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Posts Tagged ‘Fart’

Apple’s New Year’s resolution? Get apps through approval faster

Filed under: Apple, App Store

One of the biggest gripes we heard from iPhone developers during 2009 was that it took forever for their apps to make it through the iTunes App Store approval process. Often apps would be disapproved for seemingly illogical reasons after a long wait in the approval queue, and TUAW heard from more than one developer that had just given up.

iTunes Connect, the portal through which iPhone developers submit apps and check sales, was down between December 23 – 28, 2009. Since that time, TUAW has received a number of positive emails from iPhone devs that indicate that Apple has resolved to quit holding up apps in 2010.

How fast are some apps making it through the process? Take developer Aaron Douglas’s free Migraine Diary [iTunes Link]; he submitted it on December 28th at 9 PM CT and received notice of the approval a 4 PM CT on the 31st of December — that’s less than three days.

But that’s downright slow compared to what Yuri, a developer at Atomic Cactus, experienced:

I’m a developer behind Atomic Cactus, we have 3 games currently in the app store, and they all took approximately 2-3 weeks to get approved. Today at 4:00 am I submitted for approval our latest app, which isn’t exactly a “fart app” (it’s a pretty polished puzzle game with OpenFeint). As of 1:30 pm today, the app is in the app store.

That’s nine and a half hours, folks! This is a small sampling of the many emails we’ve received from developers since just after Christmas.

Whether this is due to a New Year’s resolution, competition from the Android platform, or a new back-end system for processing apps, it’s a welcome change for iPhone developers and users alike.

TUAWApple’s New Year’s resolution? Get apps through approval faster originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 09 Jan 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Why the App Store is working just right

Filed under: Gaming, Software, iTunes, Developer, App Store

Edible Apple has an interesting analysis up about this Newsweek article claiming that App Store developers aren’t getting rich. Newsweek basically claims that all those success stories we’ve heard about App Store developers have a darker side: if they aren’t already buried in costs from developing that hit app, they’re desperately scrambling to rise above the noise and get another one’s sales up on the App Store. [For a similar perspective to Newsweek's, check out this post from Ged Maheux at the Iconfactory.]

Edible Apple replies that that’s true, but a closer inspection of the numbers shows that these devs are actually making plenty of money — while their costs are going higher than they expected (one example has a developer paying over $100,000 to make $200,000) there is still money to be made. What developers are actually discovering, says Edible Apple, is that the App Store isn’t a gold rush — it’s a business.

That’s an interesting point. In the beginning, the App Store was a gold rush — you could hack together a fart app and come up with a few month’s worth of beer money over night. But with almost 100,000 apps, it’s a different ballgame. You either need to come up with an original idea that people are interested in, or polish an existing idea until it shines so bright it’s unavoidable. And as Edible Apple says, that’s actually a good thing. There is money to be made in the App Store these days — multiple developers have proven that already. It’ll take work and luck to do it, but isn’t that the case with any successful business?

TUAWWhy the App Store is working just right originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 07 Oct 2009 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Promo codes for nothing, apps for free

Filed under: Software, App Store, App Review

The floodgate of new iPhone apps is open and enlarging all the time. Hundreds of new entries hit the App Store every week. This is a wonderful thing, but it does cause a good deal of consternation.

If you are an iPhone owner, how can you keep up with what’s out there? After all, according to Macworld, there are now nearly 500 fart apps available for your pleasure out of the 65,000 (and climbing) apps in the store. Cutting through the static is nearly impossible.

If you are a developer, how can you get the word out about your wonderful new creation? Well, there are number of ways, and since you’re reading TUAW, you found one. We get many more app review requests than we can ever handle and I’m sure all the Mac and iPhone oriented sites are in the same position. Regardless of the quality of your new baby, it’s hit or miss as to whether a blog or other news outlet will ever get around to reviewing it.

Apple runs a program where developers can generate a number of free promotional codes for publicity purposes. When a code is redeemed either in iTunes or right in the App store on the iPhone, the free app is installed just as if it was bought. Traditionally, the bulk of these promo codes go to sites like ours that provide publicity and hence sell apps. While Apple was briefly blocking any apps with a 17+ rating from getting promo codes, as Michael reports that policy has shifted again. The developer of Eucalyptus, an e-book reader, was surprised to find that Apple is now allowing him codes for his 17+ rated app.

[To give you an idea of how involved the app approval process can be, we earlier reported that Eucalyptus was first denied approval because they were using the Project Gutenberg catalog of public-domain books where you could download a totally non-illustrated version of the Kama Sutra. No one seems to know why the plethora of other Project Gutenberg powered e-readers had no trouble being approved, or why these apps' ratings varied.]

In late May a new site called AppGiveaway opened and partnered with developers to get paid apps into users hands for free. Sites have always had the occasional contest to win something, and that’s always been good for sales, since whether you win or lose, if you entered, at least you were introduced to the product.

AppGiveaway does it differently. It provides an incentive to both buyer and seller. Developers contribute promo codes to be given away; each contest contains a full description of the app and a number of screen shots. Contests, plus a small number of Apple related stories, are all AppGiveaway does. In the month of June, AppGiveaway awarded over 130 apps and so far over 100 have been given out in the month of July. Checking the site now, there are currently 20 apps that you can enter and win.

Check it out. You’ll be helping yourself and in turn, helping the developer community to get the word out. Then come right back and tell us what you found.

TUAWPromo codes for nothing, apps for free originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 27 Jul 2009 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Found Footage: Pull My Finger stands for freedom

Filed under: Found Footage, iPhone, App Store

I’ve got a soft spot in my comedy heart for The Daily Show’s Wyatt Cenac, one of the newer correspondents on the program; he often manages to give interview subjects just enough Colbertian leeway to wander into the danger zone, then lets them blunder about, bumping into the awkward silences to excellent effect.

That’s exactly what Cenac did this week when he interviewed the creators of iPhone fart apps Pull My Finger and iFart, who have a long-simmering feud over who gassed whom on the fart-app frontier. The whole thing is fine and funny… right up until the point that Pull My Finger developer Eric Stratton compares his app’s struggle against injustice to Jackie Robinson breaking the color line in baseball. That’s when it becomes deliciously, painfully hilarious. For the record, Stratton claims he was joking.

You can check out the video in the second half of the post. Nice work, Wyatt.

[via Mac OS Ken and AllThingsD]

Continue reading Found Footage: Pull My Finger stands for freedom

TUAWFound Footage: Pull My Finger stands for freedom originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 25 Jul 2009 11:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Drunk Sniper: An unofficial sequel to those iPhone beer apps

In the proud tradition of iPhone applications that demonstrate the wonders of the human body, such as the popular and lucrative fart apps, a developer called Apalon Studio has released a game called Drunk Sniper (iTunes link). You can think of it as a sequel of sorts to the iBeer application — which is one of the bestselling paid apps in the App Store — because it shows you what happens after you finish several of those virtual beers.

As you can probably guess, the game is neither tasteful nor classy, but on the other hand it makes fun and creative use of the iPhone’s accelerometer. Basically, players take on the role of a drunk guy in a bathroom stall. The goal is simple: To relieve yourself without making too much of a mess. The applications shows a stream of urine whose direction changes over time. Players tilt the iPhone to move the stream towards the toilet. As you advance through the levels, the game gets harder, presumably because your character has gotten drunker.

I played through a couple of levels, and while I’m not exactly addicted, Drunk Sniper is a fun novelty. It costs $0.99 cents for now, but the plan is to increase the price to $1.99, which seems rather high for an app that’s basically a well-executed gag — I don’t know if I’d pay full price unless I was a bit inebriated myself.

Apalon is funded for less than $100,000 by software development vendor MoveYourWeb. It recently partnered with Resistor Productions to create the equally classy iGirl app, which hit the App Store’s Top 10. By the way, Apalon notes that although the in-game character is a guy, Drunk Sniper isn’t just for men: ”Girls are free to try it and feel like guys -– this might be another brick into a bridge leading to understanding between the sexes.”

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