Apple Now Offering In App Purchasing for Free Apps

On October 15th, Apple announced that they are giving developers of apps for the iPhone the ability to add in-app purchasing functionality to free apps. This is great news for developers and really the consumer too because it makes it possible that if you have a Lite (free) version of your app and a full (paid) version of your app, now you can have just one app to place on the app store that handles both scenarios.

Imagine a user can download the lite version for free. Try out the app. And, if they like it, purchase the full app inside. Shazam! The lite version of the app instantly transforms into the full version of the app without having to download any new app from the App Store!

And, of course, there is the possibility of doing up-grade purchase in app, subscriptions, etc.

A Look at sketchinz

Sketchinz (http://www.sketchinz.com/), is a nifty little program for the iPhone or iPod Touch that allows you to draw pictures "free-hand." I drew the picture of the rabbit on the left.

Before you think that I'm such a great artist, there is an option to pull up a photo from your photo album that you can essentially trace (which is what I did).

Instead of using your finger to draw as you might assume (as I did), you tilt the phone to move this cross-hair like cursor around on the screen. You pick the current color to draw in and the current brush. Want to move somewhere else without drawing a line? Just pick the brush at the end (which is basically no brush)!

The colors are limited. You only have one hour to draw a picture (which sounds like a lot but if you are really trying to do something it goes by in a flash).

You can save your pictures, but it doesn't save them to your photo album. You can upload your creations to their server so others can enjoy them. They seem to have some sort of drawing contest always going which is cool.

One neat thing it can do is re-draw the picture just like you did it. It sort of has an animated quality to it.

It is a bit limiting but I still think it's worth the price. I find it fun to play with. Price when I got it: $1.99

iPhone OS 3.0 - Some Thoughts on This Cool Announcement

OS Version 3.0

When I heard that Apple was going to announce some new features in version 3.0 of the iPhone OS, I had some expectations of possibilities like cut and paste. But really, I was blown away by all the goodies that Apple announced Tuesday, as well as by discoveries folks have been making when digging into the new Beta that is now available to developers.

Consumer: Cut and Paste

This functionality has been on other smart phones for a long time. People have complained that it wasn't in version 1.0 of the phone. Well, it's here now. Or will be once 3.0 is moved into production down the road. Honestly, I can understand why this wasn't in 1.0 though, Apple's touch interface is completely different than the other smart phones out there and figuring out a elegant solution that works without junking up the UI is no little thing. I am looking forward to using this feature.

Consumer: New Search Features

Nifty way to search your whole iPhone: Spotlight Searching will be in 3.0 as well as searching in email. I actually could have used the email search a couple days ago!

Linking With External Devices

How cool is it that a glucose meter can link in with an iPhone and feed data into a Diabetes app's database (screenshot below). Hmmm. Think the the possibilities of other devices that could do the same thing... Barcode readers, mini weather stations, my mind is going blank on this right now but I'm sure there are allot of imaginative uses here!

Stuff for the iPhone Developer

In the near-term, I think the iPhone developer really made out like a bandit this release. Apple has put in allot of new functionality in that will give developers allot of abilities that they've been asking for. Some of the features that I am looking forward to using as a developer are:

• The ability to send email without the user leaving my app.
• The push ability. Where my user can get notifications without my app being actually open.
• The internal buy functionality that lets users buy stuff from within the app instead of having to go to the App store.

Below, the Sims game demoed allows you to buy add-ons for the game directly in the game:

Other nifty stuff includes being able to use blue tooth with other iPhone users close by. This could be used for game parties, exchanging business cards, exchanging app info. The imagination runs wild!

Discovered: Tethering
Someone has found tethering in 3.0 (see screenshot below). Yes you could use your iPhone as gateway to the internet for your laptop while on the road. Since phone companies sell cards to do this over cellular networks and charge for bandwidth, and since AT&T gives unlimited data bandwidth for iPhone users, I don't think Apple will just flip the switch on this feature. More likely, they will work it out as a phone company service that you can turn on (for a fee). Just my guess anyway.

I hear that there are hundreds of new features added for developers to take advantage of. I think that though these are not directly consumer features, that down the road they will end up empowering developers to come up with applications that make consumers more and more happy.

A New Dawn?

Quite some time has passed. In that period of time much has transpired.

• I have a better understanding of Interface Builder now (I would not say that I have a good understanding yet... but I know enough to get some stuff done now).
• I've actually got little apps I've made to install and run on my actual phone instead of just running in the iPhone Simulator.
• I've finally got a tab view/navigation view controller type app to work properly.
• I've got more proficient at working with "tables" in the views (not to be confused with database tables).
• And speaking of databases, I've been able to create an app the creates a SQLite database file and creates some tables in it and read/writes data to those tables.
• I've successfully got to work the showing and hiding of a modal view with a modal view controller.
• Oh, and I bought myself a new iMac for my birthday!

I wouldn't say that I have learned everything I need to know in order to write successful iPhone apps, but I think I probably have 90% of what I need to know down. I am planning on doing some video tutorials on what I've learned... stay tuned...

Deploying Apps on my Phone From XCode

Let's see.

• I made sure that I had the latest version of iTunes.
• I made sure that I had the latest iPhone SDK.
• I started a new project (in case some of my project properties were screwed up).
• I carefully plugged in my bundle identifier.

Finally, though I'm not 100% sure exactly why, I can do a build on an iPhone project in XCode and get it to successfully deploy on my iPhone.

This is a banner day for me. This stopped working ages ago and I had been hammering away at the problem on and off with no success. It was very discouraging to say the least.

Well yesterday, that problem came to an end!

App Store Issues

The App Store on the iPhone is a great feature! At the touch of a button you have access to hundreds, no thousands of different applications that you can download and run on your iPhone.

I've noticed that Apple has been improving the App Store of late:

- Multiple screen shots.
- Icons on top level lists of randomly selected apps.
- A Report Problem button.

And more subtle visual changes that make this tool look even classier.

But I've been noticing one problem for awhile. Looking at the screen shot up above, can you tell what it is?

The app Disney Fairies Fly! appears more than once in the list. In this case they appear just a couple rows away. I saw quite a few apps during this sitting that were listed more than once.

It would sure be nice if Apple fixed this. I'm not going to whine too much though, the App Store is a brilliant idea and it is getting better as time goes along. What do you think?

My Web App List has been Updated

Although not as complete as I would like it to be, I have updated my web app list for the iPhone/iTouch.

Apple's New Web App Directory

Apple has provided a web app directory for the iPhone and iTouch. You can browse applications by Most Recent, Most Popular, Alphabetical, and Staff Picks. I'm adding a section on the left of this blog page to provide you with links there which you can use even when this post has rolled off the bottom.

I noticed that some apps that I've seen listed elsewhere are not included. This is probably due to the flakiness of those apps: i.e.: too buggy or too hard to use. Hopefully the app I'm working on will make it into Apple's web app directory! It should show up under "Most Popular" ... ahem... cough... :)

It's not ready yet! Hopefully it will be ready soon.

Site with "Native" iPhone apps to download

The site iPhonexe.com contains native iPhone apps to download and use. How good are these apps? I don't know. I've not gotten the nerve to to try them yet. One item I am interested in trying is the Ringtonator Studio. This app doesn't run on the iPhone but appears to make it possible to edit your own custom ring tones and place them in the ring tones folder of iTunes. How long it might work is anyone's guess.