When Apple announced its new creation the iPad, consumers were promised access to thousands of apps on the new device. After all, it’s not smart to develop a whole new product and not take advantage of the work that’s already been done by iPhone developers. What Apple did not promise was all iPhone apps making it to the iPad. That’s now seems to be the case as not every app is going to fit on the iPad properly. You certainly don’t want those ported iPhone apps to look lousy on the iPad. But as Wired put it, some of those apps are going to be sorely missed:

But if you recall, the iPhone ships with some apps that appear to be left out from the iPad: Stocks, Calculator, Clock, Weather and Voice Memos. What gives?

Apple didn’t respond to a request for comment, but I’m willing to guess Apple will just stick those apps in the App Store for a free download, and they’ll be the same apps as they were on the iPhone. After all, it’s unlikely there’s much to do with those particular apps to make them visually special for the iPad.

Steve Jobs seems to have struck down a few of these apps as they didn’t fit the “iPad experience” he has envisioned. I do believe that Apple will eventually introduce these apps for iPad as the new device matures. The iPad development challenges for developers have not gone away however. Read the rest of this entry »

We all know that Apple feels somewhat nervous about the competition its facing from Google and its partners. Android may not be as good a platform as iPhone at this point, but it’s growing fast. The fact that it’s making its way to multiple handsets (made by HTC, Motorola, and other companies) has given Android platform a lot of momentum. We haven’t seen Android beating iPhone in any reports so far, and it’s safe to say that iPhone will continue to beat Android for the time being. However, according to Quantcast, iPhone’s growth may be slowing down a bit while Android continues to climb.

Credit: Quantcast

As the above chart indicates, the iPhone is still king in North America despite all the growth that Android has seen in the past year or so. What could be a bit alarming for Apple is the fact that the iPhone platform has lost market-share not only in the past quarter but in the past year overall.

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Things are not as rosy as they used to be for Apple. Not after the company had to admit child labor was used to manufacture Apple products in 3 factories which supply Apple. The issue of children working in factories for such a famous company could be very scandalous. And you can always count on the media to take such a story and spin it to create even more controversy. As Telegraph put it, 11 children were used in 3 factories that work with Apple, something that somehow slipped through and escaped Apple’s attention. The issue of underage workers working in factories is nothing new, especially in China. Those who choose to get work done in that country are aware of this practice, so Apple was probably ready for this bombshell in one way or another.

Apple for its part has done the best a company can to address this PR problem. The company is working towards identifying the source of the issue and is taking measures to minimize the practice:

In each of the three facilities, we required a review of all employment records for the year as well as a complete analysis of the hiring process to clarify how underage people had been able to gain employment

It’s not clear how companies should deal with child labor issues. Apple doesn’t have to face that issue in the U.S., but that is a serious issue in Asia. Do you fire all the underage workers? Could these people be seriously hurt by such actions? Now, I am against underage workers getting work in factories. But these problems are well documented and nothing new. To somehow put the problem on Apple is preposterous. The company could have been more vigilant in identifying issues with its factories. But it’s not as if Apple set out to take advantage of underage workers to keep its manufacturing costs low.

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Many Apple fans have been counting days till they can get their hands on Apple’s new “creation” iPad. The company has announced the device and is removing the last obstacles to start taking orders and shipping the device. But that’s not the only thing that Apple fans are looking forward to. According to many credible sources, Apple is getting ready to reduce iPhone prices yet again to put itself in a better competitive position, considering that many companies are introducing “iPhone killers” these days.

According to Morgan Stanley, the new iPhone models are on the way, and they’ll be cheaper than you think. Getting an iPhone for $199 is only one part of the story. Paying for the 2 year contract puts the iPhone out of many people’s range. Apparently, there is going to be a change in Apple’s pricing scheme to make the device more affordable to more people:

We expect Apple to launch new iPhones in June that offer both a lower total cost of ownership and new functionality, potentially including gesture-based technology

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Credit: Billy Alexander

A guest post by Mike Smithwick, author of Distant Suns 2 for the iPhone and blogger at distantsuns.com. Mike is a seasoned iPhone developer who has developed numerous iPhone applications. Follow Mike’s work on Twitter for more information.

Okay, okay, so why yet another column on beginning iPhone programming when the net is gravid with similar articles?

Well, when I was asked to start a semi-irregular column by the kind folks at www.iPhoneness.com the general topic would be from an app author’s point of view. So I really need to start at the very beginning (from which I understand is a very good place to start).

It was just about two years ago when the first version of the SDK (Software Developer’s Kit) was unleashed upon the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. While iPhone homebrew was out and about through the dedicated efforts of folks like the iPhone Dev Team, setting up the initial development environment was not for the faint of heart and would bring a frown upon the brow of the mothership once the official app store was open for business.  So if you care about being able to proudly point out your app in iTunes to your friends, you gotta play by the rules. And that means Apple’s SDK and Apple’s restrictions.

There are good reasons for this: Apple wanted to assure to their customers that the apps have been proven to be safe from malicious code and were future-proofed by using the approved library calls. The latter would be essential, especially in the early days of the iPhone’s operating system, as it would likely be updated frequently. Apple would need the flexibility to tinker with the underlying “private” calls without having to worry about breaking existing applications. And as various systems mature we can (hopefully) expect more of the secret sauce to be approved for outside development.

So with this in mind what does it take to write a cool app and make a million bucks? (Uh, start with a cool app idea and two million bucks?) Read the rest of the story.