Apple Now Allowing In-App Purchase in Free App Store Applications

Apple has announced to developers that they are changing the in-app purchase feature of App Store applications. In the past, only paid applications could use the in-app purchase feature however, Apple is now allowing the feature to be implemented into free apps as well as paid apps.

I’m not sure what I think about this yet but, I do think it could help clean up the App Store a bit. Instead of developers creating a free lite version of their app, they could just make the application free with an in-app purchase to buy the full game thus eliminating the need for free lite versions of applications.

Below is Apple’s memo. Read more

App Store Hits 2 Billion Downloads

Today, Apple announced that more than 2 Billion apps have been downloaded from the App Store. What is even more interesting is that there are now “more than 85,000 apps available to the more than 50 million iPhone™ and iPod touch® customers worldwide and over 125,000 developers in Apple’s iPhone Developer Program.” That it just craziness… 50 million iPhone and iPod Touches out there! And apparently people are not getting bored with the App Store, actually it is just the opposite, the downloads have increased compared to last year.

“The rate of App Store downloads continues to accelerate with users downloading a staggering two billion apps in just over a year, including more than half a billion apps this quarter alone,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “The App Store has reinvented what you can do with a mobile handheld device, and our users are clearly loving it.”

Check out the full press release below. Read more

New Poll – What type of App Store applications do you tend to install most often?

Time for a new poll. The last poll was – Did you upgrade to the 3.0 firmware? Below are the results.

- Yep sure did! (66.0%, 1,093 Votes)
- No, and I’m not going to. (4.0%, 63 Votes)
- I’m going to, I just haven’t yet. (30.0%, 493 Votes)
Total Voters: 1,649

The poll above was taken right when 3.0 was first released. It would be interesting to take it again now and is if the results are any different. You can still vote on this Poll in our Poll Archive page. You can also vote/view all the past polls on the Poll Archive page as well. Read more

App Store Redeem Button Moved… Once Again

It seems that Apple has once again moved the Redeem button. The Redeem feature allows the ability to use promo codes to redeem applications from the App Store.

The Redeem option has now been moved to into the App Store application under the Featured option. Once in the Featured option, you will need to go into the New category and scroll all the way to the bottom… there you will see Redeem. Read more

How Much Would it Cost to Buy Every App in the App Store?

The answer is $144,326.06. Yep, if you were to buy all 55,732 apps currently available in the App Store it would cost you just under $145,000. An interesting tidbit. Though, for some reason that number seems low to me…it would be interesting to see an updated graph of the price ratios for all the apps in the App Store.

Info via Gizmodo.

Happy 1st Birthday App Store

If you have been in iTunes on the App Store at all today, you probably noticed the nice little tribute to the App Store turning 1. It doesn’t seem like it has been a year to me! I still remember back in the day when the only way to get games, utilities, multimedia (etc) apps on your iPhone or iPod Touch was through jailbreaking. Apple *cough* copied *cough* the idea and wow has it become something amazing! Not only does it make the iPhone and iPod Touch stand out among devices but, it has given developers the opportunity to be a part of a thriving, money making enterprise! Great job Apple and Happy 1st Birthday App Store! Read more

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.

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