Sofa is well known for their incredibly well designed applications. Their beautifully designed apps are often aimed at the more advanced user or specifically marketed for developers. Their subversion app Versions won an Apple Design Award, and their newest app Kaleidoscope continues this trend of amazingly looking, and hugely functional, OS X apps. Read more
Posts tagged with "developers"
Kaleidoscope: Compare Everything
Your Alternative iPad Browser Sucks
I tried many alternative browsers on my iPad. So many, in fact, that I can’t even remember the last time I deleted one. Maybe it was Super Prober, or Atomic Browser. I really can’t remember. My problem with you, developers of alternative browsers, is that you’re not Apple. You’re not even close to being able to implement features and think - just think - that they could work better than Safari’s.
I’ve seen many bloggers and people I follow on Twitter claim that they found a browser better than Safari. In the past months I read dozens of articles about “I ditched Safari for Atomic Browser” or “I needed tabs so I installed this on my iPad”. Early and quick excitement is bad for the internet: your words will stay there for the months to come as a living sign of your past ramblings. You said you ditched Safari, and now your homescreen.me profile lacks any alternative.
Step your game up, people. You don’t need to write about alternatives, because they all suck.
Crapptastic Aggregates The Best of The Worst in the App Store
I’m a firm believer that there must be something wrong with many developers who publish apps in the App Store. Creepy artworks and soundtracks, scary screenshots in the App Store page, insanely horrifying user interfaces.
Crapptastic is here to help you find the best of the worst in the App Store, in case you ever wanted to do that. Founded by @Digeratii (Josh Hellferich, also owner of popular website iPad Apps That Don’t Suck) Crapptastic “celebrates the hilarity that is the iTunes App Store”, and in a good way: while those screenshots piss me off when I see them in iTunes, Crapptastic somehow manages to make me laugh everytime.
I mean, Listen to the pig? Seriously?
iAd for Developers Not So Effective After All?
Last month Apple launched the “iAd for Developers” program, a way for developers to advertise their application through the iAd infrastructure by enabling the users to click on a banner and get an App Store-like page, with options to download the app (from the ad itself), see screenshots and read the description.
The iAd for Developers campaign comes at $0.25 per click (unlike iAd’s standard $2 per click fee) and, according to Apple, it should be the best way to drive a huge amount of traffic to your application. Admittedly, it sounds like a great idea: you don’t have the leave the app you’re currently in to buy another app, the system is smart and targets that app based on you. For small developers, this could be a great source of revenue at a rather affordable price.
Google Introduces New Ad Formats for iPad Devs
In case you can’t wait for iAds to show up on the iPad and there’s no way you’re going to charge for your free app, Google has just launched new ad formats specifically targeted to iPad apps developers. (based in US and Canada)
Google explains in a blog post:
“The new iOS SDK supports ad serving in iPad apps using three of the most common online ad formats, instantly making it easier for developers to grow their businesses and for advertisers to expand their presence to the iPad.
Advertisers whose campaigns run on the Google Display Network and include text or image ads in the above sizes can now show ads within iPad applications – provided their campaigns are targeting mobile devices or specifically the iPad.”
Here’s my suggestion, though. If you really care about the look of your application, look elsewhere. Wait for iAds. Make it paid. Think about it.
Hey, Apple: The App Store Is Broken.
Last night Cody published his thoughts on iTunes and wireless syncing to devices, a matter we’ve been discussing here at MacStories for a long time. I agree with him (though I’m really not into podcasts as he is), but I want to follow-up by focusing on a secondary point: the App Store navigation.
Google is copying Apple, but the App Store is broken. I can’t believe that after 2 years of existence Apple still hasn’t fixed many of the issues that affected the App Store back in 2008. In fact, they added even more.
Apple Opens Up Compatibility Labs for Developers
If you’ve been a member of Apple’s Developer Connection program, you’ve no doubt taken advantage of Apple’s compatibility labs. If you’ve ever wanted to test the next hit application on a variety of hardware, Apple launched on Monday a $99 Single Day Lab Day Pass for compatibility lab testing inside the Tokyo and Cupertino campuses.
500 different hardware configurations are available for testing from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, and while Apple Lab Engineers will be on hand to assist you with configurations, items such as certification and engineering support aren’t available.
It’s suggest that you’d inquire for a Day Pass three days before you actually need to use the labs, and while the $99 Day Pass makes Apple’s labs accessible, you can’t forget about the travel and lodging fees you’ll incur along the way. Hopefully you’re a native on the American West Coast (or metropolitan Japan).
Apple has a spiffy compatibility lab site you can check out here.
[via Macworld]
Test Cloud and Mobile Apps at Scale Before Deployment with New Tools
Admittedly developers and teams can have a helluva time testing at scale. Bugs are squashed, the experience is perfect, yet you don’t want to be left releasing a slew of updates through the next month to fix potential issues. Worse, if you’re a cloud based service, you want to make sure you won’t get absolutely crushed by a positive influx of consumer interest. So what do you do? Test at scale before releasing the next greatest alternative to Dropbox, that’s what.
Developers, Go Submit Your Safari Extensions Now
Apple has just started sending out emails to remind Mac OS X developers that they can now submit Safari Extensions to Apple to be featured in the upcoming Extension gallery.