Downloads
Digital game downloads have been on the rise in recent years and according to the latest NPD report, a large portion of that increase can be attributed to mobile devices which count for nearly half of all video game downloads. The report, which focused solely on full game downloads (not micro-transactions, add-ons or previously purchased games), notes that even those who owned a console would generally download more games to their mobile devices.
Following mobile devices were personal computers as the second most common platform for downloading games, no doubt driven primarily by Steam, then consoles and finally portable gaming devices (Nintendo DS, Sony PSP). Obviously it should be pointed out that, typically, a full game download for a mobile device is priced far lower than a game for consoles and even computers. Nonetheless, Anita Frazier notes in the report “Mobile gaming represents one of the fastest growing segments of the digital games market, and potential for future growth remains strong.”
Interestingly, of those that have purchased a mobile game in the past three months, a surprising 60% said they still spend the same amount on console or portable gaming device games. The report also revealed that if a game was available in physical and digital form at the same time, at the same price, 75% would buy a physical copy because they liked to own a “real” copy – the remaining 25% mainly cited convenience as their reason.
[Via TUAW]
Queen Of England Demands An iPad
The Queen of England has apparently ordered her staff to buy her an iPad after the newly married Prince Will and his brother Prince Harry showed off theirs to her on a recent gathering at Buckingham Palace.
The Princes, the Queen’s grandsons, gave her a demo of how the iPad worked which, as a royal insider told The Sun, led her to be impressed and “particularly taken with how easy it was to use, the large screen and how light it was” The insider also notes that the Queen is fairly “switched on” for an 85 year old woman, saying “It was only a matter of time before she asked someone to go and get her one.”
“The Queen has a mobile phone as well as the iPods, so an iPad is the logical progression. She thinks it will be great to keep her entertained on all the long trips she has to make.”
The same royal insider says that the Princes think her reaction is hilarious, but also “love the fact that their gran wants an iPad and think she’s really cool”. The iPad won’t be the first Apple product that the Queen owns either, she previously bought a £169 silver iPod in 2005 and was given a new iPod by Barack Obama in 2009, which was loaded up with happy snaps from the Queen’s US visit in 2008.
[Via The Sun]