A whole bunch of manufacturers are busy trying to create a killer tablet to be able to compete with the iPad. And for many of those manufacturers Google’s Android operating system is the way to go. The hopes are high, since Android already managed to take the leading market share in the smartphone market. A few years ago Apple’s iOS reigned supreme, but was forcefully dethroned by a never-ending series of competitive Android smartphones. But is the tablet business that comparable to the smartphone industry? And shouldn’t we compare it to a much older case, that isn’t that positive for other manufacturers but perhaps fits the bill way better?

The smartphone has existed for a very long time. I’m sure you can remember the first Blackberries, Symbians and Windows Mobile devices? If we look back at those now they seem rather pathetic compared to what we have today but still there was nothing better at that time. The businessmen chose a phone on any of these platforms and the average joe loved his Nokia, Samsung or Motorola dumbphone. And then Apple popped up with once again another smartphone, the iPhone. Initially not a success but it prove to be useful by being easier to work with and after all successful by targeting the right people. Google and other tech companies noticed this and also agreed that the smartphone landscape looked rather dull. So Google conquered many (mainly dumbphone) manufacturers with the open Android operation system and Microsoft completely threw out Windows Mobile and exchanged it for Windows Phone. The manufacturers that produced phones with these systems already proved to be trustworthy by having provided cellphones to the crowd for many years. Together with mainly Android it was a matter of making people dump their old dumbphone for a slightly more expensive smartphone. By creating a plethora of Android devices in all sizes, colors and prices the big manufacturers together with Google managed to launch Android to the top of the smartphone charts.

Since it are once again the same major players which are facing each other, isn’t it logical that the outcome will once again be the same for the tablet market? Not necessarily. Which brings me to that other market, the market of the portable media players.

When the iPod arrived it was revolutionary because it allowed people to store a lot of music on such a small device and take it everywhere with them. There were MP3 players before the iPod, but they were hardly capable of storing twenty tracks and suddenly there’s a device which allows people to take hundreds and later thousands of songs with them. The iPod was there to stay. There was no longer such thing as an MP3 player, there were only iPods. If you didn’t have an iPod you had nothing. This resulted in the competition trying very hard to compete with the iPod with decently working devices, but to no avail. They couldn’t do a thing, everyone wanted an iPod and nothing else. And since the iPod defined the pricing in its field, the steep price of early iPods was not an issue. Before Apple there was no brand which really excelled in this market.

Does this story ring a bell? 2010, Apple launched a wholly “new” device, the iPad. Just as in the Portable Media Player market, there were no real competitors. There were tablets before the iPad, but they were slow, unpractical and didn’t have a dedicated operating system. In addition to the physical flaws, they lacked marketing power to break through. Nowadays nearly everyone wants an iPad, there is no such thing as “a tablet” for the average joe. There are only iPads. Only after a year, the competition decided to wake up and do something about the iPad’s reign. They begin their attempts to launch competitive tablets similar to the iPad, but based on Android or their own OS. Outside the tech world, not a single soul notices. Kids and youngsters still go to the store and either want an iPad or nothing at all. Elder folks get the advice to get an iPad instead of a PC because it’s easier to work with. Where the iPhone was expensive in its segment, the iPad is decisive for the pricing of the entire market and is relatively cheap.
And why would people try a different brand if all of their friends are happy iPad users? Why run the risk of buying something unfamiliar to you and with no guarantee that it will actually work?

The iPad solidifies its position just like the iPod did, as a revolutionary device that succeeded into defining the market. There are no real predecessors and the competition doesn’t seem to get a hold of the market at all, notwithstanding serious marketing- and brand awareness attempts by carriers and manufacturers. The most visible tablet in advertising and promo actions must be the Samsung Galaxy Tab. But the non-tech folks simply don’t care. “What’s that? That’s not an iPad! Who can convince me that it actually works?”. Where the iPhone wasn’t really defining for the smartphone market, the iPad has become one with the tablet market, just like the iPod did when it comes to portable media players.

So is it too little too late for the other manufacturers? Is there still a chance that a killer tablet will beat the iPad? Only time will tell, but if you ask me it’s indeed too late. Just like in the iPod case Apple will maintain the top market share while the competition fruitlessly fights for recognition with highly comparable devices.

The tabletwars, are they over without even starting? is a post from: The Apple Bites

Steve Jobs has already sent a letter to Apple’s Japanese employees (and all others) to express his support following the earthquake.

“To Our Team in Japan,
We have all been following the unfolding disaster in Japan. Our hearts go out to you and your families, as well as all of your countrymen who have been touched by this tragedy.
If you need time or resources to visit or care for your families, please see HR and we will help you. If you are aware of any supplies that are needed, please also tell HR and we will do what we can to arrange delivery.
Again, our hearts go out to you during this unimaginable crisis.
Please stay safe.

Steve and the entire Executive Team
”
Apple also enabled their disaster donations page again to make donations directly from within the iTunes Store.
But not only Steve and the Apple staff are there to support the Japanese people where needed. A lot of efforts are raised from within the iOS/Mac development community and in Apple related circles. If you are willing to contribute and maybe even get something in return here’s a list of all community efforts.

Synthetic, the developers of the camera app hipstamatic donate all their Hipstamart profits from March the 18th to March the 31st to the American Red Cross to help the earthquake and tsunami victims. http://hipstamart.com/tsunami_relief

Life in Lofi and iPhone0genic, two iPhoneography blogs have teamed up to offer their readers a chance to donate funds for the Japanese people. All donations also go to the American red cross. http://lifeinlofi.com/2011/03/15/life-in-lofi-and-iphoneogenic-blogs-team-up-for-iphoneography-tsunami-and-earthquake-relief/

Zynga is using its In-App purchasing systems to set up special goods which you can buy in-game and whose profit goes to the Japan earthquake tsunami relief. You can buy these goods in eg. CityVille, FarmVille, …
http://zynga.org/

Capcom has announced to donate 100 million yen in aid of the earthquake victims and all Street Fighter IV sales profits between the 15th and the 22th of March will go to the relief efforts. http://capcom.co.jp/ir/english/news/html/e110315.html

Sega announced that until the 20th of March all revenue made by selling Sonic the Hedgehog games on the iOS platform will also go to the relief. All prices are considerably lower as well. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sonic-the-hedgehog/id316025912?mt=8

If you have any more causes which support Japan please mention them in the comments section and I’ll be more than happy to add them to the list.

Japan and the Apple community effort. is a post from: The Apple Bites

Remember the Million Dollar Homepage? Well now there’s a similar thing, but for iPhone apps!

Mika Letki and Danilo Yasuno have carefully placed thousand 30 by 30 smiley faced icons on their website ThousandApps.com. After we took notice of this almost half the page was already filled with icons from iPhone App developers. Even some better known apps are promoted on the page like Geared, Tap Forms and Steam, so I guess you could say the iPhone development community has faith in this project.

It might seem crazy and some will say that it’s not going to be successful. But considering the site has only just been created and is already filled quite nicely with all kinds of apps and also considering that you can get a 30 by 30 spot for 5€ (6,30$) they must have made an estimate 3.150 dollars by now, which is not bad for a project that only just started.

As I mentioned above interested developers can still reserve their spot in this interesting and unique project for 5€.

“Thousand Apps!” on one page, the Million Dollar Homepage for Apps. is a post from: The Apple Bites

Tags:

• milliondollarhomepage for iphone apps
• million dollar page for app

We all knew it for months in some way, but now we know for sure. Apple has released a tablet and it’s called the iPad.

Think of the iPad as a big iPhone or iPod Touch on steroids, a hell lot of steroids. It seems to run a more advanced version of iPhone OS and contains most features of the iPhone combined with the useability of Mac OSX. For people who expected a full functioning Mac OSX tablet there will be a slight disappointment. But the availability of many Mac OSX style apps optimized for a multitouch interface take the blow very well. The iPad runs all iPhone apps perfectly but devs can build specific apps which are optimized for the iPad.

There seems to be an addition to iTunes and the App Store as well, iBook! This is a book store in coöperation with Amazon. (the guys who made the kindle eReader)

iBook

Another interesting fact is that Apple succeeded in porting iWork to the iPad with an amazing touch friendly result. This will be put to a great use in educational facilities, I see students taking notes on the iPad and the iPad replacing laptops in college.

There will be 3G available, but unlike the iPhone, this won’t be necessary to make the iPad function. All iPads will be unlocked and deals with international carriers may come in June. The iPad will be available within 60 days worldwide, 90 days for the 3G!

The specifications are :
Thickness : 0.5″
Weight : 1.5 pounds
Display size : 9.6″ IPS
Display type : Full capacitive multitouch
Storage : 16-64Gb
Processor : 1Ghz Apple A4 chip (Apple built their own CPU)
Connection : Bluetooth 2.1, Wifi 802.11n, 3G
Sound : Speakers, Microphone
Battery life : Up to 10 Hours
Extra’s : Accelerometer, compass
Price : 499$ (wifi only 16Gb), 599$ (wifi only 32Gb), 699$ (wifi only 64Gb), 629$ (wifi+3G 16Gb), 729$ (wifi+3G 32Gb), 829$ (wifi+3G 64Gb),

Here are some more images (source: engadget) :

All images are provided by Engadget and remain property of engadget.

It’s official, the Apple iPad has hit planet earth! is a post from: The Apple Bites

On Tuesday 12 January 2010, Haiti was hit by an earthquake which destroyed the capital Port-au-prince completely, left millions homeless and made more than a hundred thousand deadly victims. The people who are left behind can use all the support they need and therefore the world is coming into action. That includes the independent iPhone developers community and therefore over 60 other iPhone and Mac developers have decided to donate all revenue their apps generate on the 20th of January 2010 to a good cause which is currently aiding the Haitian people.

There are several causes to which app developers are going to donate their revenue. Some include UNICEF, Doctors without borders, …

Small developers don’t make a lot of revenue, but considering there are about 60 involved, you just know that this action will bring in a lot of money for the Haitian people.

So if you decide to buy an App, certainly check out the Indie Relief website and check to see if there isn’t an alternative that will aid Haiti.

For more info and a list of all developers and apps, click on the banner below :

Indie Relief, iPhone developers donate revenue to Haiti on 20/01 is a post from: The Apple Bites

One of the main features of an iPhone is that it integrates perfectly with Mac OSX. For Mac users, the iPhone boasts a native way to transfer media, to synchronize contacts and tasks and to set up email accounts. But one thing that’s missing is a way to synchronize clipboards. And that’s where Syncopy comes in.

Syncopy is a little tool that helps you synchronize your iPhone and Mac clipboards. It’s as easy as it should be. You download Syncopy for your iPhone and install the Mac client. Make a Syncopy ID (something that takes only a few seconds) and of you go. After installing the Syncopy client for mac, everything you copy will automatically be synced to the server and when you open the iPhone version of Syncopy you just have to tap one button and the text which was on your mac’s clipboard just a few seconds ago is now on your iPhone’s. Ready to be pasted.

One of the big advantages is that Syncopy synchronizes by server. So for only 0.99$ you have your own direct server connection to transfer text between your Mac and your iPhone. This enables you to synchronize your clipboard even though your mac and iPhone aren’t on the same network. But this isn’t the most impressive part of Syncopy…

Syncopy is exactly as an iPhone app should be. You have those apps which are made by Apple and behave great on an iPhone and you have apps which are just coded and thrown in the App Store. But there is a select third category, Apps which provide a better user experience than Apple’s. Syncopy is one of these. It is a work of art in all its simplicity. It does what it does, no more no less and the developer doesn’t try to force a bunch of useless features in but rather chooses to keep everything clean and useful. Combine this with a sleek interface and you reach uttermost perfection.

There aren’t many apps which I put on the first screen of my iPhone, because it’s reserved for native iPhone apps only on my iPhone, but Syncopy earned the only free spot on the first page. So I can tell you that it’s the best App I’ve seen in a while.
But that’s me as a design freak talking, you should see for yourself to form your own opinion on Syncopy.

You can download the Syncopy iPhone App here : http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/syncopy/id347882966?mt=8
You can download the Mac client here : http://syncode.com.au/apps/syncopy/mac/

We also have a few promo codes to give away. If you want one, you have to tell us in a comment how Syncopy would be useful to you or how it will change your life. We will pick a few people at random and these will receive a promo code to download Syncopy for free. (Only available to US residents)

Review : Syncopy – Synchronized Copy/Paste between your Mac and iPhone is a post from: The Apple Bites

Tags:

• copy and paste between iphone and mac
• how to copy paste between mac and iphone
• copy and paste between mac and iphone
• copy paste between mac and ipad
• free copy paste between iphone and mac
• synchronized clipboard mac
• syncopy reviews

There’s a lot you can do with the iPhone’s camera and we are aware of that. There have been some interesting apps around to accomplish great results with your iPhone’s camera and some of those include the Phix apps.

Therefore we are organizing a contest in which we give away a $150 iTunes Gift card. The gift card goes to the person who can show us the most amazing picture that is edited with one of the Phix apps.

To get in the contest you can follow these steps :
-Take an amazing picture with your iPhone’s camera
-Edit it with a Phix app of your choice, you can choose from (MonoPhix, MonoPhix Lite (free), iPhix, FlashPhix and GrayPhix)
-Email the photo with your contact details to hello@theapplebites.com
-Post the link in the comments

When the contest is over we will pick the most amazing looking picture.

Get Started, Click here

Have fun and start shooting some nice pictures!

NOTE: I would also like to add that you can now join this competition without having to buy a Phix app, since you can just download one for free with MonoPhix Lite, I’ve added it to the list.

Phix Photo Contest! [iTunes Gift Cards for giveaway!] is a post from: The Apple Bites

Tags:

• itunes app photo contest

We’re all in a holiday spirit and a holiday spirit means a lot of gifts, also from us the Apple Bites to you. And that’s why we have been busy gathering all sorts of prizes and promo codes from developers. And we’ve gathered a lot to give away to you all.

The steps of the contest are simple :
-Choose a product in the list below that you want
-Tweet about it, blog about it, spread the word (also add a link to this post)
-Put a link to what you did in the comments

We will draw people to get them the gifts they wrote about. So if you are lucky you can get the product you wrote about.

Here’s the list :
45x Lingi – Word Game (iPhone)
45x GrayPhix – Grayscale App (iPhone)
20x MonoPhix – Black & White App (iPhone)
10x CopyTrans 4 – iPod/iPhone music/video extractor (Windows)
5x FlashPhix – Camera Flash Simulator (iPhone)
5x iPhix – image editor (iPhone)
5x Rowmote - Remort control for Mac and Apple TV (iPhone)
5x Tap Forms - Personal Information manager (iPhone)

Get Started, Click Here:

We will announce the winners when the Holidays are over.

Good Luck to you all and Happy Holidays!

Big Holiday Contest! is a post from: The Apple Bites

Not often do we review windows applications here on tAB. But for a fine Apple related app as CopyTrans we make an exception.

CopyTrans 4 is the fourth major version of the iPod Backup and media extraction application CopyTrans. With CopyTrans you can easily transfer iPod and iPhone media to your PC. As I found out myself, CopyTrans works for every type of iPod. I connected my first iPod ever, which was a first generation iPod Nano and it synced without issues.

Another remarkable feature is the ability of CopyTrans to read iPods or iPhones which are formatted for Mac OSX. This feature makes it ideal for Mac users who need extraction software on their Windows bootcamp partition. Extracting from a Mac formatted iPod or iPhone happens at the same speed as it does on a Windows formatted iPod, which is very speedy.

With CopyTrans you can extract songs, but that’s not all. You can also rebuild your iTunes library. So let’s say, your computer is bricked and you lost all your music. With CopyTrans you can just rebuild your entire iTunes library from an iPod which was previously synced with your PC.

All songs, video’s audiobooks, podcasts, etc., are extracted containing all information iTunes uses to identify them. Which means all downloaded images, lyrics, play counts and ratings are transferred as well.

The interface is very easy to use, but as a Mac user and someone who is quite enthusiastic about the decent Windows 7 Microsoft delivered I have one remark. The theme of CopyTrans is comparable to the brushed metal theme and this is nice if you like other than default themes and it’s perfectly in line with the Apple-based functionality of this application, but for once Microsoft delivered a beautiful operating system with nice themes and an eye on the aesthetics. So why not use the default transparent theme that Windows 7 supplies? It’s not a big issue, but for people who like the native Windows 7 theme this will be a bit of a downer.

Also when you download the default installer, you are presented with a shortcut to the CopyTrans control center which also shows you haven’t installed yet. WIth a simple click you can go to CopyTrans. But it’s easier to have CopyTrans open directly when you open the shortcut. The developer kindly replied to my request for more information about this decision and I found out that you can just download CopyTrans as a standalone application as well, without the control center.

All an all, this is a wonderful application with just the right amount of features and it’s built in such a way that it’s accessible to all. It works with all iPods and iPhones and does exactly what it is supposed to do. So I give it the tag, highly recommended!

My only wish left would be a Mac OSX version.

You can get a trial version here : http://www.copytrans.net/copytrans.php
And purchase a full version here for 19,99$ : http://www.copytrans.net/purchase.php

Also take a look at the running back to school offer and the other CopyTrans products.

Here are some screenshots :

The CopyTrans Control Center

CopyTrans

The export dialog

Review : CopyTrans 4 (Windows) is a post from: The Apple Bites

Tags:

• std exception bad allocation copytrans
• copytrans review
• copytrans std exception
• copytrans std exception bad allocation
• CopyTrans reviews
• copytrans std exception - bad allocation
• copytrans
• copytrans 4 review
• bad allocation copytrans
• copy trans review

During the last couple of weeks a lot of cases have been reported where an iPod Classic crashes, in many cases beyond repair, when being hooked up to iTunes 9. The cases of which we know mostly concern iTunes 9 for Windows, but Mac OSX may also be affected by this harmful threat.

The affected iPod Classics seem to be produced about 2 years ago most of the time but there are also reports of newer iPods which crash. In most cases the iPod can’t be repaired by simply pressing the iTunes repair button and in some cases the hard drive of the iPod just crashes beyond repair.

Apple has not made a statement about this and doesn’t seem to be very keen on making one as well. So our advice is to simple try to install older versions of iTunes when you own an iPod Classic and if your iPod crashed because of this issue you can try to revive it by using recovery programs for the iPod. You can retrieve data through the terminal in Mac OSX or by directly accessing the disk from windows.

iPod Classics crash after being hooked up to iTunes 9 is a post from: The Apple Bites

Creepy isn’t it? I know Halloween is weeks behind us, but a nice piece of iPhone software is welcome throughout the entire year.

Ghost capture is a simple app which allows you to add a set of creepy ghosts to any picture. Pictures can either be loaded from your cameraroll or you can take a picture with a build-in camera. There are 10 ghosts to choose from.

You can save images to your iPhone and send them by mail.

The only way in which this app flaws is that images you load will be resized and cropped. This is a measure taken to prevent crashes and high memory usage. Other than that it’s a very good iPhone app for freaking out friends. When I tried it, I fooled 2 friends into thinking that one of the pictures was real.

So overall a very good app, but it’s something you will play with for a few days and then never look at again. But it’s free, so definitely worth the download.

Available for free at the App Store.

App Review : Ghost Capture is a post from: The Apple Bites

Tags:

• ghost app
• ghost camera app
• ghost cam app
• ghost application
• camera capture Ghost picture
• download ghost capture
• ghost capture application free download
• ghost picture app
• GHOST CAPTURE IPHONE PICTURES
• ghost camera app review

Today reports started flooding the internet of a malfunctioning App Store. According to various sources, iPhone reviewers and iPhone developers, recently submitted applications have gone missing from the “New” listing and this listing isn’t being updated anymore. This is once again bad news for developers who are releasing new apps now, but very good news for people who currently on the front pages with their apps. It can take Apple quite a while to change these kinds of things.

Apple hasn’t announced when they will fix the bug or hasn’t made any statements concerning the bug.

This makes us wonder, why can’t Apple just keep its hands of perfectly working products? With a whole load of updates they pushed earlier this year is something fundamentally wrong. Let’s remember Safari 4.0, the browser which takes up to 1 minute to load, the iPhone updates which took away functions for some users and not to forget the extremely buggy Mac OSX “Snow Leopard” and now the iTunes App Store.

Can “It just works” still be applied to these products? Maybe that statement should now be changed to “it used to work”.

App Store listing broken, has Apple tampered too much? is a post from: The Apple Bites

With the latest Mac OSX update for Snow Leopard, v10.6.2, Intel Atom processors were no longer supported. This has consequences for a lot of Hackintoshers who installed Mac OSX on their netbooks using the hackintosh kernel-mod. But it took no longer than 2 weeks before the restrictive work of Apple was undone by a new hack of Mac OSX’s Darwin kernel.

The Mac OSX 10.6.2 Atom restriction came in the knowledge that Mac OSX shouldn’t normally run on Atom processors. So with the update Apple shut down netbook users from the latest Mac OSX update. Who updated his hackintosh installation to v10.6.2 was no longer able to boot.

But a russian hacker known as “tea” has released another upgrade of the 32-bits mach_kernel for Mac OSX 10.6.2 among the OSx86. This means that all owners of netbooks and nettops with an atom processor will once again enjoy their favorite hacked OS.

Hackintoshers can now download the new hacked kernel and get it up and running with some terminal work. Nothing for the normal home-user, but hackintosh users should manage to update without many problems.

Atom can rock on with Mac OSX 10.6.2 kernel mod is a post from: The Apple Bites

Tags:

• atom
• mach_atom_kernel
• mac kernel modifikation
• mac kernel mods
• mach kernel atom

When people visit the App Store to download themselves a nice iPhone App you should assume that quality free apps get high ratings, well…euhm, because they are free. But this isn’t true. Apparently Free apps are less likely to be rated more than 2.5 stars out of 5 than paid apps. A free notepad will get ratings which are approximately 30-50% worse than a paid notepad app with exactly the same features.

If we take a look at the Photography category of the App Store, we come to the following results. The minimum rating for a free App in the Top 100 is 1,5/5, for a paid App this is 2,5/5. When we take a look at the maximum rating we see that for free apps we have a 3,5/5 maximum rating which nearly no free App reaches, most of them are between 1,5/5 and 2,5/5. When we take a look at the top 100 paid photography apps we see that the maximum rating is 4,5/5 which many apps reach.

Do you think this is odd? Well, the explanation is simple. People have a certain limit on their App Store buying behavior. When an App is free they have no limit. They will not read the description and will often just download it when they like the name or icon. When an App is cheap the limit starts to take shape as the user will start to take a look at the screenshots and will start considering the need for the App. With expensive Apps people really consider buying the App for a while and read the review, read the full description, check every screenshot, etc.

When the people in the first category (free App downloaders) discover the App to be useless, because they didn’t read the description, they just delete it and quickly rate it 1/5.
This brings a very poor rating to free Apps. ?People who belong to the other categories (paid App dowloaders) are often more likely to keep the App even if it’s useless and are also more likely to give it a 3-5 stars rating when they delete it. Paid apps will have a higher chance of getting a review as well.

This is also partially the fault of Apple. When do they ask people to rate an App? Right, when the user deletes it. When you delete it in 90% of all cases you don’t like it.

So when you are browsing the App Store, don’t just download apps for the sake of downloading. But take a look at the description. It can save you the pain of deleting it again and it saves developers the pain of seeing 1 out of 5 stars ratings for a perfectly fine App.

App Store Paid Apps rate well, free apps don’t is a post from: The Apple Bites

Tags:

• appstore paid app rate
• % of people that rate apps
• free to paid download rate app store
• ios app paid free ratio

According to many sources, Apple is busy building the next major version of Mac OSX, namely mac OSX 10.7. Or according to a bug report analyzed by MacRumors, Mac OSX “11A47″.

MacRumors discovered that a new build reference was found in the buglist for the opensource OSX component “launchd”, this build reference “11A47″ should point to Mac OSX 10.7. Since Mac OSX 10.6 “Snow Leopard” is referenced to as “10A432″ where the first number is the most important. This number points to the major version.

So you can already be sure of one update, “launchd” which manages the processes on OSX, will get a bugfix. Other updates in version 10.7 are up to this date unknown. But as Snow Leopard was only a small under-the-hood update, we have reason to believe that Mac OSX 10.7 will bring major changes. One of them could be dramatic performance increases which benefit from the new technologies build into Snow Leopard such as e.g. Grand Central Dispatch and 64-bits. This also lightens the way for remarkable changes to the user interface of Mac OSX, such as more advanced desktop effects, faster reactions, …

But as Mac OSX uses more advanced hardware technologies older Macs will no longer be supported. At this point this may as well be the older white polycarbonate macbooks (prior to 2009) which are quite short on the graphical power. But of course these are assumptions. If we want to know what the next OSX will truly bring, we’ll have to wait for the release presentation. Since Apple can keep things in doors for quite a long time, all we can do is speculate.

So a few questions still remain and many of the above statements are still very uncertain. The biggest but probably most useless question is : What will be the codename for the new OSX?
Well according to us this can be none other than Mac OSX “Lion” as all other big cats which Apple uses for their OS codenames are already used.

Mac OSX 10.0 : Cheetah
Mac OSX 10.1 : Puma
Mac OSX 10.2 : Jaguar
Mac OSX 10.3 : Panther
Mac OSX 10.4 : Tiger
Mac OSX 10.5 : Leopard
Mac OSX 10.6 : Snow Leopard
Mac OSX 10.7 : Lion?

But for confirmation of all our suspicions we’ll have to wait until Apple presents Mac OSX 10.7 to the public.

Mac OSX 10.7, “Lion”? is a post from: The Apple Bites

Tags:

• launchd lion
• lion launchd
• launchd mac lion
• Apple Lion launchctl
• Lion launchctl
• launchd on lion
• launchd and lion
• launchd lion mac
• os x lion launchctl
• namely mac os x 10 2

While you were all asleep, Apple quietly made minor changes to the App Store. This is good news for all users as it’s the first step to a less cluttered App Store, but it’s a real pain towards developers.

Probably the most controversial change is the new “New releases” listing. When you went to the App Store before the 5th of November and you opened up a category, the apps were all listed starting with apps which were recently updated or completely new ones. Now only the completely new ones are listed and developers don’t get bumped to the top of the list anymore when they update their application. This also brings two dates to an application’s description page in the iTunes Store, a “Released”-date and an “Updated”-date.

This is good news for users as Apple is doing an effort to clean the App Store of useless updates which some developers used to push to their users to be in the spotlight for a short while. This used to be a commonly used strategy among small iPhone developers.

But is Apple doing things the right way? Probably not. Many iPhone developers are furious and disillusioned by the changes Apple made. They fear that in this way apps which are currently unknown won’t get known at all. If this is true many developer’s coding work was entirely in vain and the “Top Selling” listing as you see it now will be more likely to remain that way.

Another drawback of this change is that the “Spamming” developers will now start making new apps instead of updating their old ones eventually creating an even bigger mess. So instead of just updating things like e.g. “Incredible Wallpapers”, apps like “Super incredible wallpapers” or “Amazing Wallpapers” will start popping up, all with the same content.

A lot of developers have already announced to stop updating their Apps, even if they need updates. On the iPhoneSDK message boards moaning developers are already starting various topics about this subject. An example is this one.

At the moment it seems a harsh change but users and developers will eventually get used to this, spamming developers will change their methods and the App Store will be cluttered once again.

Apple’s (failed) attempt to clean up the App Store is a post from: The Apple Bites