Apple have announced the ability to allow in-app purchase on free apps. This is an interesting feature in my opinion. It will allow for some annoying “lite” versions which hide paid-for features which you have to pay to unlock, but also it will allow developers to leverage some interesting sales techniques.
This is one of the most exciting things I have seen Apple do over the past couple of months!
Mark my word: Tablet, May, 2010
Yesterday, there was the monthly LiDG (London iPhone Developer Group) meet-up in the Apple Store, Regent Street. This month Ian Thain decided to allow developers to present for 1 minute (strictly!) about their apps. I chose to give a quick talk about BeerMap, giving the people there a quick run down on why they should download BeerMap and review some beers with it!
It seemed to get good feedback and along side other apps such as CurryFinder it was probably one of the most fun apps being showcased. I really enjoyed telling people about it and I hope that people will have downloaded and started using the app from seeing my presentation!
Below is a little photo of me presenting!
I found an article by Andrew Nusca on ZDNet which caught my eye. He gives 5 points as to why Android will beat other smartphones. I’d like to comment on them:
* Google backs Android, a major pipeline for its cloud services.
Yes, true, but Apple backs the iPhone and clearly has cloudy things in the pipeline with it’s building of a new billion dollar data centre.
* Android is improving rapidly. The Cupcake 1.5 release was well-received, and Donut 1.6 has already been sent over the air to handset owners.
iPhone OS is improving all the time as well. Granted Android is faster, but for developers I think it’s great how Apple release iPhone OS. It means you have time to get ready for each release to make sure all apps work properly on each version.
* Android is open, making it easier to quickly gain developers’ support.
The iPhone SDK is free to download and only £59 to become a member of the full developer program. It’s really not that much of a barrier.
* Android will run on phones from several manufacturers, which will help it quickly spread through the marketplace. HTC, Motorola and Samsung are already supporting handsets.
This is a bad thing in my opinion. I absolutely love the fact that with the iPhone you know exactly what devices the app will run on, and you know every exact specification. Only if the hardware manufacturer is the SDK provider, can this happen 100%.
* Android combines the best of what’s out there. It’s open, but it offers iPhone-like menus and apps, with Windows Mobile-esque icons, with Palm Pre-like multitasking. There’s another arms race afoot — the battle among Android handset makers as to which company can squeeze the most out of the OS.
Is that a good thing to mix-and-match? I prefer having a rock solid, stable OS, built by one of the best software companies in the world. Furthermore, they build the hardware as well so they know how to eek every last bit of power out of the hardware to provide software developers with one of the best platforms to develop for.