Posts tagged with "developers"

Third Build of Mac OS X 10.6.8 Seeded to Developers

Earlier today Apple seeded a new build of Mac OS X 10.6.8 to developers. The new build, weighing at the usual 1 GB, is available now for download in the Mac Dev Center and carries number 10K531. As with the previous versions, people familiar with the build tell us focus areas for testing haven’t changed – Apple still wants developers to test AirPort, Graphics Drivers, Mac App Store, Networking, QuickTime and VPN.

The releases of Mac OS X 10.6.8 have been following a weekly schedule, with new builds appearing on Thursdays and Fridays. The last build was released last week – with the WWDC coming up in less than two weeks and OS X Lion likely to follow shortly after (according to the latest rumors) or throughout the summer, Apple might release 10.6.8 as one last maintenance update to Snow Leopard before the new OS goes public.

Ranky Shows Beautiful iOS & Mac App Store Rankings for Developers

If you’re an iOS or Mac developer, or you handle the marketing for a development studio that has apps on Apple’s App Store, you know the importance of checking rankings for your application on all the international App Stores. It doesn’t matter if your app is the next Angry Birds (probably not, though The Heist managed to take the #1 spot in the iPhone App Store after months of Rovio dominance) or something that will be fine sitting between the #20 and #100 positions, checking rankings by country and category is a common practice that helps you better understand how well an app is doing, where, and quite possibly also why.

Ranky, a new app by Studio Dalton, wants to make the process of studying rankings extremely simple, focused and beautiful. The app provides real-time results for iOS and Mac App Store apps, a feature that’s surely welcome as it allows to check for any app distributed through Apple’s App Stores. Once you’ve entered any iPhone, iPad or Mac app to track, you’ll only have to select the countries you’re interested in to start analyzing the markets. After that, for each app you’ll get an overview by category or “overall” – the same applies if you filter down apps by country, you’ll get the same screen with “overall” and “category” screens to see how your app is performing. Ranky also comes with the possibility of displaying changes since the last time you checked the app, and email and Twitter sharing built-in.

With a beautiful interface and a simple, yet powerful feature set, Ranky is a neat little tool iOS and Mac devs should test right away. Go download the app here at $0.99.

OS X Lion Nearing Public Release?

According to a report from TUAW, Mac OS X Lion has gone “live for internal testing” at Apple last week. Whilst it’s not clear what that means, we assume Apple has begun widespread internal testing of a new build of the OS that’s nearing GM status. TUAW suggests Lion might see a public release at WWDC in two weeks, or at least sooner than previously expected considering many had pointed at Lion on track for a late July / August release:

This suggests the new OS might possibly ship as early as WWDC with an “available today” mention at the keynote – or it might not. But Lion is looking to be one step closer to availability for Apple customers.

The latest developer preview of OS X Lion brought minor graphical changes to apps Apple had already updated in previous DP builds, as well as tweaks and performance improvements to make the OS more stable and faster. Developer builds of Lion have been seeded through the Mac App Store with a redeem code system, though Apple is also believed to make the OS available on DVDs or portable USB keys for users with slow Internet connections, unable of downloading GBs of data from the Mac App Store.

Prototypes Turns Mockups Into Tappable iPhone Demoes

If you’re an iPhone developer, you know how long it takes to turn a mockup realized in Photoshop, Illustrator or Fireworks into a working app that can be tested to see if your idea is actually working on a device’s screen. Whilst an app screen may look good in Photoshop with its fancy graphics and menus you first sketched on your notebook, there’s always the risk that, once running on a real device with an actual multitouch display, your idea will simply suck. Prototypes, a new Mac app released today at $39.99, is a new tool for developers aimed at making the process of converting a mockup into a tappable and shareable application super-simple. Prototypes won’t magically turn your .png’s into Cocoa code, instead it will allow you to display these images on an iPhone or iPod touch screen, and allow users to tap around and get the idea of how an app works.

From Prototypes’ desktop view, developers can import image files and start building a new project. Once all the images are in, Prototypes offers the possibility to create connections and links between objects and pages, add tappable areas and establish dependencies between app menus and sections. What Prototypes basically does is simple: it takes all your app mockups you’ve created in Photoshop, bundles them up in a package, and takes care of including animations, transitions, hotspots, and more to give users the feeling that they’re using a real application while, in fact, they’re just tapping on “smart images” connected by links. It’s genius. Of course you won’t end up using an app on your phone – you’ll simply be running a bookmark saved from the web that’s nothing but a living mockup meant for testing purposes.

Prototypes also offers developers a way to share these mockups with users, their boss, or friends: by hosting a mockup on the free ptyp.es service, devs will be able to easily allow everyone to “install the app” using Mobile Safari and a special PIN code for extra security. You can try one of Prototypes smart mockups by heading over this link with your iPhone, saving the page on your Home screen, and entering 12345678 as PIN.

I think Prototypes is an incredible idea and a great time-saving utility for iOS developers that have been looking for ways to test a mockup without actually writing code. You can get the app here at $39.99.

Analysis of Apple’s Letter To Lodsys→

Analysis of Apple’s Letter To Lodsys

Florian Mueller at FOSS Patents breaks down today’s letter from Apple to Lodsys CEO Mark Small, detailing a possible scenario iOS developers might soon find themselves into:

App developers have to understand that Lodsys can still sue them. Apple’s letter does not prevent Lodsys from doing that, and it would be a way for Lodsys to pursue its agenda. It wouldn’t make economic sense for Lodsys to sue a few little app developers based on the damage awards or settlements Lodsys might get out of such a lawsuit. However, for Lodsys it would still be worth it if this resulted in a lucrative settlement with Apple, or if it (alternatively) scared potentially thousands of app developers so much that they would pay. Lodsys would sue some app devs only to set an example, and for the ones to whom it happens, that would be an unpleasant situation.

As other bloggers have already written and tweeted, Apple’s letter might be heartwarming for developers, but the story is far from over. Apple is stepping up to defend its developers and that is great news for sure (see developers’ reactions here), but in case of Lodsys deciding to sue anyway to set a precedent, these indie developers would still have to deal with actual court duties, lawyers, and the fact that they’d need to directly ask Apple to back them up. Apple hasn’t explicitly stated they would pay for every legal expense in today’s letter (unless the emails sent to developers, and not Mark Small, have additional details we’re not aware of), though Mueller believes that sending a copy of the letter to Mark Small to developers is a good sign of the company taking things seriously and considering paying for any kind of expense if Lodsys sues.

Again, it’s not over yet, but the general consensus seems to be that this is a great first step to defend the App Store, Apple’s own ecosystem and in-app purchases, and independent developers.

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Apple Officially Responds To iOS Devs Hit By Lodsys Patent Claims [Updated]

According to a number of tweets from iOS developers hit by Lodsys’ patent infringement claims in regards to in-app purchases and upgrade buttons, Apple has started sending out emails earlier today with legal documentation about Lodsys’ claims. While the contents of the entire email and letter haven’t been posted yet, the first details have started making the rounds of Twitter as Apple is apparently offering support to iOS developers by helping them defending against Lodsys patent infringement claims.

The first paragraph of the email has been posted by Craig Grannel at Revert To Saved:

There is no basis for Lodsys’ infringement allegations against Apple’s App Makers. Apple intends to share this letter and the information set out herein with its App Makers and is fully prepared to defend Apple’s license rights.

The Loop has posted another paragraph of the email, with more coming soon:

Apple is undisputedly licensed to these patents and the App Makers are protected by that license,” wrote Bruce Sewell, Apple Senior Vice President and General Counsel.

From what we can gather so far, it appears Apple is asking Lodsys, and CEO Mark Small, to withdraw letters sent to developers as they’re already covered by Apple. We’ll update this story with more details as they become available.

Another excerpt from Apple’s email confirms that the company believes developers shouldn’t pay any licensing fee because Apple’s already licensed to use Lodsys’ patent and offer the technology to third-party App Store developers through software development kits and  APIs:

Thus the technology that is targeted in your notice letters is technology that Apple is expressly licensed under the Lodsys patents to offer to Apple’s App Makers. These licensed products and services enable Apple’s App Makers to communicate with end users through the use of Apple’s own licensed hardware, software, APIs, memory, servers, and interfaces, including Apple’s App Store. Because Apple is licensed under Lodsys’ patents to offer such technology to its App Makers, the App Makers are entitled to use this technology free from any infringement claims by Lodsys.

Update: full text of the letter sent by Apple to Lodsys’ CEO Mark Small has been posted by Macworld. A few notable excerpts:

Because I believe that your letters are based on a fundamental misapprehension regarding Apple’s license and the way Apple’s products work, I expect that the additional information set out below will be sufficient for you to withdraw your outstanding threats to the App Makers and cease and desist from any further threats to Apple’s customers and partners.

First, Apple is licensed to all four of the patents in the Lodsys portfolio. As Lodsys itself advertises on its website, “Apple is licensed for its nameplate products and services.” See http://www.lodsys.com/blog.html (emphasis in original). Under its license, Apple is entitled to offer these licensed products and services to its customers and business partners, who, in turn, have the right to use them.

Through its threatened infringement claims against users of Apple’s licensed technology, Lodsys is invoking patent law to control the post-sale use of these licensed products and methods. Because Lodsys’s threats are based on the purchase or use of Apple products and services licensed under the Agreement, and because those Apple products and services, under the reading articulated in your letters, entirely or substantially embody each of Lodsys’s patents, Lodsys’s threatened claims are barred by the doctrines of patent exhaustion and first sale.

The conclusion of the letter:

Therefore, Apple requests that Lodsys immediately withdraw all notice letters sent to Apple App Makers and cease its false assertions that the App Makers’ use of licensed Apple products and services in any way constitute infringement of any Lodsys patent.

Contrarily to speculation and rumors posted in the past week, Apple isn’t avoiding the situation and is now actively taking part in backing independent developers hit by Lodsys claims of patent infringement in applications that use Apple’s own iOS SDK. By reassuring that developers shouldn’t pay any licensing fee because Apple is already licensed to offer the technology behind the App Store and in-app purchases, the company is taking a firm position in defending its ecosystem and “app makers.” Several bloggers and patent experts tried to analyze the patent claims over the past two weeks, with the EFF even coming out and saying Apple should have stepped in and started defending its iOS devs right away. As usual Apple has taken its time to study the issue and come up with facts, and is now simply asking Lodsys to withdraw every notice letter and infringement claim sent out to developers.

EFF Calls On Apple to Protect iOS Developers→

EFF Calls On Apple to Protect iOS Developers

This is a problem that lawyers call a misallocation of burden. The law generally works to ensure that the party in the best position to address an issue bears the responsibility of handling that issue. In the copyright context, for example, the default assumption is that the copyright owners are best positioned to identify potential infringement. This is because, among other reasons, copyright owners know what content they own and which of their works have been licensed. Here, absent protection from Apple, developers hoping to avoid a legal dispute must investigate each of the technologies that Apple provides to make sure none of them is patent-infringing. For many small developers, this requirement, combined with a 30 percent fee to Apple, is an unacceptable cost. Even careful developers who hire lawyers to do full-scale patent searches on potential apps surely would not expect to investigate the technology that Apple provides. Instead, they would expect (with good reason) that Apple wouldn’t provide technologies in its App Store that open its developers up to liability – and/or would at least agree to defend them when a troll like Lodsys comes along.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) thinks Apple should stand up for its developers and protect them from patent trolls like Lodsys, who are asking for licensing fees on a technology provided by Apple itself to developers through the SDK. We’ve been following the debate surrounding Lodsys for over a week now, and whilst The Guardian reported Apple would issue an official response this week, nothing has come out of Apple’s legal department yet – though Apple is well known for taking its time before addressing issues publicly. Several bloggers in the past days have suggested Apple may use the WWDC stage to speak directly to developers and explain the situation with in-app purchases, patents and Lodsys, even if the company previously announced that the WWDC would simply offer a preview of the future of iOS and OS X.

The EFF’s letter to Apple resonates with a common sentiment among developers and the tech press – Apple should defend developers and the iOS ecosystem from being threatened by trolls and patent infringement claims.

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Second Build of Mac OS X 10.6.8 Seeded to Developers

Last night, Apple seeded the second build of Mac OS X 10.6.8 to developers. The new build, weighing at around 1 GB, carries number 10K524 and it’s available now for download in the Mac Dev Center. According to people familiar with the new release, focus areas mentioned in the seed notes are still AirPort, Graphics Drivers, Mac App Store, Networking, QuickTime and VPN.

The first build of 10.6.8 was seeded last week on May 13, coming as a surprise for those who thought Mac OS X 10.6.7 would be the last Snow Leopard update. Apple is expected to unveil the final version of 10.7 Lion at the WWDC in June with a public release this summer, leading many to believe 10.6.8 will be the last maintenance update for machines running Snow Leopard.

Apple Temporarily Freezing In-App Purchase Approvals?

TUAW reports a number of iOS developers have been unable for over a week now to get their in-app purchase content approved by Apple, as the company requires in the iTunes Connect developer portal to test IAP with a test user account, but this account has been offline with no explanation from Apple.

As a matter of policy, Apple requires developers to test in-app purchases (IAP) with a test user account before the application in question can be approved. Unfortunately, this test account has been offline for a week now with no word as to why. If you are a developer, you can see the relevant thread on Apple’s own developer forums here.

Whilst the impossibility to test in-app purchases and thus get the additional content approved may simply be a technical error on Apple’s side, it looks rather curious considering the recent debate surrounding Lodsys and its patent infringement claims against independent iOS developers. As TUAW notes, this can be a simple coincidence that has nothing to do with Lodsys, but The Guardian reported yesterday Apple was “actively investigating” the claims that hit iOS devs, so there’s a chance Apple might have suspended IAP approvals before a decision is made.

If you’re a developer and have encountered a similar error, let us know in the comments. More information is available on the Dev Forums.

Update: the iTunes Connect Developer Guide was updated on 5/11 including some changes to in-app purchases, but we can’t confirm whether these changes are related to the inability of testing in-app purchases with a test user account. The ITC Developer Guide can be found here.

Improvements to In-App Purchase creation and edit flow. The Manage Your In-App Purchases module is no longer available on the homepage of in iTunes Connect. In-App Purchases can now be managed from the app summary page for a specific app within the Manage Your Applications module.

[Thanks, Jason]

Update #2: TUAW reports the issue seems to be resolved.