Apple Archive

Since 2006, Jonathan "Wolf" Rentzsch has organised the popular and successful C4 developer conference for independent Mac software developers. In a blog post published yesterday, Rentzsch announced that due to Apple's infamous section 3.3.1 in the iPhone developer agreement, the C4 conference will not return this year.

"So NPD says smartphones running Google's Android are outselling Apple's iPhone in the United States. What does Apple think about NPD's claim? Not much. Apple spokeswoman Natalie Harrison tells me the company isn't at all worried by the suggestion that Android sales in the US might have leapfrogged those of the iPhone."

Apple published the financial results for the latest quarter, and it's been stellar once again, best non-holiday quarter in company history. "Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2010 second quarter ended March 27, 2010. The Company posted revenue of $13.50 billion and net quarterly profit of $3.07 billion, or $3.33 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $9.08 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.62 billion, or $1.79 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 41.7 percent, up from 39.9 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 58 percent of the quarter's revenue."

"I finally got the iPhone/iPad port working. It was ridiculously difficult, because I refused to fork the Mac OS X code base: the desktop and the phone are both supposedly within spitting distance of being the same operating system, so it should be a small matter of ifdefs to have the same app compile as a desktop application and an iPhone application, right? Oh ho ho ho. I think it's safe to say that MacOS is more source-code-compatible with NextStep than the iPhone is with MacOS."

While we were al busy getting knickers in twists over section 3.3.1 of the new iPhone developer agreement, Apple hoped to sneak another, possibly more far-reaching change past us. All Things Digital, however, got hold of section 3.3.9, which could effectively kill all third party ad networks - granting an insurmountable advantage to Apple's own iAd network.

The international iPad launch has been postponed by a month, due to unexpected demand in the US. "Faced with this surprisingly strong US demand, we have made the difficult decision to postpone the international launch of iPad by one month, until the end of May. We will announce international pricing and begin taking online pre-orders on Monday, May 10. We know that many international customers waiting to buy an iPad will be disappointed by this news, but we hope they will be pleased to learn the reason - the iPad is a runaway success in the US thus far."

The backlash is starting to show. The most recent change in Apple's iPhone developer agreement isn't going down well. The change is clearly aimed at increasing lock-in, and seems to have little to nothing to do with anything else. While individual developers are hit hard, Adobe as a whole has been hit pretty hard too, giving rise to sentiments on the web that Adobe should abandon Mac development. I have the sneaking suspicion this is exactly what Apple is aiming for.

John Gruber has found out that cross-compilers are no longer allowed in iPhone OS 4.0. "My reading of this new language is that cross-compilers, such as the Flash-to-iPhone compiler in Adobe's upcoming Flash Professional CS5 release, are prohibited. This also bans apps compiled using MonoTouch - a tool that compiles C# and .NET apps to the iPhone. It's unclear what this means for tools like Titanium and PhoneGap, which let developers write JavaScript code that runs in WebKit inside a native iPhone app wrapper. They might be OK."

Even we are eager with iPad news - especially this variety. How long has the iPad been out and about in the US? A day or so? Yeah, pretty much. That's all it took: the iPad has already been jailbroken. Rooted. This means that if you didn't plan on buying the iPad because you don't want to be shackled to Apple, and were waiting for a jailbreak, you won't have to wait long.

Yeah, just in case people think we forgot: Apple launched its iPad today. It's just that since the rest of the web is pretty much clogged with iPad "news" items at this point, I don't really know what to add; who'd you rather hear from, someone who owns one, or someone like me, the small orphan child pressing his face to the glass of a candy shop full of delight he can't afford (because he lives in the wrong country)? About the only meaningful item I've seen today is Engadget's iPad review, so let's take a quick look at that one.

Back in late January, Apple unveiled its iPad (in case you missed it), an iPhone OS-powered tablet device which it said would ship later this year. Well, the Cupertino company is holding true to its promise, and has unveiled the pre-order and shipping dates of the iPad.

"Apple has allegedly been pressuring music labels to ditch Amazon MP3's 'Daily Deal' promotions, lest they be excluded from being promoted through the iTunes machine. According to anonymous executives speaking to Billboard, Apple has always been uncomfortable with the labels double dipping with both iTunes and Amazon, but the company has ramped up its complaints lately in an attempt to retain its lead in the online music market. Though Apple still remains in the number one spot among all music retailers, the move is indicative that Apple takes competition from Amazon very seriously." Apparently iTunes has a 70% market share... Doesn't that make this kind of, well, monopoly abuse? Reminds me of Intel's rebates for OEMs to not use AMD.

Now that Apple has unveiled the iPad, people are wondering what the future holds for the iPhone OS platform and the concepts behind it. The iPad comes scarily close to being an actual computer in the more classical sense of the word, and a recent Apple job posting seems to indicated the Cupertino giant is interested in further moving the iPhone OS up the ladder. We ask you: would you be put off or excited about the iPhone OS' restrictive model moving up the stack?

"Apple recently began purging over 5000 'overtly sexual' apps from the App Store after customer complaints caused Apple to reverse a policy that had allowed such apps to be approved. The New York Times recently asked Apple's SVP of worldwide marketing, Phil Schiller, to explain the reasoning behind the decision, and he says that it's all about the children. However, there might be a double standard if you are an 'established brand' such as Playboy or Sports Illustrated. The uneven application of constantly changing standards is a problem for developers and users alike, and continues to be a thorn in Apple's side."