Archives for October 2009

Rate It If You Hate It + In App Purchasing = Disaster?

October 27, 2009 by Marc

storm There is trouble brewing in the iTunes App Store, thanks to the combination of two App Store features. The first is the pre-existing Rate It If You Hate It ratings prompt system, where they prompt for ratings when you uninstall. The second is the recent change that allows free applications to use In App Purchasing to expand functionality, effectively creating a trial version system for the store.

I’m not a fan of how they’ve implemented either of these, but more importantly, when you combine these two it creates a perfect storm of trouble! Read on after the jump for the entire story about the problem Apple has created…

User Reviews Matter!

October 27, 2009 by Marc

There was a bunch of discussion about user reviews over at Just Another iPhone Blog the other day. Patrick was frustrated by reviews that either weren’t reviews, were wildly inaccurate, or were little more than an ad for another product. This sort of thing makes me crazy as well, but when I read the comments I was surprised by how many people don’t think this is a big deal.

In fact this is a big deal for consumers. To explain this, I wrote a new article for Just Another Mobile Monday that talks about the issue. Check it out for my views on the trouble with the way some application stores are handling user reviews and what it means to you guys!

And while you’re at it – Just Another iPhone Blog started a new series called “Desert Island Apps” where a guest explains which six apps she or he would take with them to a desert island. Guess who the first guest was! 🙂 You can read about my desert island picks here!

Development Update

October 20, 2009 by Marc

target Since a lot of questions about platforms and release plans have come up in the other blog posts, I thought I’d take a second to write a quick update. I hope this helps to answer some of your questions! Keep in mind that in many cases I won’t be able to give specifics, but I will do my best to tell you what I can.

So, if you want some insight into what’s happening at Ilium Software, read on after the jump! [Read more…] about Development Update

eWallet Lite for iPhone Now Available!

October 14, 2009 by Marc

wallet We just got news that eWallet Lite for iPhone has finally been approved! You can get it for free in the App Store today! eWallet Lite is exactly the same as eWallet except that it only supports one wallet and ten cards and IT’S FREE! Other than that, it offers every feature the full version does, from the 256-bit AES encryption to the many choices for customizing your cards to the rich security options. You can even try synching your information by downloading the Windows desktop trial here.

As you’re probably aware, one of the challenges of the App Store is that they don’t offer a method of providing free trials for customers. It’s very hard for a customer to drop $10 on something they’ve never used before. We tried videos, and while we like the results, it just isn’t the same as actually getting your hands on the product.

So we create eWallet Lite. Now I realize this won’t be a big help to our existing eWallet customers, but for people who like the looks of eWallet but really want to try it first, it’s a great solution. In fact, it’s a pretty darn good solution for people who only maintain a small wallet. If you’re only keeping track of a handful of passwords or other important information, eWallet Lite is a great way to do it for free! All the quality and security of eWallet at the best price around!

So if you know someone who has wanted to try eWallet but just wasn’t ready to take the plunge and buy it, let them know that eWallet Lite is now available!

In Support of Tweetie: The Case for Upgrade Charges

October 9, 2009 by Marc

As some of you know, there was quite a bit of discussion over at the Just Another blogs (Just Another Mobile Monday and Just Another iPhone Blog) over Tweetie’s decision to charge for their latest iPhone application upgrade. They did this by creating a new application and charging for it, rather than upgrading the existing one.

Despite the fact that Tweetie had to do something kind of hacky due to the limits of the App Store, the reality is that they did what they had to. Upgrades cost money – sometimes a LOT of money – and that money has to come from somewhere.

To that end, I wrote an article dealing with this issue and talking about the situation from a developer POV. If you’d like to get the full story, check out my post over here at JAMM. It’s also my first contribution as the “Developer Perspective” author for JAMM which is kind of exciting. Also, let me know how you’d like me to handle these posts in the future – do you mind visiting JAMM to read them? Or would you rather I dual post them here and over there as well? Let me know!

An Honest App Store Article

October 7, 2009 by Marc

If you’ve been reading our blog, nothing that you find in this Newsweek article will surprise you. What is refreshing is to see some honest-to-god journalism going on, and from a major news outlet no less. The article highlights just what a great thing the Apple App Store can be. At the same time, they take a very realistic approach to this, talking about what the reality of the App Store is for the majority of developers and highlighting what it is becoming.

The most interesting point in this area is the admission that the big boys have finally decided that mobile devices are worth their time and that they are forcing out a lot of those indie developers that dominated the top 10 lists early on.

You can read the full article here.

Archives for October 2009

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