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Posts tagged with "developers"

Apple Releases iOS 4.3 Beta, Here’s What’s New

A few minutes ago Apple released iOS 4.3 beta to developers. It’s available now in the iOS Dev Center. The beta is available for iOS devices and the second generation Apple TV. Supported iOS mobile devices are iPad, iPhone 4 and 3GS, iPod touch 3rd and 4th gen. Build number is 8F5148b. A pre-release version of the Apple TV software has been provided to test AirPlay functionalities with 4.3 apps.

It looks like iOS 4.3 has some cool new gestures built specifically for the iPad. 4 & 5 finger gestures; pinch to the home screen, swipe up to reveal multitasking tray, swipe left/right to switch apps. Update: even though Apple says the gestures are there, I can’t seem to be able to use them at all. They don’t work for me in Apple’s own apps, and there’s no option to activate them in the Settings. We’re hearing several reports of other users unable to use these gestures. Read more

Apple Seeds Xcode 4 Preview 6 to Developers

A few minutes ago Apple seeded a new Xcode 4 preview build to developers, which is available in the Mac  and iOS Dev Centers. The new version , labelled Developer Preview 6, adds a number of features and enhancements over the previous preview build, which was released in November. Xcode 4 is a major new version of Apple’s development suite which sports lots of new features and a new single-windowed UI. The first version of Xcode 4 preview was released during the WWDC in June, the second build was seeded in late July, Preview 3 was made available on September 2, Preview 4 was released in October.

Check out the release notes below. Read more

Enable Hidden Mac App Store Debug Menu

We’re not sure why the average Mac App Store user would want to do this, but we couldn’t resist to post about the Debug menu Apple left behind in the Mac App Store. Discovered by Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater earlier today, enabling the menu is fairly easy: you just need to quit the Mac App Store, open Terminal and write:

defaults write com.apple.appstore ShowDebugMenu -bool true

Then relaunch the Mac App Store. To revert back to a Mac App Store without Debug menu, simply replace “true” in the string above with “false”. The menu, anyway, is quite interesting as it allows you to play around with a bunch of hidden settings such as shadows and width in the App Store’s webview, the animations and duration of “flying icons” (when you download an app and it goes straight to the Dock). You can also enable and disable the Purchase Check, although we wouldn’t really recommend to tweak these default settings – you don’t want to break the Mac App Store app.

We think this Debug menu will be removed in a future update, as Apple doesn’t want users to modify, or even see, this stuff. Still, you can check it out for now.

Developer Goes From 7 Sales A Day to 1,500 With Mac App Store

We have already seen what the Mac App Store effect looks like. The new Store for Mac users is providing an easy way to discover and install Mac applications and, together with that, a better way for developers to showcase their software to a larger audience, as the Mac App Store is installed  by default on every system running OS X 10.6.6. Several developers reported good sales for the Mac App Store launch day, but we think LittleFin Software might be the best example of the power of the Mac App Store so far.

LittleFin was selling between 6 - 10 copies of Compartments, a simple home inventory app for the Mac we reviewed here, a day through their website. The day before the Mac App Store launch, they sold only 7 copies. But as soon as the Store launched on January 6 and Apple featured the app in the Mac App Store homepage and its “Great Mac Apps” webpage, LittleFin saw a terrific increase in sales. In fact, they sold 1,547 copies in the first 24 hours of the Mac App Store. The app, now featured under “Staff Favorites”, is available at $9.99. Before the Mac App Store the app was sold at $24.95; the developers decided to lower the price as an experiment. Since January 6, the app has been selling 1,000 copies a day on average. Read more

Developer Heads Up: Don’t Forget About Receipt Validation In The Mac App Store→

Developer Heads Up: Don’t Forget About Receipt Validation In The Mac App Store

You can add receipt validation code to your application to prevent unauthorized copies of your application from running. Refer to the license agreement and the review guidelines for specific information about what your application may and may not do to implement copy protection.

Receipt validation requires an understanding of cryptography and a variety of secure coding techniques. It’s important that you employ a solution that is unique to your application.

You should perform receipt validation immediately after your application is launched, before displaying any user interface or spawning any child processes. Ideally, this check should happen in main, before NSApplicationMain is called. For additional security, you may repeat this check periodically while your application is running.

Otherwise, you could just download a paid application from the App Store, and freely distribute it to your friends. We want to make developers aware of the issue before you sell your app: Apple does not take care of this for you.

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Realmac Announces Mac App Store Pricing, Courier Becomes App Store Exclusive

Our friends over at Realmac have been busy deciding the approach to take for the Mac App Store, which in case you somehow missed by living under a rock for the past three months, is launching tomorrow as a free update for every Snow Leopard user. The Realmac team has evaluated all the options on how to best port all their applications to the new Store, while retaining the possibility to sell software to customers through their own website.

There’s been plenty of discussion about what developers will do with their apps and pricing, so today we’re announcing some pricing changes that will come into effect once the App Store goes live. Customers who purchase one of our applications via the Realmac Store will not be affected by these changes as, where applicable, they’re being applied to our own store.

First off, Courier – a beautiful app to send any file to a variety of online services we reviewed here – is going to be a Mac App Store exclusive priced at $4.99. The great news is, if you purchased Courier at full price in the past and you’re willing to re-download the app from the Mac App Store (you know, to keep a neat app library and forget about manual updates) the developers are offering a full refund. Just buy the app from the Mac App Store and send both the receipts (the old one, and the new iTunes receipt) to Realmac’s email address to get a refund for the old, full price. More details here.

As for Realmac’s other apps, RapidWeaver 5.0 is going on sale at $39.99 for a limited time, with LittleSnapper seeing a price drop as well to $24.99. The new prices will be effective tomorrow both on the Mac App Store and Realmac’s website.

Realmac is another example of long-time OS X developers that are believing in the new platform as the best new way to reach millions of new customers and Mac users. For other app previews and details, check out our Mac App Store hub.

App Store Updates Are Back, Camera+ Sells Over 78,000 Copies On Christmas Day

In case you missed it, iTunes Connect is back online. The web interface that allows developers to submit apps, updates and price changes went down on December 23 for the so-called “holiday shutdown” which didn’t freeze the App Store charts as many believed, but still made it impossible for developers to submit apps and users to find updates in iTunes. iTunes Connect went back online a few hours ago, and app updates are now showing up in iTunes and propagating through the App Store. Read more

App Store’s Christmas Brings Millions of Downloads to Developers

All those new iPhone and iPod touch users tracked by the official Facebook app? Yeah, the spike in traffic and new users isn’t limited just to the Facebook app. According to numbers reported by The Next Web and Business Insider, Rovio’s blockbuster iOS game Angry Birds and Tapulous’ Tap Tap Revenge 4 generated over 1 million downloads and twice the level of traffic of last year, respectively. Put simply: this year’s App Store and iOS growth showed its results on December 25th by bringing tons of new customers and downloads to apps that already managed to gain a prominent position in the Store. Or was it because of all those people that got an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad under their Christmas trees?

A little bit of both, in my opinion. Surely lots of people got an iDevice for Christmas and rushed to the App Store to buy apps; we shouldn’t ignore the fact, though, that several developers discounted their apps before the iTunes Connect shutdown (which ends tomorrow, by the way) forcing many users like me to save money for Christmas (or iTunes gift cards) and buy apps altogether right before the family dinner. Either way, those are impressive numbers. Read more

Apple Shuts Down Mac OS X Downloads Page

Well, we all knew this was going to happen sooner or later. Apple is shutting down the OS X Downloads page, in lieu of the Mac App Store which is launching on January 6th. Here’s the email Apple just sent out to Mac developers:

Thank you for making the Mac OS X Download site a great destination with apps that offer users new ways to work, play, learn, and create on their Mac.

We recently announced that on January 6, 2011, the Mac App Store will open to users around the world, presenting you with an exciting, new opportunity to reach millions of customers. Since the introduction of the App Store in 2008, we’ve been thrilled with the incredible support from developers and the enthusiastic response from users. Now we’re bringing the revolutionary experience of the App Store to Mac OS X.

Because we believe the Mac App Store will be the best destination for users to discover, purchase, and download your apps, we will no longer offer apps on the Mac OS X Downloads site. Instead, beginning January 6, we will be directing users to explore the range of apps available on the Mac App Store.

We appreciate your support of the Mac platform and hope you’ll take advantage of this new opportunity to showcase your apps to even more users. To learn how you can offer your apps on the Mac App Store, visit the Apple Developer website at http://developer.apple.com/programs/mac.

The Mac OS X Downloads website provided for years a way for developers to showcase their Mac apps for free to the large audience of Apple’s website. It also served as a great way to get new Mac users started on third-part software for OS X. Clearly Apple thinks this is all going to change with the Mac App Store, which will be included in a Software Update for all Snow Leopard users.

No details have been provided about other categories of software currently promoted on the Downloads site, such as Automator workflows and Dashboard widgets.