Apple Thoughts - News & Reviews on all things Apple

"The fee to become an Apple Mac developer dropped significantly Thursday to $99. According to Apple the new low cost of membership is in response to the success of the iPhone Developer Program (also $99 per year) and the potential that apps from that platform might crossover to the Mac."

The previous prices were $499.00 USD for the Apple Developer Connection (ADC) Select and $3,499.00 USD for the ADC Premier program. You can still get the free version of the Mac Developer if you want to tinker and see if you want to upgrade to one of the other programs, but $99.00 USD is a heckuva drop in price and quite the bargain.

"Maybe you've had a great idea for an iPhone app. You've nailed down the concept, outlined the look and feel, and even figured out a catchy name that's sure to stand out from the 140,000 or so other apps competing with yours for attention. The only thing standing in your way? You don't have a lick of programming experience, and you're not sure where to find someone who does."

If you fit the bill, then perhaps this service is for you, as it connects those with ideas and those with the talent to bring your ideas into reality. Interesting concept, and it seems to me it certainly does fill a niche. If you want more info you can go to their website at www.iPhoneQuotes.com. Of course, they aren't the only game in town. YAPPER and iPhone App Builder are two other options worth checking out if you want to go this route.

"iPhone and now iPad Developers now have a more detailed way to see how app approvals are progressing. Apple added a clock a few weeks ago that displayed the percentage of apps approved within the last 14 days."

Any way that Apple can improve the developer aspect of the iTunes App Store is a good thing, but I'm not so sure how great this is for developers except in a general sort of way. The developers can see the percentage of new apps and updated apps that were approved within the last seven days, right now it stands at 98% and 99% respectively for them. Now if they made it so you could see how far along YOUR app was in the process that would be of greater benefit I would imagine. But kudos for Apple for improving the process in some fashion.

Apple makes it clear: when applications rely on network connectivity, they must always test for a valid connection and report those results to the user. If the app cannot reach the Internet, the user needs to know. App Store reviewers regularly reject applications that do not test, and when a connection is not found, report that the network cannot be accessed.

Image Credit: Tympanus.net

Andrew Donoho, an iPhone developer, wasn't really happy with Apple's reachability code so he created his own, and posted it so others can use it as well. He has written up how to incorporate his code into any testing you need to do without having to go through the frustrations he experienced.

"Apple sent out a note to iPhone developers today notifying them that there is a new iPhone developer RSS feed on Apple's site. The feed contains both news and announcements important to the iPhone developer community."

If you are interested, you can find the feed here. This should make the information dissemination process much easier between Apple and the developers.

"The iPhone Tech Talk World Tour is happening again this year. Between October and December, developers can get tips and tricks directly from Apple in nine cities across the globe."

If you can't make it to WWDC, and are currently or want to develop for the iPhone, these meetings might be very helpful for you. Apple has scheduled a series of these meetings that start in San Jose CA on October 29th, then continue through several cities in the U.S. and Europe, ending in Tokyo on December 15th. You can find out more info on these at the Developer Connection site. However don't dally, I hear these spots fill up fast!

"Apple has launched an online a resource center for registered iPhone developers. The only problem is that it gives them nothing new-except more frustration, that is."

I'm not a developer, but with all the news about problems in the app submission and approval process I would have expected a little more. Gathering all the available documentation that has already been distributed and organizing it into one spot is a nice bit of housekeeping but it certainly doesn't do much for the developers and their complaints. Seems like they all want something concise instead of the apparent randomness of the process, and I can see their point.

"A new program from the University of Washington seeks to train a new crop of Mac OS X and iPhone developers. Ars spoke to UW's Kristi Palmer about the program and its potential for online distance learning."

This isn't going to be on iTunes, this will be a hands-on course offering, the first of which will be held in downtown Seattle. They have almost filled up one offering and may extend it to another, so if you are interested and live in the Seattle area, better hurry and register. The subsequent courses for the 2nd and 3rd parts will be held in Bellevue, and while they don't yet offer this as an online course, they are considering it.

"Addison-Wesley Professional, the publishers of many books on both Mac and iPhone development, is hosting the Voices That Matter: iPhone Developer's Conference October 17 and 18th in Boston."

If you do plan on going, you can pick up a discount code from TUAW. With the discount code and early bird pricing you can save about $350.00 USD. Be warned though, the conference is geared towards experienced Mac developers that want to learn about iPhone development skills.

"Today Apple revealed some more details about the upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference via a press release available on their web site. Specifically, they give a firm date and time for the keynote speech of the event, and details about who will be involved."

The Press Release from Apple says the keynote for WWDC will be on June 8 2009 at 10:00 am, and will be given by "team of Apple executives, led by Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing." I don't think it is too much of a shock, to anyone that has been following this story line, that Steve Jobs most likely wouldn't be there because of the health issues. The press release also outlines some of the other activities at WWDC, including over 100 technical sessions over a wide variety of topics, and that developers will be getting a copy of the final Developer Preview release of Snow Leopard.

But if you haven't purchased your WWDC keynote tickets by now you are out of luck as they are indeed sold out.

"For those who have dilly-dallied in buying your tickets to Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference, you have officially run out of luck. Apple updated its ADC site today with a small update at the bottom mentioning that WWDC '09 is now officially sold out. This will mark the second year that WWDC tickets have sold out in the history of the conference-the first being last year."

This little tag greeted anyone checking out the WWDC site at Apple, so if you haven't purchased your tickets for the June 8 through 12th conference, you will have to see if any scalpers show up at the WWDC. Or as an alternative you can always wait for Apple to upload the videos. They haven't announced just what videos will be available but they are supposed to be posted to iTunes after WWDC is done.

The expectation is that this year's WWDC will focus on the iPhone (I can only hope) but they will also include some sessions on Mac and IT related material, and I can only assume Snow Leopard will be in the mix as well.

"Apple has finally started allowing developers to issue free promotional copies of their iPhone applications. Once an application has been accepted to the App Store by Apple, developers can issue up to 50 promotional codes. The codes allow the recipient to download a full copy of the application for free. Presently, these codes can only be used in the U.S. iTunes Stores by using the "Redeem" link in the App Store."

When we started Apple Thoughts, I didn't realize that we couldn't get "review copies" of apps because iTunes was the only way to get an application. In fact, one developer sent me a gift card to review three of their apps because the minimum was $10 for a gift card. Imagine if their apps were $0.99? Anyway, this is a welcome change and I hope all our developer friends that read regularly are taking this one in!