iPhone and iPad

eWallet Lite for iPhone Now Available!

October 14, 2009 by Marc

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!

The Apple Difference

September 21, 2009 by Ellen

I recently found some notes and tasks from March 2008 - 18 months ago - and it really brought home to me how Apple has changed the mobile software world.

Our biggest problem at that time was that people didn’t know they could buy programs for their smartphone or PDA. Apple’s fixed that one - even people who don’t own a mobile device know “there’s an app for that”.

Availablility of apps is a huge factor in how new mobile devices or operating systems are judged. When the Pre was released, the sparse app catalog was mentioned in nearly every review. Same for the Zune HD. Imagine - if you can - a review mentioning “not many apps” in a review for a new device two years ago. It just wouldn’t have happened.

New mobile platforms and devices are big news. And any changes to the iPhone, iPod Touch or iTunes are huge news.

Mobile app developers are now a market by themselves. There are literally dozens of sites with iTunes App Store ranking tracking, tools and stats plug-ins. There are several providers of paid, in-app, mobile ads. Mobile developers’ blogs - at least some of them - get attention from major sites. There’s even a book coming out called Starting an iPhone Application Business For Dummies. (Don’t believe me? Here it is).

I used to spend about 20 minutes each morning reading enough mobile sites to keep up with any news and changes. Now it’s more like 90 minutes, and I’m sure I’m not reading half of what I should be.

We’re selling software for prices that we wouldn’t have even considered 18 months ago. While desktop app prices haven’t changed, the “99 Cent” pricing model of the App Store places mobile app prices at about 5% of what they used to be.

I am inundated with calls and emails from people who want us to put our apps in their stores, outsource our development to them, or buy ads on their sites. (Guys, here’s a hint. If you send me an email and I say I don’t want a phone call, I mean it. If you leave me alone, I’ll keep your info on file. If you call anyway, I’ll toss it.)

Mobile developers’ expectations of software distribution have completely changed as well. While we used to accept a distributor taking a commission of 60% of an app’s price (not happily, but we did accept that, having no good alternatives), 30% is now a de facto standard. And audience numbers that would have made us pretty excited in the past now seem pretty minor.

New mobile operating system and hardware releases are coming - and expected - at a much faster pace than ever before. What used to be considered a reasonable amount of time between hardware and OS upgrades is no longer acceptable.

Did all these changes happen because of Apple, and the success of the iTunes App Store? I think so. I can’t prove it, but we’ve been doing mobile software development - successfully - for over 12 years. The changes in the mobile world over last 14 months are nothing like anything that happened in the past.

Am I fan of every change? Of course not. But overall, I know that we as mobile developers have many more options than we ever have before. There’s a lot more potential for success, though I know that means that there’s also a lot more potential for failure.

What Apple’s changes have put in motion isn’t going to go away. I fully expect the next year will bring more and more demands on mobile developers, and more and more changes - big ones - in the mobile market. I expect we’ll see some of the established big companies fail, and some new ones succeed. Being smart and lucky won’t be nearly enough.

I predict interesting times.

eWallet for iPhone with Copy!

September 18, 2009 by Marc

eWallet for iPhone now lets you Copy your passwords and other information directly from the card face and FlexView. With this new update, you can tap and hold on any Card Face or FlexView text, and eWallet will pop up a Copy button. Click the button and the information from that field gets copied to the clipboard.

From there you can paste the information into Safari, Contacts, other cards, or any other application on the device that supports copy and paste!

You can get the new version by checking for updates under Applications in iTunes on your desktop or from the App Store on your iPhone and iPod touch!

The Myth of "Not My Problem"

September 2, 2009 by Marc

I’ve read some really interesting comments regarding the problems in the AppStore. One thing that came up a few times, however, is something like this: “Who cares? This sort of stuff has no impact on the consumer.” I’m posting today to explain why this is a myth - problems with the AppStore that developers are having directly and negatively impact the consumer.

If you’d like to hear why a silly icon rejection is a big deal to you, read on…

I’m not going to frame this with a lot of color text - let’s get right to the point.

1. No Features For You! Apple is preventing you, as a consumer, from getting upgrades and features you deserve. Right now, users of eWallet can’t use Copy & Paste because Apple delayed our update over an icon.

2. New Features OR AppStore Compliance Updates: You Choose This sort of stuff eats up developer time which in turn cheats you out of better products. Instead of focusing on things that will actually benefit our customers, we’re messing around playing AppStore acceptance games.

3. Diminishing Returns No matter how good a platform or outlet is, developers will only take so much. At some point the system become onerous enough that it makes more sense to focus on other markets. This is the long term cost of this sort of thing – and at some point there WILL be a powerful competitor.

4. Too Risky for Good Products Illogical, petty, and ever changing acceptance requirements will cause developers to think twice before making a major investment in an iPhone application. If you don’t know whether your app will even get in, you reduce your initial investment to protect yourself. That means you, as a consumer, end up with apps that don’t hold a candle to what a developer might have risked in a more stable environment.

None of these are speculation – in every case I’ve seen it happen in the AppStore already, or in the case of #3, I’ve seen it happen on other platforms. And remember, the problem they are talking about isn’t just about us – this is affecting numerous developers.

So yes, these little and seemingly silly issues have a VERY REAL COST to the consumer. It’s easy to think “Meh, not my problem.” but in the end (as always) the consumer is the one who pays the price.

New Wave of Apple Rejections - Including eWallet!

August 31, 2009 by Marc

Apparently someone is on a graphics kick over at the Apple iPhone app approval center. Thanks to the iPhone card icon in our application, Apple has rejected the eWallet update. Even though the icon has been there since we released eWallet (the week the AppStore went live), apparently the icon is now a problem so we have to remove it.

We aren’t the only ones running into this sort of thing lately. The folks over at TapBots ran into almost the same thing- an icon that’s been in their app for ages that Apple has suddenly decided is a problem. Like I said, it seems more like an “issue du jour” than a real problem.

Still, like TapBots pointed out, we’ll go ahead and pull the iPhone card icon (sorry to those of you using it) because we know there isn’t anything we can do and we want to stay in the AppStore. The frustrating thing is that it took weeks to find this out and may take weeks to find out if the change we make is good enough. Crazy store requirements aren’t anything new - we’ve been dealing with those for years (and not just from Apple). What is a problem is this whole “wait a month to get your product out while Apple lumbers through the review process.”

Hey, Apple! Clean this process up, will ya?

Pinchgate: The Info Tracking Debate

August 20, 2009 by Marc

I’m a stickler for privacy, so the recent furor over Pinch Media’s analytics is really interesting to me. The debate (in a nutshell) is whether information gathered by companies like Pinch Media through iPhone applications, for the purpose of developer marketing, is spyware. I thought I’d take a second to toss in my own 2 cents on this issue.

So, for my take on the subject, read on after the jump!

As a little background, I’m one of those psychos who insists on approving every cookie in my browser manually. I really like control over my personal info. It’s not that I’m that worried about giving away my personal info, I do it all the time. My thing is that I want to very specifically choose who I give that information to.

That’s why I’m not a big fan of data collection without explicit notification. When I install something that is going to collect my personal data, including use patterns, location, hardware specs, or anything else, I want the software to ask me:

“Excuse me, Mr. Tassin. Would it be acceptable if we collected your personal information?”

When a software company, website, etc. that I like and trusts asks me this, I always say “Yes.” I WANT them to be successful, and if my personal data will help I’m happy to provide it. On the other hand, if a piece of software I know very little about, a website I’m not likely to visit again, or another unknown entity wants this information, I always say “No.”

For me, the debate isn’t about whether collecting information is a good idea, whether the parties involved will use it wisely, or even what information is collected. For me, the debate is all about “Did You Ask Me First?” If the answer is “Yes,” then I have no problem with it. Keep up the good work!

If the answer is “No,” then we have a problem since at that point you really ARE spying on me, no matter how ethically you use the data you’ve collected.

NOTE: Ilium Software does not automatically collect any user data at this time. We encourage software registration and ask some optional questions, but we use no automated collection tools. We appreciate the value of automated data collection and may consider doing so in the future, but as Product Manager I would only do so in combination with a clear opt-in policy.