But…this time around it was a bit different: Gravity Sling and Eliminate got my attention and both are free with a limited set of levels or play time. Basically these are the free trial-versions we’ve been waiting for since day one. So I grabbed both and tried them. More Levels or play time can be purchased from inside each game as an In-App-Purchase. So, I played as far as I could…I liked both games and…didn’t buy anything afterwards. Why? Well, just because I had enough for the moment afterwards. But the games still reside on my iPhone and surely enough, whenever I like to play some I wont start looking around on the AppStore but play the games I allready have and like.

So, under the line I think IAP are a great mechanism to get the foot in the door at customers. People are free to try the App as long as they like and can enhance it if the need more levels, playtime, ammo, cars…whatever. On the other hand, People who don’t like it will probably give the App one of the infamous 1-Star ratings just because they were “tricked” into downloading the app and now “wasted valuable amounts of their lifetime” (I actually read this in one rating once…was a rating for a free(!) movie!). I don’t know what you think about app-reviews by users on the AppStore but I think they should be eliminated…but that’s another story!

I for one really like the mechanism behind IAPs very much and I’m happy to see it is becoming more and more adopted by developers. I’m thinking about it myself but right now I don’t see any of my apps suitable for IAPs…but maybe in the future…

What are your thoughts on this? Are IAPs cool or not? How would you like to have it? Share in the comments…

Here are some thoughts I just had over my last cup of coffee: I just installed the Wordpress app on my iPhone and besides looking completely different than v1.0 I think it’s a bit odd to release a 2.0 as a new app. Why would you do this?

I mean, looking at Tweetie 2 this was done to raise some more money for further development – nothing special here. But why why why would you do thiswith a free app? The only effect I would imagine that a whole lot of users are missing out on the new version…so…maybe they dont want everybodey to see there is a new version!? Maybe this is…is this just a hidden beta??? ;)

Some of the frequent crashes might lead to this conception…but yet I still like it! Actually I’m typing this post on my iPhone.

One thing I still miss while blogging on the phone – cool as it may be – is that I now just can’t switch to iTunes to publish a link to the new app for you!!! That’s a real bummer…well…maybe next time? Maybe in 3.0???

It’s been almost a year now since the AppStore opened up it’s doors and literally flooded the iPhone- and iPod-Touch-Users with new apps for their devices. Some of them where not soooo good, some of them made people furious but some really hit it big and became popular blockbusters. Anyway, one year and over 50.000 apps later one thing is for sure: The AppStore was that best that could’ve happened to the iPhone-/iPod-Community!

And so we’d like join in as well and say: Happy Bithday, AppStore!

Apple announced that all Apps have to run on iPhone OS 3.0 to get into the AppStore. Of course we are allready testing our Apps on compatibility with OS 3.0. So far, tests have been very promising and no major problems should arise while using our existing software on a 3.0 device.

However, we will use this oppotunity for some sort of spring cleaning and smaller enhancements here and there. So, stay tuned for some updates for our apps once 3.0 is released!

Oh and by the way: If you don’t want to upgarde to OS 3.0 you don’t have to! We will do everything to keep our apps using the oldest OS possible for the features we need! So, many of our apps will keep having OS 2.0 as a requirement!

People think it’s a superior verion to the original TouchScan and hence buy it. When they see that it’s hardly working, they come back complaing…and the come back to ME! That’s great! The app is crashing a lot, you can enter two results (yes, he copied the settings-dialogs as well) but the app can use just one…go figure! That’s what the thief Gary Fung calls “the best deal for my customers”. Problem is, I get the support mails!

Anyway, ars technica wrote about it and scammer Gay Fung seems to be scared enough to have replied at once, again saying he didn’t do anything wrong. So, Mr. Fung, let’s get this straight: You stole from me and that is against the law anywhere on this planet!

So far only about 10% of all users have downloaded the version 1.5.2 (new sales included!)…so there aren’t that much people out there who actually have the software allready. How big is the chance that one of the hackers got it’s grip on it allready? Fascinating…

Apple slays the dragon – Never Odd Or Even LLP.

Surprisingly enough 85% answered with “anything but iTunes”. Seems like Apple didn’t find the right solution for consumer satisfaction. On the other hand they don’t have to. Since every site dealing with apps and reviews and the like can put a deeplink to the AppStore, Apple can easily just wait and let third parties do their job for free.

On the other hand, as Iliumsoftware says as well, 200 people are not that much if you consider the millions of iPod/iPhone-users out there…so this might be misleading information. Espescially if you consider how a high ranking in the Top 100 apps increases your sales many people somehow *must* be using iTunes.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to more results.

Anyway…even if it’s coming June next year I was statring to wonder what I would like to see in a new iPhone. Am I really missing something? In my day to day usage of the iPhone 1G I don’t really miss a lot but then…well…read on if you want to know what the next iPhone might bring…

A better Battery
First thing that almost everybody seems to need is a better battery. People often suggest that Apple should just make the battery replaceable but I for one am so glad they didn’t! Think about it for a second. The charme of an iPhone is that you can leave your luggage behind. It all fits in your pocket. Now think of a second battery or even a third…well…better make sure you have some cargo pants on! I don’t like the idea of carrying seperate batteries and more than that keep all of them loaded at all times. The stick-on juice-packs from Mophie and the likes are a good option.

My prediction is that Apple will most certainly never release an iPhone with replaceable battery. The never did so with an iPod, now they are turning away from this with the MacBook Pro. It’s a wise move, if you ask me. With a fixed battery you can make much better use of available space and increase battery life with this. Furthermore, the avaiable technologie is advancing and so, the next iPhone will have a better increased battery life by factor 1.5 or 2. That’s pretty much for sure.

A real Keyboard
No, I’m not a die-hard Crackberry-User. I’m a former Treo-Veteran. I have been in war with this gadget a long time! But…a real keyboard has it’s charme. It’s not accuracy or speed or tactile feel or anything else that has been discussed up anddown and up again.

The reason why I would love a flip-out keyboard is much more simple: You can hold the gadget with a finger on the keys without actually typing! Usually I type with two thumbs on the keyboard while holding the gadget with my fingers…I guess most people do this at least while standing. Now, with a real keyboard it’s possible to hold the device with one thumb while the other types and – most important – the holding
thumb can be placed on the keyboard. Not so on the iPhone. You have to put your second or any unused finger anywhere outside the keyboard to hold your iPhone or iPod without typing. And THAT’s a real challenge if you ask me! The outer rim of the iPhone is so tiny that you have a hard time.

I ended up holding the phone in one hand and picking on it like a bird with one finger of the other hand. That looks stupid somehow and it’s not efficient, it’s slow and uncomfortable. On the other hand, a hardware keyboard will make the iPhone more expensive and localization will be an even bigger problem. Maybe the nice aluminum bluetooth keyboard would be a good compromies… :)

Smaller is the new Bigger
Of course everyone will say: “Well, if nothing comes to mind just make it thinnner”. I hope they won’t do this. This trend led to freakishly small phones in the 90s where you barely see the phone while someone was using it, burying it completely in it’s hand. And don’t get me started on dialing those…cartoon-thingys. Nope…smaller isn’t good and you certainly need some depth to a device to comfortably hold it. If anything, the iPhone should get a bigger brother…some sort of a tablet-netbook.

One more reason why it wont be thinner is the above mentioned enhanced battery. Just make the iPhone 1mm thicker and youget about 1 day more in standby time… I think that’s a good deal!

No more Dock-Connector
People on the web are saying Apple is to drop the dock-connector in favour of USB3.0. That would be a bad idea. Just after they established the “Made for iPod”-Programm they kill it by vaporizing the dock-connector? I don’t think so…The Dock-Connector is a good thing, if you ask me. USB might be able to establish more and more standards, get faster and faster and even connecting a display or a beamer will become standard in a few months or years time.

But I don’t think Apple will follow this trail right away. The dock connector is established and trusted. Many people complained that their 3 months “old” add-ons wouldn’t work with the new iPod or iPhone purchased the other day. Furthermore a new standard for display connection from portable devices to TV-sets, beamers and displays was recently introduced by Apple with the mini display port. There is just no need and even more important: There is no benefit to get rid of the dock-connector!

An extra mini-usb-jack might be agood idea for charging and syncing but for anything else I would like to wait a few months more.

More more more
More RAM, more “diskspace” for music and fotos, faster processor, better graphics chips inside…all that is a no-brainer. I think it’s 99% sure that a new iPhone will be bigger better faster than the previous models.

Bluetooth could be the showmaker
With all the above said, whats left and what could be the real big improvement is bluetooth! I’m dreaming of a bluetooth chip that has a *really* low power consumption. Right now I have BT almost always off, WLAN always on and I get up to 4 days of standby with 4 hours on the phone and 4 or more hours on the web and usual on/off-usage as a PDA. With BT I’m lucky if I make it ’till the end of the day.

So, with that improved we could *really* use BT-Stereo-Headphones, a BT-Keyboard for larger texts like this one, BT-syncing (which was a given on my 10 year old Palm-Devcies!?) and many things more…if…yes if…Apple would implement some more BT profiles in the next iPhone.

So, there’s always something to enhance, no matter how cool a gadget allready is! :-) I am really looking forward to the next iPhone!

After reading this I gave my ownnumbers gathers since late october last year a closer look and in fact it looks alsmost identical to the graph PM is showing. If you spread the money I made by advertizing over the units downloaded I got around 2 US-Cent per Unit, leaving about 1 cent after taxes! Wow…impressive, isn’t it? ;)

On the other hand the money I made with advertizing was three times the mones I made with the ad-free version of Awake. Well but if you consider that Awake itself is one of the better suited applications for advertizing since you probably use it several days a week repeatedly, this whole advertizing-experiment is a big failure in my opinion.

Right now I’m thinking about combinig both versions of Awake to just one that is sold for $0.99 only…maybe that’s the best way to go. We will see!

Best thing is: If you’re willing to fill out the survey and punch in your e-mail-adress you may win an iTunes-Gift-Card…best thing for you to get a copy of TouchScan…or…or..Skippy XL or the Penguin Timer ;)

Okay, today is again one of those days where multiple apps for one and the same purpose are released to the AppStore. As before with the widescreen mailers and the dialshortcuts . Today is the day of the power-dialers that can also send SMS and/or e-mails to your favorite contacts.

There are several released today but I want to direct your attention to these two only because I like the visuals on both of them…especially SuperDial comes close to what I’ve been waiting for for my iPhone…Photos on a pinboard, one tap to call, doubletap to send a SMS.

Read on for more and for the daily freebie!
 

The other contender Face Dial Pro features even more: you can make categories for your contacts and display them on seperate screens…this may be useful if you can afford so much friends but I think I can do with the max Number of 30 SuperDial has to offer. But, decide for yourself what you like better!

On the freebies side there seems to be a low tide right now…only one being a bit interesting seems Micro Surface…seems interesting but not to usefull and besides there was another App doing the same thing I can’t remebr right now called Photoboard…and that’s been out for a couple of weeks now.

Oh…and while I was looking up the URL for Micro Surface I stumbled about this one: iStethoscope…you never kow when you are playing Doctor again… ;-) It’s also free so go grab it!