There's A Corrupt App For That

There's always been only one place to get an app for an iOS device without jailbreaking. Apples's App Store. It's perhaps the single greatest reason for the incredible popularity of the devices. Users can trust that apps have been verified by Apple to be safe and functional.

So what happens when apps submitted by developers to the App Store are approved and released by Apple into the store, only to be broken by Apple? That's the scenario that played out for Instapaper creator Marco Arment and many others yesterday. His blog post spells out in detail what happened to cause developer apps to crash immediately and repeatedly after being updated.

It's not the worst failing in the world, even though it can cause a great deal of trouble if people's data is lost. Honest mistakes happen. What Apple should be incredibly embarrassed about is their handling of the matter. Rather than releasing an official public statement about the problem, they chose to have a spokesman contact AllThingsD and Macworld. In this case, Apple needs to step up and do the right thing by their developers, who bore the brunt of customers frustrations. Apple, don't be evil. Even if it means you lose a little face.

Hat tip to MacStories.

Meet Samsung's Completely Original Voice Control: Suri

Just because two things look alike doesn't mean the second thing is a copy of the first. Sometimes, there might be essentially only one way for something to work. That said, it might be in your best interest to envision at least a slightly different way of doing something. If for no other reason to prevent posts like this.

Jim Dalrymple posts a link to Samsung’s implementation of their voice control feature. Samsung has been widely criticized, and justifiably so, for copying Apple. The trend continues here. The least they could do would be to slightly change the voice, the way the UI pops into the screen or the shape of the elements, but no.

Apple first gave voice control a personality and interface with the introduction of Siri. It's been widely popular and is pretty well known. If Samsung wants to immunize itself from continued legal action and ridicule, they need to step up their game.

Market Share With Zero Profit

Google has partnered with Asus to manufacture and sell the Nexus 7 tablet. Pricing will begin at $199 for 8GB when it goes on sale. This will make it very competitive on price with the Kindle Fire. Writing for All Things D, Ina Fried has a story detailing how difficult it was for Asus to meet Google's demands for the tablet. Included is this gem:

One way the companies managed that is through razor-thin margins. Google is selling the device through its Google Play store, essentially at cost, and also absorbing the marketing costs associated with the device.

“When it gets sold through the Play store, there’s no margin,” Rubin said. “It just basically gets (sold) through.”

Every other manufacturer thinking of building an Android based tablet must be thrilled at the prospect of competing with this no profit device.

If these tablets sell successfully, something I think is a long shot, It'll be interesting to read the stories written in a couple years. If they succeed in taking market share from the iPad, these stories will mimic the current marketplace for Apple's iPhone and Mac computers. Apple holds market shares below 25% in each, but takes better than 60% of the profit. I can't see how Apple loses in the end.

And that's the best case scenario for the competition. If/when Apple releases a 7" iPad Mini, does anyone really think they won't earn at least a 30% profit margin?

Thank you Time Cook and team.

Hat tip to Daring Fireball

Apple & Mac Sandboxing

Manson Reece has a brief post calling out Apple for not living by the same rules it holds developers to with regards to Sandboxing. I think he has a valid point. It seems that if Apple had taken a look at all the apps they make available in the Mac App Store and applied their Sandboxing rules, they may have learned a lot about the effect this change will have on developers.

In the end, Sandboxing will be a good thing for the average user, but it will prevent power users from enjoying the convenience of the store. I've already felt it with one of my most used apps. TextExpander just released a major version update to 4.0 and it's not available any longer through the Mac App Store. That's too bad for everyone.

Hat tip to Daring Fireball