Category: iOS

All things iPhone and iPad

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Losing iReligion

A great deal has been written about the App Store, both good and bad, and much of it comes from developers I know and respect. It almost seems pointless to add my own thoughts to those who are more widely known and respected than I am, but given how my feelings have evolved regarding the App Store recently I think it’s worth a shot. If what I have to say gives a potential iPhone developer reason pause and re-examine their entry into the space then it will have been worth it.

The App Store is broken. I know from the outside glancing in, it may not look that way but it is. It also doesn’t seem like it’s broken from Apple’s point of view since the store and its tens of thousands of software titles have helped place the iPhone firmly at the head of the smart phone industry. But speaking as a small developer who’s been releasing Mac software for over a decade, the App Store is broken. The ironic part is that if you had asked me this a few months ago I would have denied it with my dying breath.

Since it first launched in July of 2008, the App Store has been evolving and changing to suit the needs of both Apple and consumers. Unfortunately for developers many of these changes have hurt more than they have helped. The utter race to the bottom of the pricing structure by thousands of developers has created tremendous pressure to set applications at either free or near free price points. I know this first hand because when Twitterrific for the iPhone first debuted we set it’s price at $9.95 which, by today’s App Store standards, is almost unheard of. It wasn’t long before lagging sales and increased pressure from competition forced the Iconfactory to lower the application’s price to $3.99, still “expensive” by App Store standards. Not only was the price lowered, but the feature set was more than doubled and yet many users still complain it costs too much. While these changes represent perks for users, it also means that sustaining profitability for a given piece of software in the App Store is nearly impossible unless you have a break-away hit.

This leads me to the next point of failure for the App Store – visibility. Everyone has heard about the so-called “gold rush” certain developers have experienced. Flight Control’s 1.5 mil sales record. Trism’s incredible $250,000 short-term bonanza. But for every one of these lottery wins in the store, there are hundreds, if not thousands of developers who see little if any return on their investments of time and money. What’s worse, the success or failure of a particular piece of software in the App Store depends as much on Apple deciding to feature your creation as the creation itself. One can shift the tables in one’s favor with a sizable advertising budget, but many of us like the Iconfactory don’t have such generous resources at our disposal.

When the Iconfactory & DS Media Labs released our latest iPhone game, Ramp Champ, we knew that we had to try and maximize exposure of the application at launch. We poured hundreds of hours into the game’s development and pulled out all the stops to not only make it beautiful and fun, but also something Apple would be proud to feature in the App Store. We designed an attractive website for the game, showed it to as many high-profile bloggers as we could prior to launch and made sure in-app purchases were compelling and affordable. When the moment came, Ramp Champ shot up the charts quickly but just as quick, it hit a brick wall. Within days the app that had peaked at #56 on the top paid chart fell off the top 100 despite receiving praise from users and reviewers alike. The lack of store front exposure combined with a sporadic 3G crashing bug conspired to keep Ramp Champ down for the count.

A new version that corrected crashing was completed quickly, but once again the App Store reared it’s broken head as the review process kept the fix out of user’s hands for almost two weeks. By this time it was too late and momentum had been lost. Despite a “What’s Hot” feature by Apple in the App Store, Ramp Champ’s sales have not lived up to expectations for either the Iconfactory or DS Media Labs. What’s worse, many of the future plans for the game (network play, online score boards, frequent add-on pack releases) are all in jeopardy because of the simple fact that Ramp Champ hasn’t returned on its investment.

In order for a developer to continue to produce, they must make money. It’s a pretty simple concept and one that tends to get lost in the excitement to write for the iPhone. It’s difficult for me to justify spending 20-50 hours designing and creating new 99¢ levels for Ramp Champ when I could be spending that time on paid client work instead. I would much rather be coming up with the sequel to Space Swarm than drawing my 200th version of a magnifying glass icon. But I’d also like to have some assurances from Apple about reducing the length of the App Store approval process, having the ability to respond to factually incorrect iTunes reviews, not be limited to 100 beta testers, or that large, prominent developers won’t always get preferential treatment. In short, I’d like to know things will be fixed and I don’t mean merely posting a page of marketing text in iTunes Connect.

It is a truism that everyone who creates content is a control freak. From fine artists that decide what gallery their work will hang in, to architects who scratch tooth and claw with stubborn clients about what materials will be used in construction. Software developers are no different. We all want as much control over our creations as we can possibly have and the App Store in it’s current state has removed a significant level of control from our hands. I’m not ready to throw my lot down with those who have renounced the platform just yet, but unless some significant changes come very soon, myself and others like me will have no choice but to focus our development efforts elsewhere.

UPDATE: Several developers have contacted me and told me privately that they think it isn’t so much the App Store that’s kept Ramp Champ from being a success as it is the game itself. Given the fact that Freeverse’s newly released and shallower ‘Skee Ball’ currently sits at #6 in Top Paid apps in the store, part of me wants to agree. I could second-guess myself about what didn’t go right with Ramp Champ but in my heart of hearts I know RC is better than 90% of the games that get to the top of the list. I have to keep telling myself that what doesn’t kill us will make us stronger in the end. Hopefully.

UPDATE II: Seems I’m not the only one cooling to the idea of developing for the iPhone. Macworld’s Dan Moren reporting from the C4 independent developers conference says many of the developers are frustrated at their lack of control in the App Store. I’m glad to know I’m not the only one.

UPDATE III: Marco Arment has written an excellent piece that addresses my post. I agree with much of the analysis there and tend to think that their may indeed be “two App Stores” so to speak. As a result of suggestions from both Marco and the commenters here, Ramp Champ’s vague app store description has been re-written and new screen shots posted to show more content. Thanks to everyone who suggested these changes, I think they will definitely help sales.

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Rolling the Hard Six

This week marks the release of the Iconfactory’s third piece of software for the iPhone platform, and only our second game – Ramp Champ. Ramp Champ is a fun twist on some of the carnival games you’ll remember from your childhood. The game was designed with love by the gang at the Iconfactory and implemented with skill by the talented folks at DS Media Labs. It’s been in the making for the better half of a year and the time has finally come to release it into the wild.

I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t have a huge case of stomach butterflies right about now. We’ve invested a ton of time and money in Ramp Champ and its relative success or failure will be determined within the next 2 weeks. I always get nervous before software releases, but more so when it’s something completely new. Unlike some other large developers, we don’t have a huge well of funds to dip into to develop our apps which makes writing for the iPhone something akin to playing the lottery. We always do our best to design and implement applications that we think people will use and love, but until you actually get real feedback from users, you just don’t know.

When it comes to the App Store, it seems that the success of a particular application has as much to do with luck as it does with blood sweat and tears. I’ve seen apps I never thought even merited being in the store rise to the top despite poor quality or being based on a questionable premise. Meanwhile, defying all developer logic, some of the very best applications never rise above the top 25. Some are sandbagged by the perception of being “too expensive”, others get obscured by the meteoric rise of novelty “ringtoners” who inevitably take the App Store’s coveted top slots.

Talk to a bunch of iPhone developers and they’ll most likely tell you that everything being equal, success in the App Store is a crap shoot. You can push the odds in your favor by producing a high-quality piece of software, as well as offering it for next to nothing, but in the end fate feels like the final arbiter. I’m very proud of all of the guys, both at the Iconfactory and at DS Media Labs for putting together one heck of a fun game. Hopefully you will enjoy playing it just as much as we enjoyed creating it. No one would deny that producing applications for Apple’s iPhone isn’t risky, but as I’ve told myself again and again lately, without risk there can be no reward.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go chug a bottle of Pepto-Bismol.

UPDATE: Well, we’re over the release hurdle at this point and I’m feeling a lot better. Overall the reaction to Ramp Champ seems to be very positive, although we’re dealing with some memory issue that are causing crashes, particular for 1st Gen device users. The good news is we think we’ve ID’d the problem and should have a fix submitted to the App Store soon.

Thanks to everyone who’s posted or tweeted positive feedback about the game, it’s done my heart (and my stomach) a lot of good these past 2 days. If you’re interested in knowing what went into producing Ramp Champ, head on over to Louie’s blog for some insights. More to come!

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Mr. Jobs, Domino’s Calling!

I’ve recently discovered creating a successful iPhone application is a lot like baking a pizza. Take the best ingredients, like skillfully crafted code, bold and flavorful interface design and combine with a dash of love and you may end up with a delicious dinner. Unfortunately for App Store developers, once you’ve rolled the dough, spooned the sauce and added the toppings, the delivery process itself can often be frustrating.

Apple’s process of getting apps reviewed and posted to the App Store leaves much to be desired. Once submitted, we developers must sit back, cross our fingers and hope everything is in order so that the “pizza” makes it to your device in a timely fashion. One of the criticisms of the App Store in recent months is that it can take more than 2 weeks to have an app make it’s way through the review process, sometimes only to end in rejection. When this happens, the problem must be corrected, the app resubmitted and the developer goes to “the back of the line” and starts all over again.

Since most developers would rather have too much feedback rather than too little, one way to ease the pain of the review process would be to add more feedback. Developers love feedback, whether it comes in the form of bug reports, reviews, emails or simple sales figures. In the world of home pizza delivery, when it comes to awesome feedback, no one beats Domino’s.

When a customer orders a pizza from Domino’s online, they receive instant feedback on the status of their order via Domino’s über-cool pizza tracker. The tracker tells you where in the cycle of delivery your pie is, what time it started the last phase and who’s currently working on it. It may sound corny, but this is exactly the kind of feedback developers need when submitting software to the Apple App Store. Imagine a meter that outlines each part of the approval process with time and date annotations for each step. The App Tracker would be of enormous assistance to developers, ensuring proper completion of each part of the submission process. A developer could track their “pizza” as it made its way to the store and get a better sense of when to expect final delivery. It could also help Apple internally so they know what phase a particular application was last in if a problem arises.

Such a system would allow companies to better plan their product’s marketing efforts and direct their resources more efficiently. Not to mention reduce the level of stress associated with being left in the dark regarding your application’s approval. Apple recently implemented a small counter for developers to let them know what the average approval time for their applications are in iTunes Connect. This was a great first start, but I suspect that with a bit of love, and a few lessons from the folks at Domino’s, getting through the app store approval process could be as easy as pie.

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Losing Control

Anyone who’s worked for themselves knows the satisfaction of being in control of your own destiny. The perception that by sheer force of will and hard work, you can be successful at what you do. Those who take on the challenge of owning their own business are often considered “control freaks” and more often than not, perfectionists. I never really realized just how much of a control freak I was until this past weekend when, completely without warning, I had none.

Last Friday, the Iconfactory’s popular Twitter client, Twitterrific, fell victim to the so-called Twitpocalypse bug, which caused the mobile version of our application to suddenly stop working. Thanks to the efforts of our talented engineer, Craig Hockenberry, a fix for both versions of the client was submitted to the App Store within a day. To Apple’s credit, the free version of the fix was approved swiftly and allowed the majority of our users to continue tweeting with minimal interruption. And although the Premium version of the application was also approved in record time, the displeasure from our user base, not surprisingly, came even quicker.

From the moment the bug hit, both Talos and I had begun monitoring tweets of users mentioning Twitterrific in their posts. What started as a trickle, soon turned into a deluge of upset and frustrated users. We began responding to individual tweets and Travis, our project manager, responded to support emails. The Iconfactory is a small company, we’re not Adobe or Google or even the Omni Group. All three of us did our best to let users know what was going on, and thanks to hundreds of RTs, word started to spread about the bug and our efforts to combat it. Unfortunately, Twitter is a very big community and it was impossible to personally respond to everyone. Even now, there are many people on Twitter who don’t know why their copy of Twitterrific isn’t functioning and there is very little I can do about it.

The best we could hope for was that the majority of users followed @twitterrific and would eventually receive news about the fixes. The troublesome part is that although I know the majority of users now have a working version, I still feel uneasy knowing there are potentially thousands that don’t even know about the fix. Part of this is due to the lack of communication channels, and part is due to the nature of the App Store approval process. As developers, we must turn control of our applications over to Apple to have our iPhone software published. This process can take days or weeks and until it runs its course, our hands are quite literally tied. By the time updates are published it may already be too late.

All of us at the Iconfactory count ourselves lucky that Apple recognized the seriousness of the bug we were facing and pushed through the Twitterrific updates as quickly as they did. We know we messed up and we thank the App Store team for helping to pick us back up off the floor. That being said, I didn’t sleep much in the days after the bug hit because there was a part of me that knew hundreds of tweets were flying by every hour from Twitterrific users I was powerless to help. As with most control freaks this usually means even more work, more testing and more diligence to guard against these kinds of catastrophic failures in the future. But that’s okay with me since I’m not anxious to give up this level of control, or sleep, ever again.

A Bird in the Hand…

The recent release of Twitterrific 2 for the iPhone has reminded me that software development is replete with truisms. The primary thing I have to constantly remind myself is that, no matter what you do, or how hard you work, you simply cannot please everyone. Anyone who works in a creative field knows that there will always be those who are unsatisfied with the result.

For iPhone developers, these people usually fall into the “if it just had feature X, I would use it” category, but every so often you get someone who just poo-poos your efforts. It’s easy for devs to fall into the trap of trying to keep everyone happy, but years of experience have taught me that this is a losing battle. Development quickly builds into a sort of “features arms race” that usually ends with bloated software and burnt out programmers. No, the answer is to design first and foremost for yourself. If you can produce a piece of software that you are happy with, then chances are the majority of your users will be too. The trick is trust your gut enough to tell the difference between constructive feedback and the nay-sayers so you can move beyond them when it’s appropriate.

The other truism I’ve found is that there’s always room for improvement. The new posting user interface for Twitterrific 2 demonstrates this point perfectly. All through beta testing, the posting UI was the same as it was in version 1. If you wanted to change your update from one type of tweet to another, you had to toggle the tweet type using a single icon on the post bar. Although this method had served well since our initial launch, neither us nor the beta users were satisfied. Their feedback, combined with Louie’s desire to improve the posting experience challenged us to do it better. The result was a re-designed UI that fulfilled user’s desires for posting clarity while giving the Iconfactory a big new feature to tout. The amount of work required to pull off the revised posting interface so close to the end of the beta was intense, but ultimately worth it.

Lastly, if there is one axiom that Twitter has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt it’s simply that if you give an inch, the Twitterverse takes a mile. Lately I’ve been seeing more than a few requests for Twitterrific to support Twitlonger, a service that allows you to “expand” on the 140 character limit that is at the very heart of Twitter. The argument goes that allowing long updates to be read directly in-app is preferable to having to post multiple tweets. This may indeed be true, but I hesitate to support any service that, for lack of a better term, subverts Twitter. Brevity is the soul of wit, and in Twitter’s case, its lifeblood.

In my opinion, any update that can’t be held within Twitter’s 140 character limit should be taken offline to email, Facebook or Friendfeed. What’s the harm in supporting a great service like Twitlonger you ask? Seemingly none, except that Twitlonger is a very slippery slope. Imagine typing a tweet of any length right in Twitterrific. When the message length exceeds 140 characters, the app automatically creates web page entry where your followers can read your magnum opus. Sounds great, except its no longer Twitter, it’s called a blog. Given how easily such a feature would be abused (as is evidenced by the Twitterverse’s aggressive adoption of RT), I don’t see Twitlonger support in Ollie’s future.

As developers, all we can do is our best. Sometimes our best is good enough and sometimes it doesn’t cut the mustard. I’ve been very pleased with the positive reaction that Twitterrific 2 has been receiving from the Twitter community. There are updates coming that address some of the most requested issues from the initial 2.0 launch, but I have no illusions that even these updates will satisfy everyone. Not to mention all those people out there who are patiently waiting for an update to the Mac version of Twitterrific. To them, I offer one last proverb – Good things come to those who wait.

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Market Yourself An iParadigm

John Gruber over at Daring Fireball links to an intriguing piece by Paul Kafasis on the state of the App Store. The post compares Walmart’s strategy to sell disposable, cheap goods to those of App Store “ringtone” developers which are forcing down prices. My friend and business partner, Craig Hockenberry wrote about this very topic a few weeks ago in a piece that put him in the crosshairs of quite a few people.

After Craig’s piece was published, and indeed after reading the post by Kafasis, some are under the impression that more expensive “AAA” apps are doing just fine thank you very much. The theory goes that one only has to look at the App Store top 10 list to understand it’s not price that gets you into the top 10, but quality. This, plus marketing on the part of the developer are all that’s needed to boost your software into the top 10 of the App Store. Reading through the comment thread at Inside iPhone it all seems so simple. All a developer has to do is market their app and the rest will take care of itself! Why didn’t I think of that?

The part I love the most is that the people making the “just market your app!” comment have no real idea how much effective marketing costs. Oh sure, you can go far on viral and word-of-mouth marketing, but it all pales in comparison to even a small banner graphic in the App Store. The Iconfactory could spend tens of thousands of dollars buying up targeted advertising space to promote Frenzic, but it still wouldn’t be 1/10 as effective as the front page graphics that Dropship, Marley and Texas Hold’em are enjoying (for free) as I write this. Not only that, but I have no way to track metrics for advertising pointing at Frenzic in the App Store. I can’t gauge how effective a $75 blog ad versus a $2,600 DF sponsorship is because Apple doesn’t currently give me stats of people clicking through to my software. Anyone who says “Just market it!” doesn’t have a solid grasp on how the App Store works.

Another example is Rolando. People are holding this app up as the ultimate example of a quality, non ringtone app that is enjoying success in the store. It is true that Rolando is a fantastic game worthy of the top spot it once held. It is also true that Apple promoted Rolando from DAY ONE in the App Store with major graphics both in iTunes and on Apple.com. All that exposure helped to get Rolando into the top of the store when it launched. But its $9.99 price point is like an anchor. As I write this, Rolando sits at #30 in the top 100, and #10 in games. Let me repeat that. #10. In games.

So what is in the App Store top 10 right now? iFart Mobile is number one which is still riding high on a wave of PR thanks to being originally barred. Crash Bandicoot, which is featured in national Apple television spots is #2. Tetris, perhaps the most well-known video game in history, is #3. Three more ringtone apps come in as 4, 5 & 6 including the months old iBeer. Touchgrind, which also enjoyed prominent Apple billing, is #7. Bejeweled 2 is number 8, PocketGuitar ($.99) is #9 and SimCity rounds out the top 10. All of these apps either enjoyed uncommon press exposure, have a nationally known brand or are priced at $.99. Quality definitely plays a role in getting to the top, but price and “Apple love” play a larger part.

Does this all mean that developers like myself will abandon making quality iPhone applications like Twitterrific and Frenzic? Of course not. I just wish that people who think they know how the App Store works would admit that they really don’t. The App Store is still in flux and much is unknown. What I do know however is that there are key factors to getting to the top of the store, chief among them being price and exposure from Apple. No amount of 3rd party marketing, done on a small developer’s budget is going to change that simple fact. What’s worse (or better, depending on your point of view) is once you are in the top 10, even if you’re app is a “limited utility” ringtone app, because you’re in front of millions of eyeballs both on the device and in iTunes, you’re bound to stay there.

I don’t know exactly how to fix the App Store, but everyone I’ve spoken with agrees that it needs fixing. If not fixing, at least a change in how it favors certain apps while hindering others. The more we talk about this stuff, the better it will be for both developers and customers alike.

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Switching Hats

Back on December 1st, I put on my artist’s hat and wrote a post about the importance of icon design and how it shouldn’t be taken for granted or seen as an afterthought. The post garnered a fair amount of exposure and I received a great deal of positive feedback from designers and developers alike on the importance of icon branding and standing out in the App Store.

Near the end of the piece, I offered up this unassuming little opinion which has caused me a fair amount of stress these last few days:

“Lately, developers have taken to plastering “SALE” or “60% OFF!” within their icons. They’ve become lazy and let the iPhone software mar their design with glossy highlights which obscure efforts to brand their software. Fight the urge to cheapen your brand and instead give your icons the love and attention they deserve. You’ll still sell boat loads of copies and your users just might end up thanking you at the same time.”

What is the source of my distress? Over the course of the past week, the Iconfactory and ARTIS Software jointly agreed to put our game Frenzic on sale for the Christmas holiday. From the moment we launched the product, we had always planned on temporarily lowering the price for the holiday rush. When I wrote the original post I was unaware of the importance the app’s icon plays in marketing an online sale. I’m guessing you can probably see where this is heading. As the app went on sale today, it reluctantly sported a new badge. The same type of badge that I railed against in my original post.

If you care as much about icons and design as I do, then you’re probably asking yourself how I could allow something like this to happen. At first I couldn’t figure it out myself, and then it became very simple. I took off my “designer hat” and put on my other one… the one that says “business owner”.

The business owner in me doesn’t wrestle with many of the lofty ideals that my inner designer aspires to. Being a partner in a successful company sometimes means doing what’s best for the health and growth of the business, especially in today’s unsure economy. It’s easy to criticize someone’s design decisions when you’re on the outside looking in. You think you’ve got everything figured out, but then your app starts to sink off the App Store and suddenly nothing’s as simple as you thought.

Although I initially resisted calls to slap a “For sale” badge on our icon, I came to realize that it was one of the most important ways to get people who had previously dismissed Frenzic due to its $4.99 price tag to take another look. The change may not affect sales at all, but on the other hand, it may help to get Frenzic in front of more people’s eyes than ever before. If that means that I have to eat a hefty helping of crow in order for us to maximize our exposure in the App Store, then I say pass the ketchup.

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Why Icons Matter

I can’t tell you how many times in the course of my career as an icon artist that a client considered their icons to be an after thought. After spending hundreds of man hours and pouring thousands of dollars into software development, some clients just refuse to devote the attention needed to the glyphs that act as both button and branding. At the Iconfactory, we try and educate clients about the importance of icons and how they strengthen a company’s brand as well as communicate a product’s core concepts quickly and easily. It may sound like marketing fluff, but years of experience have taught me it’s the truth.

So when it comes to designing our icons for our own software products, we almost always end up obsessing over them. The redesign of the application icon for xScope went through nearly 20 different revisions before we settled on a final version. This time around, the drama was caused by the new icon for Frenzic for the iPhone.

Standing Out From The Crowd

When it came time to design the icon for Mobile Frenzic, we knew we wanted to use a 2D translation of the OS X version from the desktop. However, unlike Mac desktop icons which have a canvas size of 512×512 pixels, iPhone and iPod touch app icons are limited to 57×57 and look best when designed straight on. At first we decided to translate Frenzic.com’s fav icon which was a pie of green and orange wedges on a glossy black base. Early beta versions of Mobile Frenzic used this icon, but there was a problem. It just wasn’t eye catching.

Our artist, David Lanham, went back and added a neon-like inner glow that gave the impression of the icon being lit from within, like it was a piece of plexiglass. The results were effective and with the addition of a high-tech circuit board motif, I knew we had a winner. The icon both stood out on the iPhone’s home screen and did a wonderful job of branding “Frenzic” on the device. Despite these successes, there were those among us that thought it stood out a little too much.

As artists, we often get butterflies the first time we show a client our designs. In this case, the “client” was Frenzic creator and lead programmer, Wolfgang Ante. We’ve had a close working relationship with Wolfgang for years and even though he almost always loves everything we do “out of the box”, he was hesitant about the icon’s treatment. Both he, and our own lead programmer, Craig Hockenberry played devil’s advocate and thought that the glowing, high-tech icon might be too dissimilar to be effective. The design didn’t seem to follow conventional wisdom for iPhone app icons and we debated the pros and cons of the design.

In Expertise We Trust

The great thing about working at the Iconfactory is that we play to each other’s strengths. While I may have ideas about how a particular software feature might work, I trust in the skill and expertise of Craig and Wolfgang to pull off the actual programming. I often put my faith in their hands when it comes to coding, and likewise, they do the same for us when it comes to design. This is more than I can say for many of our clients who think they know best when it comes to icon design. Despite a client’s lack of experience of how icons communicate, where they are seen, or the technical details needed to pull them off, I often get lectured on how they should be rendered or what form they should take.

So, in their wisdom, Wolfgang and Craig set their hesitations aside and let the designers do their job. The result was a unique and compelling application icon that was simple to understand, easy to spot and visually unique from all other iPhone application icons. Maybe its even helped sell a few extra copies at the same time.

All too often icons are treated as second-class citizens, especially in the App Store. Lately, developers have taken to plastering “SALE” or “60% OFF!” within their icons. They’ve become lazy and let the iPhone software mar their design with glossy highlights which obscure efforts to brand their software. They use dull colors or pile on heaps of detail that just adds unwanted noise to an already cluttered array of choices. After the flashy ad pitches have faded, the icon still has to live on the user’s device and is often the first line of interaction with the product. Fight the urge to cheapen your brand and instead give your icons the love and attention they deserve. You’ll still sell boat loads of copies and your users just might end up thanking you at the same time.

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RIM: What, me worry?

There are very few surprises left in the world, so when something outside my experience comes along, I prick up and take notice. Lately the shock of the new comes in the form of commercials from Research In Motion (RIM), makers of the BlackBerry line of smart phones.

Before April of 2008, RIM never saw fit to advertise its products or services to the general public, instead relying on its core business of Enterprise users to carry them to profitability. Despite calls from BlackBerry surrogates to build brand awareness, RIM was content to go about their business confident that nothing could erode their firmly entrenced army of “CrackBerry addicts“.

Then came the iPhone.

When the iPhone was released in June of 2007, RIM CEO Jim Balsillie shrugged off Apple’s entry and denounced the iPhone as a light-weight consumer device that would have little, if any effect on their core business market. At first this might have been true, but as the success of the iPhone grew and owning a smart phone became “cool”, even Research In Motion could see the writing on the wall.

In June 2008 Apple released the second generation iPhone, the 3G and again the media reported that RIM “wasn’t worried” about the iPhone. Deon Liebenberg, regional director for RIM actually said that the iPhone’s release would be good for BlackBerry since “BlackBerry will offer a serious [Enterprise] solution that Apple can’t.” Strangely enough these comments came just about the time RIM aired its first consumer commercial to the public.

In September Research in Motion missed sales targets for the BlackBerry device despite having recently expanded their product offerings. The addition of new (and potentially confusing) models to its already complex product line includes a phone with no physical keyboard, something that Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis had publicly stated wasn’t for RIM. Now come commercials that profess the BlackBerry to be more than just a tool for corporate email and Enterprise calendering. RIM wants to be hip.

In the end, all of these developments increase competition, and that is a good thing. It spurs innovation, lowers prices and gets companies like RIM and Apple off their complacent asses to develop and market better products. RIM’s recent moves will hopefully spark improvements to the iPhone as well as encourage Apple to correct service problems with Mobile Me. But the next time you hear an arrogant CEO brush off Steve Jobs, Apple or the iPhone just remember to take what they say with a huge grain of techno-salt. They probably have a commercial in the wings ready to advertise the stuff they just railed against.

UPDATE: Apple released its financial information for Q3 in 2008 this week and in terms of total revenue, Apple’s iPhone has outsold RIM’s Blackberry handily. Not bad for a company that has only been in the smart phone market 15 months.

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iPhone Wallpaper Problems Persist

I’ve written before about the problems the iPhone has regarding synched photos and wallpapers. Basically, in order to save HD space, Apple employs a custom dithering algorithm to compress any image that is synched to an iPhone or iPod touch. This has the effect of adding a slight grain to images that contain smooth gradients. I previously posted a workaround for this problem, but it only was effective if you were willing to jailbreak your device.

With the release of the 2.0 version of the iPhone firmware, I was hoping Apple would have improved the quality of synched images, but sadly that didn’t happen. I also got my hopes up too high when a new feature arrived in 2.0 allowing users to save images displayed in Mobile Safari to the photo library. Press and hold on any image and you will receive a dialog to save the image for later use, including as iPhone wallpapers. However, as I recently discovered, this new feature mangles images even worse than synching them.

You can see in the above example three magnified portions of a free wallpaper we offer at the Iconfactory. The image on the far left is the original JPG image saved with 100% quality from Photoshop. The second version is what happens to your wallpaper once it is synched via iTunes to your photo library on the device. While this version isn’t optimum, it is passable (barely) thanks in part to the dense pixel density of the iPhone’s display. The third example illustrates what happens when using the new “Save Image” option after you surf to a graphic, tap and hold. Due to high JPEG compression, image quality drops dramatically. Artifacts abound and for some reason, the OS even scales the picture up from its original dimensions creating interpolated pixels and a fuzzy image.

While the new option of saving images directly from the web is quicker and easier than manually saving and then synching images via iTunes, in my opinion, the poor quality negates the ease of use. Until Apple gets its act together regarding photos on the iPhone, users will have to put up with sub-standard images. This is a problem made all-together more frustrating considering the iPhone was lovingly designed to display stunning graphics, be they photos or videos.

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What of Frenzic?

The launch of Apple’s App Store was one of those moments that developers live for. After weeks of coding, designing, testing, tweaking and debating, Twitterrific for the iPhone and iPod touch was released to overwhelmingly positive reviews. All of us at the Iconfactory, especially the big guy in Laguna, are all gratified that users seem genuinely happy with Twitterrific for the iPhone. Apple’s handheld hardware is a wonderful new development platform that’s bound to get better with time, and we were pleased to be present at launch.

However, throughout this whirlwind day, I kept receiving emails about another of our software products and why it wasn’t included in the App Store kick-off. That application of course, was Frenzic. More than a year ago, I posted on my blog asking users to write Apple in support of bringing a native version of our addictive Mac-based game to the iPhone. You showed your support for our efforts to bring the best possible version of Frenzic to the iPhone, and now thanks in-part to users like yourself, that native version is becoming a reality.

I’m here to tell you that Frenzic is definitely coming to Apple’s handheld party. Some of Craig’s coding buddies got an early sneak peek of Frenzic at WWDC, and it’s only gotten better since then. The mobile version of Frenzic is confirming my suspicions that this is how the game was always meant to be played. Placing pieces is fast, responsive and fun as all get out. There is a tactile sense of immediacy when playing Frenzic on the iPhone or touch that simply isn’t present in the desktop version. We still have tons of work to do, but trust me when I tell you it’ll be worth the wait.

In a way, I’m glad Frenzic wasn’t ready for today’s App Store launch. There are already tons of great games available for the iPhone. Pangea’s Enigmo and SEGA’s Super Monkey Ball both come to mind. Frenzic’s day will come, and when it does, all of us at ARTIS Software and the Iconfactory hope you’ll give it a try. The Mac desktop version’s slogan has always been “Addiction never felt so right.” Thanks to the App Store and iPhone, I think players everywhere are about to get addicted all over again. For now, hang tight and hone those reflexes. You’re gonna need it!

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The Little Blue Bird That Could

Today, at Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference in San Francisco, the computer maker unveiled its plans for the next generation of iPhones as well as a sneak peek into third party applications headed our way. Due to hit public airwaves July 11th, Apple’s new iPhone/iPod Touch “App Store” as it’s being called, will allow users to purchase third party mobile applications directly over the air. I speak for all of us at the Iconfactory when I say we were just as surprised and delighted as you probably were to find our very own application, Twitterrific, featured heavily on Apple’s website.

It seems after flying high and far, sometimes to shady destinations, the little blue bird has finally gone legit. I don’t think any of us at the factory realized just how popular Twitter, and in turn Twitterrific would become in this past year. We’ve been making various software applications for a decade now, and in all that time, none of us would have expected such an unassuming little app to become our most well recognized piece of code. Twitterrific’s success speaks volumes about the fine work of the folks over at Twitter, and the hunger for today’s users to stay in touch with friends, relatives and co-workers via new media like social networks.

We’re very pleased the Mac community took to Twitterrific so well and helped make it the success it is today. We’re looking forward to bringing the application to a whole new generation of users for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and would like to extend our thanks to Apple for giving the blue bird such a fine new home. We feel both excited and privileged to be a part of the new App Store and are committed to bringing our users the best software we can offer. We look forward to these first steps on what is sure to be, a fun journey for both users and developers alike.

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The Best of 2007

I’ve been into writing “list” posts recently, so I thought a year-ending ‘Best of 2007’ post seemed appropriate. The following list are simply things that for no other reason, brought me joy over the past twelve months. You may be familiar with some of the items on the list, and others you may never even heard of. Either way, I promise you they are all worth checking out. If this post lets people know there is a better way to clean their toilet or helps you find new friends, then I can die a happy man. Well, that’s not really true, but at least it gave you a legitimate excuse to put off paying those online bills or jumping on the treadmill for another few minutes. I do what I can.

• • •

Kaboom

Consumer Product

When my wife handed me a brush and a bottle of Kaboom Bowl Blaster a few months back and told me to get scrubbing, I did so begrudgingly. See, our toilets were dirty. I mean really dirty. Now before you go getting that look on your face, I don’t mean dirty like that, I mean dirty from hard water stains. Living in the country means that we’re on well water out here and don’t have the luxury of being hooked up to city water supplies. Our water is full of compounds and minerals like sulfur dioxide, zinc and calcium and it plays endless havoc on all of our plumbing fixtures.

I’ve scrubbed our toilets before with everything from Soft Soap and Comet to CLR and huge amounts of elbow grease and nothing, nothing has ever gotten the hard water stains 100% gone. That is until Kaboom came along. I’m not exaggerating or earning kickbacks when I say that, with only a minimal amount of scrubbing, Kaboom banished these unsightly stains to the infomercial netherworld from which they came. I’m not one who falls for late night commercial pitches, but I swear that this stuff works. If you have not tried it, next time you head to the grocery store, check it out. Your significant other will thank you.

• • •

Kid Nation

Television

Even before a single minute of the first episode aired on CBS, TV critics, child welfare workers and over-protective parents were all doing everything in their power to make sure Kid Nation failed. The audience disagreed however and this unassuming little show about 40 kids unleashed on a New Mexico ghost town became an instant family hit and gave kids and parents everywhere a reason to cheer.

Each week kids like Sophia, Anjay, Greg and yes, even Taylor, gave us new insight into how children think, their resourcefulness and how much respect they deserve. I’ve written about Kid Nation before and with good reason. The show single-handedly reaffirmed my faith in television. Kid Nation proved that a reality show could succeed without all the back-stabbing, elimination voting that made shows like Survivor and Big Brother household names. Producers smartly structured the series around rewards rather than punishments and the result was a breath of fresh air for all of us watching at home. I sincerely hope there is a second season of Kid Nation, but if you missed it the first time, you can wait for the DVDs or check out the free downloadable episodes available from the Kid Nation website.

• • •

Super Mario Galaxy

Video Game

I’ve only been playing Super Mario Galaxy for the Nintendo Wii for a short time. I can already say that it’s become my favorite video game of 2007, and that’s coming from a certifiable Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess freak.

It never ceases to amaze me how Nintendo can continually make video games feel original and fresh as Super Mario Galaxy does. The story is the usual “Save Peach from Bowser!” narrative that we’ve come to know and expect. Just about everything else feels new. Game mechanics, play style and some of the best music ever written for a video game, all combine into another fun and surprisingly addictive winner from Shigeru Miyamoto. SMG is another feather in the cap of the Wii platform that some incorrectly predicted would be trounced by both the PS3 and XBOX 360. A year after launch, the Wii platform is still in high demand, and Super Mario Galaxy has helped me rediscover my love of video games. To top it all off, Mario is set to mark his 30th anniversary in just a few years. Not bad for a plumber who couldn’t tell a monkey from a donkey.

• • •

No Country for Old Men

Movie

No Country for Old Men is an odd tale that centers around a case of $2 million dollars that goes missing after a drug deal gone bad. Tommy Lee Jones plays Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, who, on the eve of his retirement, has the task of tracking down not only the money, but one of the scariest villains ever to hit the big screen. As is the case in most of the Coen brother’s films, location becomes an integral part of the story, so much so it’s almost like another character. The brother’s attention to detail and skill in building suspense, weaves a story that completely pulls us in and never lets go. The writing is sharp, the dialog is poetic and the cinematography is simply gorgeous. Take all of this, add mesmerizing performances from Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh and Josh Brolin as Llewelyn Moss and you have yourself the best picture of 2007.

• • •

AmeriCone Dream

Consumer Product

You really have to hand it to Steven Colbert. One minute your one of Jon Stewart’s flunkies reporting from the green screen version of Iraq, and the next you’ve got Captain America’s shield hanging on your wall and an ice cream flavor named after you. Colbert’s meteoric rise hasn’t really come as a surprise to those of us who admired his hilarious nightly performances on The Daily Show, but I never would have guessed he had such a fantastic sweet tooth.

Ben & Jerry’s AmeriCone Dream ice cream features bits of waffle cone dipped in fudge, surrounded by a creamy, but conservative vanilla ice cream and swirls of all-American caramel. To top it all off, proceeds from Steven’s product go to The Stephen Colbert AmeriCone Dream Fund, which supports causes like aid to disadvantaged children, veterans, and the environment. About the only way it could get better would be if they managed to get the carton to make that shrieking bald eagle sound every time you opened it.

• • •

Apple iPhone

Hardware

I bet you thought the iPhone was going to be number one on my list didn’t you? Well guess again all-knowing swami! While it may not be my very favorite thing of 2007, it only lost out by a few ill-timed Mobile Safari crashes and a badly needed clipboard app. To say that my iPhone has improved my life might sound like the meaningless drivel of an Apple fanboy, but as someone famous once said “I cannot tell a lie.”

Before my iPhone, I never wanted to check my email on the go, or was able to effortlessly look up a destination in Google Maps after getting lost in some obscure corner of Greensboro. I can instantly add people and businesses to my phone’s address book with the press of a single button and browse my favorite websites just as they appear on my desktop computer. Before, I never could figure out how to use custom ring tones or have wallpapers I didn’t have to pay a monthly fee for. The iPhone opened the door to all of these small, but fun things for me.

Perhaps most important of all, it makes me feel good about carrying my phone all over the place. Before, my cell was just something I had to have in case I needed to call my wife or had an emergency. Now, I’m connected and able to look for information, tweet thoughts at random and have my iPod with me all the time. Anyone who tells you the iPhone is “just another cell phone” doesn’t have the first clue about what it represents or what its potential is. It changed the face of the cell phone industry for the better, forced cell carriers to “think different” about their business models and captured a big slice of the U.S. smartphone market in the process. Pretty good for a company that never made a cell phone before.

• • •

Twitter.com

Social Networking Service

When it comes to Twitter, people invariably seem to be divided into two groups. The first group, let’s call them the “Eloi”, embraces the free and fascinating microblogging service. They make friends, send tweets about what they are eating, make interesting observations and find people with similar online interests as themselves. They live in the daylight and take Twitter for what it is, a place to feel connected with those around them, enjoy the fruits of the digital age and generally co-exist with others in virtual harmony.

Then there are the Twitter “Morlocks” who shun the technology, lash out against it and write blog posts saying things like “what’s the point?”, and “who in their right mind would use this stupid thing?”. They have Twitter friend lists of anywhere between 2 and 5 people, never venture out of their cave and prefer to dine on the recycled entrails of Blogger.com or Facebook. Poor, lost souls.

I count myself firmly in the Eloi camp and my life is far better for it. Twitter has allowed me to stay in touch with dear friends from college that have long since moved away. Twitter gives me a sounding board to bounce ideas off peers, is a reliable source for general knowledge, and lets me stay on top of the latest breaking news from around the world. But perhaps more than anything, it allows me to connect with like-mined individuals. For example, watching the World Series in 2007 was an amazing experience thanks to Twitter. Fellow Red Sox fans were able to joke and share thoughts and feelings with each other like we were in the same room. I’ve also expanded my network of designer and developer friends significantly. I feel like I know many of these people first hand and I look forward to meeting them at MacWorld at some point in the future.

Twitter has given us a way of interacting that is new, unique and intimate. It provides a glimpse into the lives of people that, for one reason or another, you find interesting. In a world where we are all becoming more and more like those isolated, underground dwellers the Morlocks, Twitter lets in just a touch of the much-needed sunlight.

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iPhone Dithers Images

I first noticed a problem with how the iPhone was displaying synced images while working on user interface comps for MobileTwitterrific. I would export a 24-bit PNG image and place it in iPhoto to view the picture directly on the iPhone at 1:1. This would allow me to see how controls and text held up on the high resolution display and adjust the UI elements accordingly. To my dismay I noticed that once synced, all images placed on the iPhone displayed dithering artifacts. The same thing happens when you sync any of the free wallpapers available at the Iconfactory via iTunes and iPhoto.

I didn’t pay this problem much attention at first, but yesterday I noticed the so-called “Icon Factory Wallpapers” pack that popped up on Nullriver’s AppTapp installer from Conceited Software. After having installed the wallpaper pack, I noticed, as did an observant user named Keith Rhee, that these images did not suffer from the same 8-bit dithering as other user installed images. Keith’s done some digging and discovered that either iPhoto or iTunes compresses all synced images down to 8-bit pngs using a custom algorithm that neither he nor I can re-create with Photoshop. Apple obviously did this to save precious storage space on the iPhone, but depending on the image, sometimes the results can be less than spectacular (see above).

Keith was good enough to come up with a manual work-around for this problem that you can use if you want your iPhone wallpapers to appear as smooth and silky as they possibly can. Of course, neither Keith, myself nor the Iconfactory take responsibility for any potential damage done to your iPhone as a result of these instructions. Here is the process:

1. Use AppTapp to put Nullriver’s Installer on your iPhone.

2. Using Installer, install the BSD sub-system and the SSH client/server.

3. Under your phone’s wi-fi settings, look up the current IP address.

4. Use an SFTP client (Keith used Interarchy) to access the iPhone at the aforementioned IP address. The default username/password for an iPhone is ‘root’ and ‘dottie’ respectively. (Unless the owner of the iPhone has changed the username and password for his/her iPhone.)

5. The official Apple wallpapers are located at /Library/Wallpaper. Two files are required for all wallpapers that you install in this directory:

* The wallpaper itself – 320×480 pixels
* The thumbnail file that shows up in the wallpaper browser – 75×75 pixels

If the wallpaper is named foo.png, then the wallpaper thumbnail needs to be named foo.thumbnail.png.

Apple obviously took great care to design on-screen elements that look as good as they possibly can. The high resolution touch-sensitive screen has been hailed by critics and users alike as being unmatched on any mobile device. Apple’s default wallpapers are positively gorgeous, as are the individual apps, window elements and controls. But when it comes to our photos and wallpapers, Apple has decided they need to be dithered and compressed to save space. Some will say the visual difference is negligible, and most of the time this is true. The real bummer here is that we have no choice if synced images are dithered or not.

I’d like to suggest that Apple gives users the option to decide if we want to save that space, or display our family photos and wallpapers as we intended them, in all their 24-bit glory. If you agree, head on over to Apple’s iPhone feedback page and tell them a pixel is a terrible thing to waste.

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Schadenfreude ala Apple

Ask Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch or anyone who’s dared to stick their neck out on Survivor, and they’ll tell you being at the top is a dangerous place. As often happens in technology, industry and reality TV, the higher you dare to reach, the more people will want to see you fall. Judging by the flurry of negative reports published this week about Apple, Steve Jobs must be doing something VERY right. The sheer number of “analysis” by so-called experts, dealing with the iPhone price cut has reached deafening proportions, and almost all of them take pot shots at my favorite computer company.

How bad can it be? That’s what I asked when the usual suspects published their typical bullshit about Apple following the “Beat Goes On” special event on Wednesday. TheStreet.com’s Scott Moritz was back in classic Apple bashing form with this whopper:

“The move will add more evidence to the speculation that the iPhone, while causing quite a buzz, may not be selling as rapidly as some optimists had expected.”

Lest he forget, the only “optimist” that said Apple would sell more iPhones than were expected was Mortiz himself. A fact that he’s never actually admitted to or apologized for. TheStreet.com was just getting started however, as this piece from Marek Fuchs proved:

“Now, if you can name a product in the annals of commerce that was introduced to great fanfare and shortly afterward had its price slashed to ribbons where that worked out to be a good thing, well, do let me know.”

I hate to break the news to you Marek, but there are plenty of examples of similar price slashing, and one even comes from the cell phone industry. The ultra-popular Motorola Razr dropped more than 1/3 in price within the first six months of its debut, and although the iPhone dropped faster, I suspect it’s simply because the iPhone was ten times more anticipated (and sold ten times better) than the Razr.

I’m pleased to write that it wasn’t all doom and gloom for Apple this week however. In an enlightend piece from NYT piece on Friday, Saul Hansell cuts through the crap and actually discovers the real reason for the iPhone price cut:

“The central rule of technology is that the unit price drops sharply with volume. If Apple sold more than it hoped, then it would achieve scale faster and would be able to drop prices sooner. Apple’s introduction of the iPod Touch, using many of the same parts as the iPhone, gives it an even bigger checkbook to brandish in Taiwan to secure good supplies at good prices.”

Hansell aside, it’s a sad state of affairs that outsiders like John Gruber and myself, have a clearer picture of what’s going on here than the people that write for Wall Street’s largest publications. Apple set the iPhone’s launch price high because they knew gadget lust would be ridiculous. It’s the basic law of supply and demand, and Apple played it perfectly. They knew that people would bitch about the price of the iPhone prior to launch, but that hundreds of thousands would pay it just the same.

With the successful launch of the iPhone, Jobs was able to reduce the iPhone’s entry price to levels below any similarly equipped smart phone on the market. These new price levels virtually guarantee Apple a very merry Christmas buying season. Despite this clear and agressive strategy, all Mortiz, and others such as Dvorak and Robinson can come up with is “The iPhone is DOOMED!”. This second rate analysis is almost as funny as Britney Spear’s supposed come back.

So all you so-called “experts”, do me a favor and keep publishing those Apple hit pieces. Your collective efforts drove AAPL down far enough that I could pick up more shares that will eventually, inevitably rise to $150 and help pad my retirement. Steve and I thank you.

UPDATE: Gruber thinks Mortiz is shorting Apple stock, and I agree 100%. He’s got another tissue of lies masquerading as factual reporting today. Moritz says that “Optimists had figured the price cut and product shuffle, while sudden, was part of a bigger plan to make way for a higher priced 3G iPhone on the eve of the holiday buying season.” Wanna take a bet as to whom the “Optimists” are in this scenario? Can’t be Apple or any real customer base, because no one has ever said that 3G would be available on the iPhone this year or even next. That leaves one person… Scott Mortiz. Break out your duck boots people, we’re knee deep in bullshit.

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Spock Don’t Know Jack

Just prior to the launch of the iPhone, I posted a quote from my favorite Vulcan, which seemed to portend the mindset of those who decided to partake in the gadgety goodness. Having owned my piece of the future for one month and ten days, I am here to tell you that when it comes to the iPhone, Spock, thankfully, don’t know jack.

My purchase of the iPhone has lived up to all of the advanced hype and then some. Sure some will say that I’m just a fan boy caught in the expansive reality distortion field radiating from my phone. But those who know me will tell you that despite my love for Apple, if I’m not satisfied with a purchase, I don’t have a problem saying so. Years ago I got the royal screw from my favorite fruit company when I bought the infamous Apple IIvx, which was supplanted just 4 months later by the Centris line of Macs. I’ve never let Apple off the hook for that one, even to this day.

Thankfully, the iPhone is light years away from my IIvx experience in every way imaginable. Here are just some of the ways the iPhone lives up to the hype:

• The User Interface – Once you hold it in your hand, touch the controls, scroll photos, and pinch a website larger or smaller, you’ll wonder why cell phones have never done this before. The user interface is quite possibly the best single thing about the iPhone. It’s elegant, snappy, clear & thoughtful.

• Mobile Safari – Sure it quits sometimes, but it more than makes up for this shortcoming by being the single best answer to the internet on mobile devices. Enlarging text, clarity of page renders and great bookmark management all add up to a real winner.

• YouTube In Your Pants – Being able to search and view YouTube videos at will, any place and any time is freakin’ fantastic. Once the entire catalog is converted to H264, I don’t think I’ll ever watch funny cat movies on my Wii ever again.

• All the Little Things – The use of Helvetica throughout the UI, the gorgeous hi-res screen, how easy it is to make a phone call, visual voice mail, and yes, even the battery life are all great on the iPhone. They all add up to an experience that makes me want to take it with me where ever I go. The same cannot be said of my old Sprint phone.

It can’t all be a love-fest can it? No, sadly there are a few things that are not as good as they could be. They include (in order) AT&T, a missing official SDK, AT&T, finger and ear prints, no games, and did I mention AT&T? It’s not surprising that the weakest part of the iPhone is the part out of Apple’s control, namely the spotty network coverage and poor customer service of AT&T. With the news today of multiple methods to unlock the iPhone from the shackles of you-know-who, I suspect there will be some very happy potential customers who will now take the plunge.

The first question people always ask when they spy me with my iPhone is “How do you like it?”. My answer is always the same – “It’s just fantastic, I love it!” It’s the first time in my life I think I’ve ever spoken ill of Mr. Spock. See what you’ve done to me Steve!

iRan All Day

One half of my master plan was complete. I had successfully talked myself (and my wife) into purchasing an iPhone for my upcoming trip home to New Hampshire. I was able to justify the plunking of serious cash due to the fact that I was about to spend long hours stuck in limbo thanks to today’s modern aviation system. The iPhone would allow me to stay connected at my parent’s house, a place where computers are alien and the Internet might as well be just a new fangled way to catch dinner.

In the weeks leading up to my trip, I ripped all of my Futurama DVDs and placed some 30+ of my favorite episodes onto the iPhone, along with several unwatched movies, five episodes of Star Trek: DS9, three great Christopher Walken SNL skits, and of course, The Legend of Boggy Creek. These video treats, along with some 3 Gb of music, podcasts and photos were sure to make the twilight zone of Reagan National all but a faint memory. There was only one problem… would my beloved iPhone’s battery be up to the challenge? Since the product’s launch I’d been hearing all of the FUD coming from Crackberrys and so called “experts” that the iPhone’s battery just didn’t cut the mustard. I packed my mini-charger just in case all of the doom and gloom came to pass.

I am delighted to disappoint anyone who carries 2 or 3 extra battery packs by saying that my iPhone lasted ALL DAY both traveling to and from New Hampshire. Oh, I know what you’re thinking, I only checked email a couple of times, or maybe surfed for 20 minutes or so. Wrong! The trip from Greensboro to Laconia involved only one stop in Washington DC, and the lay overs were relatively short, so I wasn’t surprised when my battery was still going strong after setting down my suitcase. But the voyage back to Greensboro from NH was a little slice of hell that lasted from 7am until 9pm, with the iPhone down to 10% when I kissed my wife in our kitchen that night.

On that long journey, I sent tweets via Mobile Twitter all day long. I had a 30 minute iChat with people at work via BeeJive. I watched four episodes of Futurama on the various plane flights. Listened to a complete podcast episode of Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me (45 minutes), made 5 phone calls, checked email about every 2 hours and surfed to dozens of web sites. Just before touching down in Greensboro, my iPhone warned me it had reached the 20% battery level. Once we landed, I checked voice mail, made a final call to Mindy, and knew that the iPhone had passed with flying colors.

Craig reports similar battery performance with his iPhone on his recent trip to the C4[1] conference, so I know I’m not alone. At one point while I was sitting having dinner in Philly’s airport, the waiter asked me how I liked my iPhone. He had been thinking of purchasing one himself, but had heard reports of poor battery life. I spent a few minutes giving him the lowdown with my experiences and he seemed quite pleased that the things he had heard were untrue. I’m pretty sure I made a sale while I was eating my over-priced, airport fajitas, and so I’m here to spread the truth to anyone willing to listen. Although factors like continuous wi-fi and bluetooth can put a hurt on run time, in general, the iPhone’s battery does quite well, thank you very much. Go tell it on the mountain.

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Contact Icon Tutorial for iPhone

In a blatant attempt to compete with Craig for the virtual linking affections of John Gruber, I am pleased to present the Contact Icon Tutorial for iPhone. This short video shows off a quick way that you can make use of desktop icons on your new iPhone with a little help from Pixadex and the groovy new Dine-O-Matic icon set from the IF workers.

If you don’t know what Dine-O-Matic is, head on over to the widget’s home page to learn all about this fun, free Dashboard widget for the Mac. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled in the days ahead for version 2.0 that incorporates some exciting new, and heavily requested features, coming soon to a factory near you. Enjoy!

UPDATE: Kate reminds me that this process will work in conjunction with any Apple phone that can be synced with Address Book, not just the iPhone. Thanks Kate, I was temporarily blinded by my iPhone’s sheer coolness. 🙂

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Street Trash

If you are unfamiliar with the recent flap over TheStreet.com’s reporting of Wall Street’s so-called “whisper number” for the iPhone sales launch, take a minute and go read this post over at OneButtonMouse. Go ahead and read it, I’ll wait.

I was content to let this story lie thanks to the great post Anthony had written concerning Scott Moritz’s seemingly fabricated 1 million unit mark that was “whispered” to TheStreet.com prior to the iPhone launch. I had written to both Moritz and his editors and vented my frustrations with his piece. In addition, John Gruber’s Daring Fireball and even MacNN had brought attention to it. Well, today I spied a new story from these financial wizards that I just couldn’t let pass.

Today, writer Marek Fuchs has a new piece up called “Can’t Get a Clear Signal on iPhone Sales“. What’s the story about you ask? Well, it’s about how there’s confusion on just what the expectations were towards how many iPhones Apple would sell in the initial launch. That’s right folks, TheStreet.com is now claiming that it’s impossible to tell just how the iPhone did this weekend because analysts’ public estimates are different from the so-called “whisper number” that Moritz reported on after the launch on Tuesday, July 3rd. The “experts” (and I use that term loosely) over at TheStreet.com know they were the ones spreading the FUD of expected sales of 1 million units, and were called on it. Now they’ve decided to cover their asses with a piece about how no one can really know how many were sold. I particularly love this bit from page 3:

“First, when it comes to such a well-hyped product, never base your decision on one article. If you do, The Business Press Maven will come to your house and put you in time-out.”

In other words, don’t listen to what we reported to you last Tuesday, just listen to what we’re telling you now. Never mind that Mortiz’s report possibly depressed stock prices early in the week and made investors second guess AAPL, never mind that the 1 million number seems to have come straight from the mouth of a competing cell carrier, and above all, never mind the fact that TheStreet.com was the only one to report the number, and only did so after the launch. All these facts should be ignored, because after all, it’s a whisper number! The problem with whisper numbers is that no one is accountable for them. They’re like gossip on the wind that no one can trace back to its source. For all investors know, Mortiz might have just as well pulled the number out of a hat.

Despite all the fear, uncertainty and doubt that TheStreet.com generated this week, AAPL weathered the storm quite nicely and gained in value an average of 7.8%. For all the nay-saying about the iPhone from various sources, Apple has proven that they can, and did generate unparalleled interest in the iPhone. Gizmodo reported this week that the 1 million mark was in fact met in the form of iPhone activations. In addition, Bloomberg reported there were more iPhones sold in these three days than the über-popular Razr sold the entire month of its launch. That’s what we in the business call street cred. Maybe Scott Moritz and company should get some.

Disclosure: Being the huge fan boy I am, I own stock in Apple. Duh.

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Spock’s iPhone Wisdom

I’m a firm believer that all things in life eventually lead back to Star Trek. So with all of the hype leading up to tomorrow’s launch of the iPhone, and given some people’s frenzic state of mind regarding the gadget, I’m reminded of this wonderful Original Series quote from everyone’s favorite vulcan:

“After a time, you may find that having, is not so pleasing a thing after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true.” – Spock, Amok Time

I’m sure that the iPhone will live up to the hype, and the gadget-lust is more than well deserved, but there is something to be said for wanting something so bad that it makes you dizzy. Spock is right on the money on this one, just try to keep that in mind while you wait in line. 🙂

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