Apple hasn’t really been in good standing with developers as of late. But, this recent removal of 5,000 or so sexually explicit applications is especially troublesome. I’m still unsure as to how I really feel about whether or not the applications should have been in the App Store to begin with. I tend to lean towards no, however I think a better compromise would be to keep the apps in the App Store but only allow them to be accessed via direct links from with your web browser. But beyond that, it worries me that Apple is willing to remove applications in such large quantities on a whim.

It must be terribly unsettling (to say the least) that a developer can have an application in the App Store for nearly a year and a half only to wake up to an email informing them that it has been removed.

We’re not just talking about people developing applications in their spare time and making a little extra money while continuing to have day jobs, at this stage in the game there are more and more developers making a full-time income from the App Store. This isn’t just Apple pulling the plug on these developer’s applications, this is Apple completely removing their entire income and their ability to pay their bills.

If I was a developer with an application in the App Store, regardless of it’s subject matter, I would be incredibly concerned with the way Apple treats the developers that have made the App Store as successful as it is.

John Gruber puts it best:

What developers see is that the App Store is a shaky foundation upon which to build a business. One day you’re prospering, the next day your app is gone. There are awesome iPhone OS apps that aren’t being built because developers don’t trust Apple not to yank the carpet out from underneath them.

Apple appears to have a little more leverage than originally thought in regards to e-book pricing in the iBookstore.

Motoko Rich writes the following for the New York Times:

according to at least three people with knowledge of the discussions, who spoke anonymously because of the confidentiality of the talks, Apple inserted provisions requiring publishers to discount e-book prices on best sellers — so that $12.99-to-$14.99 range was merely a ceiling; prices for some titles could be lower, even as low as Amazon’s $9.99.

What this means is that if a book is released to the iBookstore at $14.99, if that book hits one of the best-seller lists it would be discounted to $12.99 or less.

From Neven Mrgan’s tumbl:

In landscape orientation, anything between 4:3 and 2.39:1 feels natural to humans. Now switch to portrait – 16:9 feels pretty weird. […] Every aspect ratio is a compromise. If a device is ever to be used in portrait mode – and my guess is that people will use the iPad in this book-like mode most of the time – that compromise must result in something closer to 4:3.

Neven has published an image of what the iPad would look like in 16:9. I can’t imagine Apple designing anything that looks this silly.

I’ve watched a few demos of Microsoft’s newly announced Windows Phone 7 Series and while I’m glad that Microsoft finally did something new, I’m not sure how I feel about the actual design of the software.

I’m glad that they finally decided to break backwards compatibility, especially since (whether Microsoft knows it or not) Windows Mobile died years ago. The lack of backwards compatibility might be the kick in the pants Windows Mobile developers needed to build better applications. Nothing helps developers build great software than an interesting platform to write for and this is certainly an interesting platform.

The most striking difference between Windows Mobile and Phone 7 Series is the home screen which uses tiles. I don’t really like the home screen as it doesn’t seem to fit with the design of the applications. While the home screen clearly indicates what can and can’t be tapped making use of the tiles, the typographic interface of the applications themselves doesn’t really differentiate between tappable, un-tappable, and swipe-able text with any type of visual cue.

I haven’t actually used the device and the experience could be completely different once I get my hands on it, but I don’t see the interface as being very inviting to use. It looks like it was designed as something to look at, but not something to interact with.

I’m happy that Microsoft finally built in Zune integration, but this is a predictable move, and I can’t imagine the amount of complaining that would occur if Microsoft didn’t build in Zune integration. Windows Mobile has never really had a great Microsoft-built desktop syncing interface and I hope that the Zune software will be that software.

Microsoft has been very hush hush regarding multi-tasking for this platform. The rumor is that Windows Phone 7 Series won’t have “true” multi-tasking, instead implementing it similarly to how Apple does. In other words, if there is multi-tasking it will likely only be enabled on the music app, email app, and a few other default apps.

One of the most interesting aspects of this announcement is that Microsoft will be setting minimum specs for handsets. This isn’t something Microsoft has really done in the past and will certainly help push the platform to where it needs to be. Microsoft will be dictating the aspect ratio of displays, Wi-Fi is required, AGPS is required, along with standards on what buttons you must have. My first worry here is that every manufacturer will be building essentially the same device. Competing based on price is exactly what’s plaguing the PC market — I don’t think this is the direction Microsoft needs to be going if they expect there to be any innovation. However, I might be eating my words if Microsoft continues to raise the minimum requirements of handsets and somehow manages to keep people interested with further software updates. I’m weary of these types of requirements but they could end up being a blessing in disguise (no matter how much handset makers hate them).

I think Microsoft did exactly what they needed to do in order to breathe new life into their stale mobile division. This is what Microsoft should have done years ago. It’s unfortunate that it took Apple and Google jumping into the cell phone game for Microsoft to finally do this. Microsoft is a software company filled with really smart developers — sometimes I just can’t understand why they’re unwilling to innovate unless someone else is beating them to the punch. It’s almost as if Microsoft can’t actually get anything done unless there is a sense of urgency.

I Came across Ephemera recently and as I said on Twitter, it blew my mind.

Ephemera is one of those applications that does one thing incredibly well. Ephemera syncs your saved items in Instapaper with your e-book reader. I’ve been using it with my Kindle but it will also work with Sony’s e-readers and pretty much any other device that is capable of reading HTML, Mobipocket or EPUB files.

Set up is simple, just give Ephemera your Instapaper credentials and you’re all set. Ephemera defaults to creating HTML files for each unread item, but you can also have the option to use Mobipocket or EPUB format which will sync your most recent 20 articles in one single file.

I’m currently using the Mobipocket format but Ephemera has a really neat feature when you’re using HTML files. When using the HTML format whenever an article is deleted from your e-reader it is automatically archived in Instapaper the next time you sync your device.

The app was already good enough but the next couple of options is what really got me excited: “automatically sync after connecting” and “disconnect after syncing.” I have both of them checked, now when I plug in my Kindle Ephemera grabs the latest 20 articles from Instapaper, transfers them to my Kindle, and disconnects. Absolutely perfect.

The wildly popular game for PC and Mac has come to the iPhone. Plants vs. Zombies hit the App Store early last week and it’s no coincidence that it was released roughly the last time I wrote here.

I’ve been spending a significant amount of time playing this game, which is good and bad. The game is fantastic, it’s a kind of tower defense game in which you build plants that fend off your house from zombies. This game might be too good, it’s one of those games that you download, start playing, and the next time you look up three hours have gone by.

The game is developed by PopCap Games, the same guys who brought you Bejeweled and Peggle. Plants vs. Zombies is fun, addicting, and challenging. The controls work perfectly — this is exactly the kind of game that works well on the iPhone.

My only gripe is that you have to complete adventure mode before quick play is unlocked. But, aside from that I suggest you pick up the game, unless you’d actually like to get work done over the next week.

Plants vs. Zombies – $2.99

Jesper of Waffle Software writes this regarding Google Buzz:

One of the things I hate about Gmail is that it tries to leverage synergies. Not across the enterprise, mind you, but always across my address book. The address book that it stuck everyone you ever exchanged emails with on. The address book that suddenly saw your stupid status messages and cluttered your buddy list. And now the address book that automatically hooks together everyone’s intertubular facetweets into one big list and sticks it in your face.

Jesper is exactly right, and this is precisely the reason I’m beginning to dislike Google. I don’t have a problem with them introducing Buzz. But, when it’s force feed to Gmail users the way it has been, that’s when I start to get ticked off. Email is inherently a private communication tool and it doesn’t make sense for Google to duct tape a public broadcasting feature onto it.

Feature creep is why I stopped using Google Reader. Google Reader doesn’t even feel like a reader anymore — what exactly is the difference between “starring” and “liking” an item? And, why does “share” and “share with note” have to be two separate buttons?

Luckily Buzz is much easier to disable then it was at launch. But, this doesn’t make up for the terrible job Google did at launching the product. And, their excuse of under-testing is absolutely ridiculous. Google has thousands of engineers and developers, not to mention a labs section in Gmail that could have easily housed Buzz until it was ready for prime time.

Google made the decision to launch Buzz immediately hooking directly into Gmail. If they didn’t expect backlash they were as ignorant as they come.

9 to 5 Mac has published a video to their YouTube account showing a walkthrough of Safari on the iPad.

Some observations:

• I absolutely love the bookmark bar. I must have missed this feature because I hadn’t seen it before. But, with more screen real estate comes great features like this.
• Google suggestions looks really handy and will help alleviate some of the frustrations that will come from the software keyboard.
• The text replacement feature is going to be huge — I can’t wait for it on the iPhone.

A week or so ago I was pointing something out to my girlfriend on our MacBook. After pointing it out I did something stupid, I placed my finger on the screen and attempted to scroll to the top of the page to point something else out.

Users — especially iPhone users — are ready for this type of interaction with the web.

From the Official Google Blog:

We’re planning to build and test ultra high-speed broadband networks in a small number of trial locations across the United States. We’ll deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today with 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections. We plan to offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people.

Even if Google’s service doesn’t make it to everyone, I hope it at least convinces companies like Comcast and Time Warner to finally upgrade their infrastructure.

Apple has placed a job posting on their website, the title of which is “Performance QA Engineer, iPad Media.” From the description:

The Media Systems team is looking for a software quality engineer with a strong technical background to test still, video and audio capture and playback frameworks. Build on your QA experience and knowledge of digital camera technology (still and video) to develop and maintain testing frameworks for both capture and playback pipelines.

There’s a strong indication that a future version of the iPad will have a camera.

Dan of UNEASYsilence was asked the following question:

Hey, I have an iPhone that I play games on. If I get an iPad in addition to the iPhone, what happens to my game data? Does it stay in sync?

One would assume that Apple has considered the possibility that a lot of iPad owners would also own an iPhone. I hope Apple plans to introduce some sort of application data syncing feature to the SDK. But, I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple just tells developers to sync app data with the cloud.

Anyone who has tried to use multiple computers knows how difficult it is to prepare for a long trip. You end up spending hours making sure that you have all the stuff on your laptop that you’ll need. Transferring files over the network is easy these days but the difficult part is deciding what you’ll need and what you can leave behind.

Apple has built Back to Mac which does indeed help considerably when you happen to forget something, but you have to pay for MobileMe to make use of it. I happen to use MobileMe to keep my calendar in sync between my iPhone and my iMac (Find my iPhone is worth the price alone). But for most, MobileMe just isn’t worth paying for.

Many people have decided that the best way to avoid that entire issue is to use a notebook as their primary computer. While this is certainly a fantastic option there are many downsides to using a notebook rather than a desktop. A lot of it has to do with the ugly setup that is a result of connecting all of the things (external hard drive, TV tuner, Turbo.264, etc.) that you’d like to have connected all the time. From my experience, one of two things happens as a result of this. Either the notebook sits on the desk and lives there until you have to go on a trip or you end up having to disconnect and reconnect everything when you want to use it on the couch.

Using a notebook as my primary computer has never really worked out that well for me. I just end up frusrated with the lower performance, higher cost, smaller screen, etc. Instead I prefer a beefier desktop (currently an iMac) with a slower, lighter notebook computer (currently a first generation white MacBook) that is used on the couch and on trips.

But, now we get back to the problem of keeping things in sync. What’s most interesting about the whole keeping-things-in-sync situation is that I’ve never had this problem with my iPhone. I use my iPhone for many tasks that I previously would have used my notebook for. But trying to figure out what I’ll need on my iPhone for a trip isn’t a problem at all.

Apple has always made syncing with their devices easy, iTunes is simply the best application for syncing mobile devices, ever.

I am consider a change to my computing situation this spring or summer. Instead of using an iMac and a MacBook, I have a strong feeling the MacBook will be replaced by an iPad. Not just because it will be able to do everything I need a notebook to do but also because it will make my life easier. When I go on a trip I’ll just plug in the iPad, hit a few check boxes, click the sync button, and I’m ready to go. The painful process of making sure I have everything I need won’t be a problem anymore.

Some may consider the iPad to be a device for their parents because of it’s simplicity, but I see it as the perfect secondary computer.

From the iPad features on Apple’s web site:

The iBooks app is a great new way to read and buy books. Download the free app from the App Store and buy everything from classics to best sellers from the built-in iBookstore.

A lot of people (including myself) missed this from the Apple event. This is an interesting development as it means that iBooks will be on equal ground with other e-book readers in the App Store.

Not only does this mean that Apple will be able to update iBooks much more frequently than if it were tied to OS updates, it also means that Apple will have a fantastic example of in-app purchases to show off to developers.

It also leaves the door open for iPhone and iPod touch support in the future (if not at launch).

I’ve decided to remove comments from this site. The internet has reached a point where the majority of those who leave comments want to speak directly to the writer, are spammers, or are people trying to push their own products.

Don’t get me wrong, there are still times when meaningful conversations take place in comments, but it’s so rare anymore. Most of the meaningful conversations take place over email, on Twitter, Facebook, WordPress, or Blogger. These tools are so easy to use now that comment systems just feel like black holes.

This has nothing to do with the comments I have been receiving lately, as many of them have been fantastic. It has more to do with my opinions about the web and how web sites should run. I want to own as much of my web site as I can and think that Twitter, Facebook, and your own weblog are much better place for continued discussion.

I started writing online because I thought I had opinions that others would be interested in. I still want to hear what you think and if you’d like to comment on something I write feel free to email me at mike@initialcharge.net.

Matt Buchanan writing for Gizmodo:

I talked to Fusion Garage CEO Chandra, who said they’re not only getting another round of investing, they’ve struck a deal [with] CSL Group, Malaysia’s largest OEM—they make fabulous BlackBerry knockoffs called Blueberrys—to cover their full outgoing manufacturing cost in exchange for revenue sharing. In other words, CSL’s covering the cost to make the tablet (which is being made by one of the “top three or four” Taiwanese OEMs, according to Chandra), and CSL gets a slice of cash from every JooJoo sold. […] The other big news is that they’re planning on opening a web app store. Chandra says that one of the iPad’s advantages over JooJoo was the App Store, which made app discovery easy through categorization.

Sounds to me like Fusion Garage went from making an innovative (yet barely useful) device to making the equivalent of an iPad knockoff.

No matter who is right in the spat between TechCrunch and Fusion Garage, it’s hard to take the guys at Fusion Garage seriously.

Stuart Parmenter:

The Adobe Flash plugin used on many sites degraded the performance of the browser to the point where it didn’t meet our standards.

Looks like Apple isn’t the only one that’s unhappy with Flash’s performance. Are we all going to start complaining about Firefox for Maemo now?

(Via Daring Fireball.)

Last week Google pushed an update to Nexus One owners that enabled multi-touch in the browser, maps, and photo gallery applications.

From Google’s Nexus One weblog:

Nexus One users will begin to receive an over-the-air software update on their phones. This update provides some great new features, and fixes a few problems that some users might have experience

Apple continues to be one of the incredibly few, if not only, handset makers that requires you to update the device manually using your computer. The downside is that you have to connect it to perform the update. But, I still think Apple has chosen the right path. Not only can users update their device immediately following availability, you also get the satisfaction of knowing that your iPhone is always backed up before any and all firmware updates.

Apple Developer Connection:

If you build your application with features based on a user’s location, make sure these features provide beneficial information. If your app uses location-based information primarily to enable mobile advertisers to deliver targeted ads based on a user’s location, your app will be returned to you by the App Store Review Team for modification before it can be posted to the App Store.

Smart move in my opinion. Users get that pop-up window asking to use their current location with the expectation that the app will use that information for actual features not just targeted ads.

Ken Case:

We’re really excited about Apple’s iPad, and we want to make all of our products available for it as soon as we can.  Yes, we already had a big year planned for 2010, with several long-anticipated major product releases—but we think iPad is really important:  important enough to spend some time juggling our plans to figure out how we can introduce five new iPad apps.

Yes.  Five.  We want to bring all five of our productivity apps to iPad:  OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner, OmniPlan, OmniFocus, and OmniGraphSketcher.

iWork and the Omni Group’s apps are just the beginning, the iPad is going to be a big deal for productivity apps.

It’s been a week since Apple announced the iPad and some have started to realize that the images of the iPad’s home screen are missing several icons. More specifically Weather, Clock, Stocks, Voice Memos and Calculator are all missing (iBooks is also missing but it is likely a late addition that simply didn’t make the deadline for inclusion in the promotional material for January’s unveiling).

When Apple first announced the iPhone at Macworld Expo 2007, Steve Jobs proudly announced that the iPhone had widgets. At that time Weather, Stocks, and Calculator were all built in HTML and JavaScript. Apple scrapped the idea before launch and the idea of widgets on the iPhone was never heard from again. I have often wondered why Apple decided to abandon widgets on the iPhone, given the iPhone’s screen size, widgets seem like the perfect fit. I assume (and John Gruber has been informed by his sources) that it is mostly due to performance concerns — HTML and JavaScript just can’t render as quickly as native code.

It’s very possible that Apple could be moving back to widgets in iPhone OS, but on the iPad. The applications listed above would work perfectly as widgets and they are exactly the kind of apps that you want to have access to at all times.

Charles Ying points out that Apple didn’t reveal the YouTube app on the iPhone until 9 days before it’s release. If Apple were to announce dashboard widgets for the iPad it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest for them to wait as long as they could before announcing it.

I must give credit to Kevin Fox for first mention the idea of dashboard widgets on the iPad, but I don’t know if his idea of implementation is quite there yet. Instead of a five-finger pinch gesture, wouldn’t it be more natural for Apple to add this as another option for the double-click home button shortcut? I see the other options for that shortcut to be practically useless on the iPad, especially if it has widgets. The current options on the iPhone are Home, Search, Phone Favorites, Camera, and iPod. Because of hardware limitations the iPad wouldn’t need phone favorites or camera and I could easily see the other options implemented as widgets themselves (with the home option simply being replaced with the ability to disable widgets altogether).

Just like the addition of Push Notifications, dashboard widgets will be the way Apple quiets those complaining about multi-tasking on the iPad. Dashboard widgets are unobtrusive and easy on the battery life. As Kevin Fox puts it:

It might not be OS multitasking but it’s user multi-tasking and, unlike running several apps simultaneously, it behaves nicely. OS X dashboard widgets sit quietly when the dashboard’s not up and make their calls and updates quickly when the dashboard is called up.

This is exactly the kind of thing Apple would do. And as an added bonus, Apple might be able to leverage the ever-growing catalog of Dashboard widgets for Mac OS X.

Imagine downloading the same dashboard widgets you currently use on your Mac and installing them on your iPad to be called up while running any application, simply by double clicking the home button.

Update 2/11/10: It turns out that iBooks isn’t bundled with the iPad at all. Instead, the app will be available in the App Store.

Craig Hockenberry seems to agree with me in regards to multi-tasking:

There’s an inherent benefit to only doing one thing at a time: the load of worrying about other tasks is lifted. Knowing that there isn’t anything else competing for your attention is quite liberating. […] I suspect that we’ll all benefit from working in Pages, Numbers and Keynote without the distractions of the web, Twitter or chat. And in the long run, we’ll prefer it.

He gets it.

My favorite mac notes app, Notational Velocity, was recently updated to version 2.0 beta 2. With the new release came some great improvements including a new icon by Colin Cody and better synchronization with WriteRoom/SimpleText.ws. But, the best new feature of all is that Notational Velocity now includes built-in Simplenote syncing.

Simplenote happens to be my favorite iPhone notes application, it is drop dead simple and the interface is super clean. I’ve been using Notational Velocity off and on since I heard about it early last year. The lack of this exact feature is what has kept me from using it full time, instead using Simplenote’s web app because of the syncing.

With this new feature, Notational Velocity just became invaluable to me.

The complaints about the lack of background apps never ends. It’s surprising really, you’d think everyone would have gotten it out of their system the first time Apple released a product that didn’t allow you to run multiple apps at once. And guess what? The iPhone and iPod touch are both wildly successful.

The argument against the iPad usually starts by mentioning that it is pitched to replace a netbook, sitting between the cell phone and laptop. Then the writer usually goes on and on about how they can’t imagine being able to get anything done on a device that doesn’t allow you to run two things at once. The argument is often finished off by mentioning the software keyboard.

We’ve had the iPhone’s keyboard for two and a half years, it works just fine, get over it. The iPad keyboard will be different, but given enough time (just like the iPhone) you’ll get used to it and speed and accuracy will inevitably increase.

Now on to the multi-tasking issue. I hate to break it to you but the way to really get stuff done is to do one thing at a time. Why do you think applications like Spirited Away, Doodim, and WriteRoom exist? Their developers and users understand that the best way to actually get things done on a computer is to get rid of all the distractions.

Think about it, I mean really think about it, aside from all the “walk and chew gum scenarios” when are you actually productive at doing two things at once? Your not. Doing your best work requires focus, the iPad will help you do that.

Even the majority of scenarios brought up in favor of multi-tasking are moot, though. If you want to have your email client open in the background, you don’t have to, just set Mail to check for new email every 15 minutes. If you want to have an IM client open at all times, enable push notifications. If you want to listen to music, open the iPod app and hit play.

The best argument I’ve heard in favor of Apple allowing background apps has been the idea of running a third-party music app while using another application. This scenario is probably the only valid one I’ve heard. If you use a service like Rhapsody, it would be nice to listen to that music on the iPad and still be able to use other applications. I’m still convinced that Apple will debut a subscription service some time in the future but in the mean time this still isn’t a problem. Apple fully expects you to have your iPhone or another handset with you when using the iPad. You can’t listen to Rhapsody on the iPad while browsing the web on the same device but it doesn’t matter because you can listen to that same content on your iPhone while browsing the web on the iPad.

Another good argument in favor of multi-tasking is put best by Milind Alvares on Smoking Apples:

On a desktop computer, I would have a Safari web page open in one window, and floating beneath or beside it, is a TextEdit window. I can research multiple articles using different tabs, all the time copying stuff over to TextEdit for my research.

Milind brings up the fact that you can jump between applications from the home screen, pointing out that most applications save state when the home button is pressed. But, it’s also worth mentioning that Mobile Safari allows you to have 8 windows open at once, one of those could be a text editor in the form of a web app.

Regardless of whether you “need” to be able to multi-task, how do you plan to actually get anything done with all these distractions and interruptions? All those push notifications and new mail alerts aren’t helping your productivity. I have my “Fetch New Data” setting set to manual and it has been that way for two years. I want to know if I have new email when I check it, not when I’m browsing the web, or waiting in line at the bank, or shopping at the grocery store. I’ll check it when I have time to deal with it.

But beyond my email settings, I have been spending a large portion of my time with computers trying to get rid of all the excess stuff, so that I can actually do what I sat down in front of the desk to do. I suggest that everyone tries this at some point in their life. After just a short period of time, you’ll be amazed at how little you miss those alert tones and notifications. And when you turn all that stuff back on, you might just realize that they’re just plain annoying.

Google claims that you can store up to 8,192,000 photos from a 5MP camera in Picasa Web Albums. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case.

Picasa Web Albums has some interesting limitations. you are limited to 1,000 photos in an album and 1,000 albums per account. That means that no matter what quality the image, it’s impossible to save more than 1,000,000 photos in Picasa Web Albums.

Alex Chitu writing in Google Operating System:

Of course, Google might say that the photos can also be stored using Google Docs or Gmail. Picasa Web Albums has to remove the limitations, improve photo uploading and the way you organize photos. Why do you have to upload photos to an album when Gmail and Google Docs use labels to organize messages and files?

Benjamin Edelman:

In this article, I provide evidence calling into question the ability of users to disable Google Toolbar transmissions. I begin by reviewing the contents of Google’s “Enhanced Features” transmissions. I then offer screenshot and video proof showing that even when users specifically instruct that the Google Toolbar be “disable[d]”, and even when the Google Toolbar seems to be disabled (e.g., because it disappears from view), Google Toolbar continues tracking users’ browsing.

Maybe Steve Jobs is right and “don’t be evil is a load of crap.”