Toluu

Mobile Orchard

The iPhone App Developers' Blog: iPhone Programming, Developer News, Interviews And Tutorials

Miss Mobile Orchard? Own Mobile Orchard!August 12

In April, when I stopped publishing Mobile Orchard, I said I’d leave the site up as long as I had the server. I figured the traffic would gradually dissipate and that’d be that.

A few weeks ago I checked the site’s Google Analytics dashboard on a whim and was surprised to see that the site’s traffic is about what it was before I left! More details on this in a minute…

This tells me that the audience of iOS developers has grown, and that the site’s content is still useful. In fact, the site is still the number one Google result — beating even Apple — for iPhone Developer News, iPhone Developer Podcast, iPhone Development News, and iPhone Development Podcast.

I was, and am, proud of the site and enjoyed that it’d earned a respected place in the community. I’d like to see that continue in the hands of the right person or people. So: I’m putting Mobile Orchard up for sale.

In the past, I

I’m Abandoning iPhone Development. Mobile Orchard To Stop Publication.April 9

Ask permission environments crush creativity and innovation. In healthy environments, when would-be innovators/creators identify opportunities the only thing that stands between the idea and its realization is work. In the iPhone OS environment when you see an opportunity, you put in work first, ask Apple’s permission and then, only after gaining their approval, your idea can be realized.

I’ve always worked at the edge; it’s where the interesting opportunities live. None of the startup I’ve created would have been possible in an ask permission environment. Normally, for the sake of the flow of the article, I’d elide the supporting examples, but today I’ll provide two:

In the mid nineties, ahead of even Amazon.com, I founded one of the earliest e-commerce companies. At that time, most banks forbid Internet credit card transactions. They were fearful, so they enacted policies that blocked innovation. Of course that wasn’t universal: a few banks bucked the trend and, together with entrepreneurs like me, created a new sector of the economy. Pedants will point out that we still needed a bank’s permission; more reasonable readers will observe that there was no single daddy entity whose approval we required.

Early last decade, at roughly the same ti

This Week in iPhone and iPad News - April 2/2010April 2

iPhone App Developed To Control NASA Robot Want to drive a NASA robot on Mars? There’s an app for that.

Star Wars Cantina: Your Own Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy, In Your iPhone Coming soon to an iPhone near you, “Star Wars Cantina”, a Diner Dash-like game set in the Star Wars universe.

How to Make an HTML5 iPhone App A nice tutorial on how to use HTML5 in your next iPhone app.

Apple Launching iPad with Explicit Content in App Store Apple has recently segregated explicit content into its own category on the App Store.

Apple to Launch New Mobile Ad Platform? “iAD”, Apple’s own mobile ad platform, is set to launch on April 7th, 2010.

Using App Gifting for PromotionMarch 29

Natalia Luckyanova, half of iPhone Gaming’s cutest couple, wrote to share their experience giving away 1000 copies of Harbor Master using the new Gift-This capability of the App Store.

Here’s what she had to say, emphasis added by me:

We decided to try a mass giveaway to see how gifting really works. We gave away 1,000 copies of Harbor Master to promote the upcoming Harbor Master HD for iPad. This got a lot of very heated reactions from other developers (mostly worrying that gifted apps affect rank and this would allow anyone to buy their way into the top 100 apps).

Interestingly, we found that gifts do NOT count towards an app’s rank at all. Also, awarding that many gifts definitely took a lot of time. However, it was a great experience for us nonetheless. We got some publicity for Harbor Master HD and got a lot of love from the player community. If nothing else, app gifting will help not to be limited to 50 promo codes when trying to share an app with media and the community.

Full details available on their blog.

This Week in iPhone & iPad News - March 26/2010March 26

Wikipedia Gets Pretty with Articles iPhone App Take a look at some of the interesting features in a new Wikipedia app for the iPhone.

iPad Developers Code Their Apps in the Dark While Apple says that iPad applications can be submitted next week to coincide with opening of the iPad App Store, most iPad developers only have the iPad simulator to work with until then, except a select few who actually received the device early.

Valgrind Phil Hassey, the author of Galcon for the iPhone, mentioned this memory management and debugging tool at GDC 2010 and it’s definitely worth a look.

Corona Now Supports iPad Busy week for these guys.

Apple Stores Now Able to Sell Unlocked iPhones [update] While the original article mentioned that the phones were unlocked, it turns out that they ar