World of Apple

Following severe criticism and a furore following Apple pulling over 5000 “overtly sexual” apps from the iPhone and iPod touch App Store it seems that Apple is attempting to right a wrong.

It has been revealed that a new category is available for Apps but not yet visible to the public. The category available to developers submitting Apps is labelled “Explicit” which has since been removed.

The addition suggests that Apple could wish to add Apps to the store which are beyond a 17+ rating.

A furore began towards the end of last week when it became apparent that Apple had begun removing up to 5,000 apps from the App Store for containing “overtly sexual” content.

The change in policy has caused some confusion and some apps remain untouched despite still containing questionable content. The New York Times spoke to Apple worldwide product marketing head Phil Schiller who helped clarify the situation.

According to Schiller, “It came to the point where we were getting customer complaints from women who found the content getting too degrading and objectionable, as well as parents who were upset with what their kids were able to see”.

Despite this an app from Sports Illustrated that shows bikini-clad women is still in the App Store. When questioned on this Mr. Schiller outlined that Apple looks at the intent of the content, “The difference is this is a well-known company with previously published material available broadly in a well-accepted format”.

When asked about the needs of developers who have had there revenue stream pulled from underneath them Schiller said that Apple needs to “put the needs of the kids and parents first”.

Two new adverts for the iPhone have begun airing on U.S. television over the weekend and have been promptly posted on Apple’s website. Of note is that the adverts have moved away from the recent theme of advertising the App Store and returned to touting iPhone features.

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Apple has in the last week doubled the download limit for App Store downloads when using a carriers 3G network.

Previously Apps downloaded from the App Store would have to be downloaded using WiFi if over 10MB, this limit is now 20MB and is said to not only apply to Apps but podcasts and videos too.

Apple has today announced that over three billion apps have been downloaded from the App Store. Apple last announced an App Store landmark at the end of September with two billion downloads.

“Three billion applications downloaded in less than 18 months—this is like nothing we’ve ever seen before,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “The revolutionary App Store offers iPhone and iPod touch users an experience unlike anything else available on other mobile devices, and we see no signs of the competition catching up anytime soon.”

Following last weeks change to how applications destined for the App Store are approved Businessweek has run an interview with Apple’s senior vice-president of worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller who commented on the process which is often under criticism.

“We’ve built a store for the most part that people can trust,” Schiller begins. “You and your family and friends can download applications from the store, and for the most part they do what you’d expect, and they get onto your phone, and you get billed appropriately, and it all just works.”

The Apple exec also broke down the major types of rejection that are seen on the App Store, 90% of rejections are technical such as bugs “or because something doesn’t work as expected”, 10% of cases when the app is inappropriate and fewer than 1% of rejections fall into a grey area category requiring further research.

Apple has begun running all App Store submissions through a static analysis tool which will identify apps using private API calls.

Apple offers developers for the iPhone and iPod touch a list of public application programming interface (APIs) which are free to be used and well documented. Apple also has a collection of private APIs which only Apple is allowed to use and generally don’t inform developers about. There are several reasons why Apple doesn’t want private APIs being used; security reasons, consistency reasons, or that the API is subject to change potentially breaking the app in the future.

Many apps currently on the App Store already use private APIs but as finding them is incredibly difficult they often slip through the strict Apple approval process but now Apple has added an automated search of app code to find such banned APIs.

The automated process is already creating stories of apps being rejected for use of private APIs which developers are denying.

Apple has today announced that 100,000 iPhone and iPod touch apps are now available in the App Store.

The App Store which is available to 77 countries contains 20 categories of Apps including games, business, news, sports, health, reference and travel. App Store users have downloaded well over two billion apps, continuing to make it the world’s most popular applications store.

“The App Store, now with over 100,000 applications available, is clearly a major differentiator for millions of iPhone and iPod touch customers around the world,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “The iPhone SDK created the first great platform for mobile applications and our customers are loving all of the amazing apps our developers are creating.”

“The App Store has forever changed the mobile gaming industry and continues to improve,” said Travis Boatman, vice president of Worldwide Studios, EA Mobile. “With a global reach of over 50 million iPhone and iPod touch users, the App Store has allowed us to develop high quality EA games that have been a huge success with customers.”

“With 10,000 downloads a day, worldwide customer response to our I Am T-Pain App has exceeded our wildest expectations,” said Jeff Smith, CEO of Smule. “The App Store has given us a unique opportunity to create and grow a very successful business, and we’re looking forward to an exciting future.”

Yesterday Apple sent out a mass email to registered iPhone developers informing them of a policy change regarding free apps and the use of In-App Purchase.

Now you can use In App Purchase in your free apps to sell content, subscriptions, and digital services.

You can also simplify your development by creating a single version of your app that uses In App Purchase to unlock additional functionality, eliminating the need to create Lite versions of your app. Using In App Purchase in your app can also help combat some of the problems of software piracy by allowing you to verify In App Purchases.

The change is a major step for developers who offer “lite” versions of apps for free, they will now be able to implement In-App purchase to effectively offer trial versions of apps that will require purchasing after a certain period of time.

Apple has today announced that the App Store has surpassed two billion app downloads since it opened in July of 2008 and over 85,000 apps are available.

Apple also stated that 125,000 iPhone developers are registered into the iPhone Developer Program.

“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.”