App Wall at WWDC

Now, this is crazy cool! Many of you may have already seen this but, I just had to post it anyway! At WWDC it seems that Apple has decided to give developer’s a little perspective on how well apps are doing in the App Store. They have set up a wall of screens displaying many of the apps available in the App Store. What makes this really cool is that the apps are arranged by color and each time one is downloaded from the App Store, it pulses. It is not quite real time and not all the 50,000+ apps are represented on the screens but, it still looks really sweet. Check out the video and screenshots below. Read more

New Poll - How often do you visit the App Store on your iPhone or iPod Touch?

Time for a new poll. The last poll was - Do you let your kids play with your iPhone or iPod Touch? Below are the results based on when we added the poll about a week and a few weeks ago.

* Yes (31.0%, 481 Votes)
* No (17.0%, 272 Votes)
* I don’t have any kids! (39.0%, 619 Votes)
* My kids have their own iPhone/iPod Touch! (13.0%, 197 Votes)

Total Voters: 1,569

Our two year old actually uses one of our old iPhones (1st gen)…we have a case on it and child proofed it as much as possible. It keeps him busy wile we are waiting for things…like at the doctor’s office or in a restaurant…he loves it! Even though he is usually very careful with it, I will admit that he has dropped it a few times (ok, quite a few times) but, it hasn’t broke yet! Read more

Jailbreaking and Winterboard In The App Store

One of our readers sent us this screenshot of an app called Dead Man’s Dungeon. You’ll notice in the description a warning about performance issues if you’re on a jailbroken iPhone suggesting WinterBoard as the problem. It’s interesting that Apple even allows them to use such terminology.

Here’s the quote from the app in the App Store. It was still there at the time of writing this article: Read more

The Life of an App Store App

Doug sent me this article a few days ago and I thought it was very interesting. However, I forgot to pass it along! Some of you may have already read about this but, for those of you who haven’t…here you go.

Pinch Media has been keeping some nice records of App Store app statistics. What I found to be interesting were the results of the stats. It seems that people quickly lose interest in the apps they download from the App Store. In fact, according to Pinch Media, “For free applications, only about 20 percent of users return to use the app the first day after they download it, and then it quickly drops off from there. By 30 days out, less than 5 percent are using the app. The chart for paid apps shows a slightly steeper fall-off rate.”

Not only did I find this to be interesting but, based on my own experience, highly accurate. There are very few applications that I use on a daily basis and to be honest, there are many I completely forget about after using them the first time (or demoing them). Read more

15,000 Apps & 500,000,000 Downloads

Apple’s home page shows they have reached over 15,000 apps in the App Store and over 500 Million downloads. This shows that the App Store is growing at an incredible speed. In early December the app store had over 10,000 apps according to AppShopper.com.

Change with App Store Application Review Process

It seems that Apple has finally done something about the application review issue in the App Store. The change now requires you to have purchased/downloaded an application in order to write a review of it. I’m not sure why this was not implemented from the beginning but, I’m glad that they finally got around to it. If you have not purchased an application, you will get a pop-up informing you that you will either need to purchase or download the app in order to review it. If the application is free, you have to have at least downloaded the application in order to review it.
Read more

AppStore Apps Crashing - Restore

It has been a few days since I have been able to catch up on iPhone news, as those of you who follow Doug or my Twitter know (ahhyeah and bporter), I’m not feeling well lately! Well today, I was taking a look at the list of 25 top free apps and was suprised to see one that I was very familiar with…Earth3D. Well, I installer Earth3D however, when I went to open it, it just crashed back to the SpringBoard. So, I decided to go try another application…which crashed as well. This is on my personal iPhone (not one of our test iPhones) so, it only has the AppStore and is not jailbroken. I did notice that I was having some issues last night while recording our video podcast but didn’t think anything of it. Well, it seems that ALL my AppStore apps are crashing, not a single app will stay open. So, after trying a few fixes, wishing my iPhone was jailbroken so I had SSH access and finally giving up…I ended up restoring. And like Doug, will be jailbreaking my 2.0.1 firmware using WinPwn 2.0.0.4. I’m curious to know if anyone else has had this problem and if you were able to fix it or ended up restoring.

App Store/iTunes Bug

BigBoss has written an article on a problem with the App Store/iTunes which also affects Cydia (and will probably also affect Installer 4.0). The problem has to do with installing applications. Have you had a time when you install an app and your iPhone just sits there…there is no icon and you have a spinning wheel next to your carrier icon on your status bar? This has happened to me once and Doug a few times. Though, it is always with App Store apps and never with apps installed via Cydia. Below is what BigBoss has to say about the bug.
Read more

Issues when Updating App Store Apps

Doug noticed awhile ago (which I’m sure most of you have as well) that when you update an application in the App Store, it completely deletes the application’s icon off your iPhone and then re-adds it in the first available spot on your iPhone’s SpringBoard (instead of leaving the application where you had it on your SpringBoard). This can be slightly annoying if you have all your apps organized exactly how you would like them. Recently, we have also heard that some people are losing their previously saved games, scores and log-in information when they update an application. I have not found this to be true. All the apps that I have updated have kept my previous information. Let us know in the comments if you have experienced data being erased when updating an application.

Cracked App Store Applications

Doug and I knew that writing this post was inevitable. Did I think I would be writing it so soon…no. But, what can I say, hackers are quick.

Cracked App Store Applications are in no way, shape or form, not even to the tiniest degree, supported by AppleiPhoneSchool.com. Any comments on how or where to get cracked App Store applications will be deleted. If the comments persist the user will be banned from AppleiPhoneSchool.com.

Cracked App Store Application = Any App Store application that has not been put into the Installer by the developer themselves.

App Store RSS Feed Meets Twitter

Pinch Media has created and released 5 RSS Feeds. They pull all kinds of info from the App Store from new and updated apps to top 100 lists. Here they are:

Now what we’ve done is dumped this into Twitter so you can “follow” the App Store.

App Store Popups

I’m testing the limit of the iPhone 2.0 firmware by installing every free app available, along with the one’s we’ve purchased on one of our test iPhones. I’ve gathered together some of the popups I’ve seen through the process. Let us know if you find anymore. Read more

Apple Solves Cheating in the App Store

It looks like Apple has settled the cheating going on in the App Store. Developers were changing their titles to included $, *, spaces and numbers to get themselves to the top of the list. Now it seems that they are being ordered by most recently added. This is nice because you can come to the app store and see what’s new and it keeps developers from cheating the system. Good job Apple, great way to handle it. Read more

App Store Developers Playing Dirty?

If you have been in the App Store lately you may have noticed that developers have started adding spaces, quotes and numbers before the titles of their applications. In doing so, it moves their applications to the top of the list. Not only does this show extreme unprofessionalism by the developer, it makes the App Store look very disorganized. But it doesn’t stop there. It has been rumored that developers are hiring people to write positive reviews on their applications and negative reviews on competitor’s applications. There is probably not much that can be done about fraudulent reviews but, Apple needs to take a stand and regulate the titles of Applications in fear that the App Store will not only turn into a mockery but will affect the overall image of Apple itself.

Get All App Store Apps For Free!

Ok, I knew that headline would get your attention. I certainly do not support hacking pay for apps to be free. But here’s the deal. All the Apps I buy on my iPhone, are downloading free on Brooke’s iPhone. We use the same iTunes account as a family so I’m sure this it why. I haven’t got a bill yet to confirm but I did get this pop up:

Next Page »