I-phone – Page 4007 – Blancer.com Tutorials and projects

It Just Won’t Go Away: iPhone Coming To T-Mobile?

I believe the last time I heard this one was in March of this year. Back then, it was the Financial Times that said that T-Mobile might start selling the iPhone later this year or next year. Now it is Cult of Mac, which quotes a “highly paces source within T-Mobile” that there is an 80% chance that T-Mobile might start selling the iPhone in the third quarter of this year. We leave this one up to you to decide what 80% really means.

Apple’s relationship with AT&T has been discussed so many times over the past week alone and it is clear that AT&T has reached its limits where it can take Apple. And it appears that Apple thinks that AT&T could use some competition to get its act together in some areas, such as data services and especially the limitations AT&T has created.

It is more than likely that a competitor would be willing to open up its network a bit further in exchange to get a portion of the iPhone pie. T-Mobile is the smallest of the big 4 carriers in the U.S. with just under 34 million subscribers and its network quality isn’t the best. But it would help getting the phone to more customers. It might take some time until Verizon will get an iPhone as Apple is reportedly designing a CDMA iPhone from the ground up to accommodate a different chip set.

From Cult of Mac:

“Talks between Apple and T-Mobile are at an advanced stage, our source says, and it’s 80 percent likely that the iPhone will be coming to T-Mobile in Q3. The source works at T-Mobile but asked not to be quoted directly and to remain anonymous because they aren’t authorized to talk to the press. T-Mobile’s parent company, Deutsche Telekom, which carries the iPhone in Germany, was able to influence, the source said. T-Mobile USA is the fourth-largest U.S. carrier with 33.7 million customers. Apple’s exclusive contract with AT&T is reportedly ending this year, and many expect Apple to offer the iPhone to other wireless companies. Overseas, Apple has routinely added extra carriers when exclusivity deals in those markets expire.”

iPad: Ground Zero For Enhanced EBooks?

So we know that the iPad is often criticized as a device that tries to be everything to everyone, but does not excel at any particular discipline. Amazon’s Kindle comes up as an example very often, in which the Kindle is described as the better specialized ebook reader as it has the better screen for reading and better battery life. However, we are also seeing first signs of a new development in ebooks where ebooks turn into multimedia apps that simply can’t run on a Kindle.

Michael Wolf has recently written a great article on this topic for GigaOm Pro (subscription required), and sheds light on what he calls enhanced ebooks. Wolf believes that enhanced ebooks are just developing with all the disadvantages that come along with such a trend – such as inconsistent apps for different platforms, but it is easy to see that, if he is right, that the iPad may be much better positioned for media-rich ebooks than the Amazon Kindle.

That trend has lots of implications for developers, which may suddenly be able to go into a business that was previously reserved for printing services, but offer new types of applications that, for example, create ebook platforms and allow content creators to easily publish media rich magazines, newsletters or ebooks. The market opportunity is substantial, as Amazon announced this week that it is now selling more ebooks than hardcover versions.

Wolf believes that enhanced ebooks may result “in a whole new digital book industry, much like has been seen in the digital video and music industries.” He sees the iPad as a key platform as this trend and consumer perception will evolve. “The media-consumption friendliness of the iPad is a natural choice for authors looking to create a multimedia-laden e-book,” he wrote.

iPad Sales Estimate Jumps 81%

Apple will begin selling the iPad in 9 more countries on Friday. Austria, Belgium, Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand and Singapore will be added to the existing base, as Apple has been able to ramp its production to support new geographies.

However, “support” is somewhat relative as market researchers and analysts believe that Apple can still not meet actual demand and that iPad sales are limited by production capacity and not demand. iSuppli today raised its unit forecast by 81% to 12.9 million units for 2010. Next year, Apple may sell 36.5 million iPads and in 2012 50.6 million. If iSuppli is correct than Apple may sell 100 million iPads in less than three years, which makes it an interesting app platform, perhaps even more interesting than the iPhone for some.

“The iPad is shaping up to be the ‘Tickle Me Elmo’ of the 2010 holiday season, with product demand expected to vastly exceed available supply,” said Rhoda Alexander, director of monitor research for iSuppli.

For 2010, Apple is estimated to hold an 84% market share in tablet PCs and continue to dominate the segment at least until 2012. Competition may be insignificant until 2011 when other players, including HP, will have some products to show. iSuppli believes that Apple cannot sit back and just enjoy the success, but actually think about product improvements for next year. Likely additional changes will embrace an internal camera and expansion of the product line, potentially including additional screen sizes, the company said.

Apple rivals, on the other side, will have to focus less on the hardware but relate more to the suite of applications that can be paired with the hardware.

I may be speculating here, but I feel that this was not the last adjusted iPad forecast for the year.

Antenna Confusion Not Deterring New Users

With all the hoopla surrounding the iPhone antenna issues, it’s easy to imagine that Apple may be losing some buyers to Android. There is enough confusion out there to suggest that a different smartphone may be a better smartphone right now.

However, the antenna issue has not really big impact on prospective buyers that are new to Apple, but it may have an impact on iPhone upgrades, which should make you think twice about iOS 4. IDC has published brief results of a survey that asked people whether they are still interested in buying an iPhone 4. 74% of those who wanted to buy an iPhone before have not changed their mind. However, 66% of those who own an iPhone already said they are delaying an upgrade to the iPhone 4. IDC did not break out numbers of those iPhone owners and which iPhones they own.

Of course, those numbers are to be taken with a grain of salt as purchase intentions do not really relate to actual behavior and intentions can change in an instant. However, the numbers may reflect the current mood in the market, which we would describe as cautious. IDC noted that the actual impact of the antenna issues and the effect of Apple’s response to give out free bumpers will only reveal itself over the next few months. That said, Steve Jobs said that more than 3 million iPhones have been sold already.

Behind The Scenes of The Apple-AT&T Relationship

Wired will be running an article in its upcoming August issue that will shed some light on the rather difficult relationship between Apple and AT&T. While it is always difficult to determine how accurate such reports are, the article promises to provide background information why AT&T seems to be falling of what the iPhone really would need.

Apparently, Apple is not as happy with AT&T as it is publicly stated by the company. According to the article Jobs considered dropping AT&T “more than a dozen times”. It isn’t difficult to figure out what the differences between the two companies really are – it comes down to data capability and affordability. For example, Apple wanted tethering to be included in the data plan, AT&T wanted extra money – which makes sense, as AT&T’s cellular network has been brought down to its knees due heavy data usage and extra charges would create a barrier for additional data use (and deliver extra revenue, of course.)

We can only imagine how much the two are arguing over Facetime and its availability on the 3G network.

There is also some information on the never ending rumors of a Verizon iPhone. The article states that Apple considered switching to Verizon several times, but concluded that the different chip sizes and the tight iPhone design would require Apple to create a CDMA iPhone from the ground up. The article isn’t out yet, but it is worth the read when published.

BMW First To Integrate iPod Out

BMW has been pretty quick to take advantage of iOS 4 and enable the new iPod Out new feature that was first described in April when developers noted an extended “iPod Accessory Protocol”.

BMW said it is using the software update to generate an iPod-like menu on the center dash display of BMWs and Minis. Users can control the playback of media from the car’s own controls rather than using a touchscreen. The update also integrates new in-car features such as custom playlists as well as Genius playlists.

There was no information which cars will be offering the new feature and when it could be available. BMW simply says that the feature will be coming to future cars. However, iPod Out will be a key feature of the Mini Connected system, which is expected to make its debut in next year.

A range of BMW models are due for a refresh. The new 3 series, 6 series and the refresh of the 7 series are more than likely to offer iPod Out right away.

iPhone Predicted To See Huge Surge in Demand

ChangeWave has released interesting survey findings that indicate sharply rising demand for Apple’s iPhone over the next quarter. The result contradicts some expectations that Apple may be gambling away its customer trust by ignoring the iPhone reception issues, but then we do know that the company may be addressing some questions in an upcoming press conference and an iOS update.

The survey concluded that the iPhone leaves its users far more satisfied than any other phone: RIM with 30%. Especially Blackberrys seem to have lost their cool factor and Research in Motion has to think about ways to regain traction. The same goes for Motorola, which has lost consumer interest over the past quarter. Onbly 6% (down from 14%) of smartphone buyers are looking into a Blackberry and only 9% (down from16%) into a Motorola device. Interest in the iPhone has jumped from 31% to 52%, while HTC’s Android devices have also shown more traction: 19% of respondents said they were looking into an Android HTC phones (up from 12%).

According to ChangeWave, “the momentum for Apple and HTC is occurring at the expense of other smart phone manufacturers – Motorola and Research in Motion in particular. […] The market situation for RIM appears far more problematic, at least short term. RIM’s customer satisfaction ratings have plummeted for the past 7 quarters, and planned buying among consumers is at the lowest levels ever recorded for RIM in a ChangeWave survey.”

What Exactly Is The iPad?

That may sound like a rather silly question and you may answer that it is a tablet, of course. But, if you think about it, the iPad can be many things to many people, depending on why it is purposed. And given the fact that Apple needs to carve out a market for it, it is likely that many buyers are using the iPad to replace something else. And that is the core of the question: What is the iPad – and what is it to most people? If you know the answer, you may have a good idea what apps you should be developing to target iPad users.

So take a guess: Is it the Internet browsing device that was demonstrated by Steve Jobs? Or is it a gaming device?

It turns out that a market research firm, Resolve, has looked at exactly that question and has come up with some interesting numbers.

49% of people in the survey, and owners of an iPad, said that, because of the iPad, they would not buy an e-reader as a result. 38% said they would not buy another portable gaming device and 32% said they would not buy a netbook as a result. Conceivably, most people see in the iPad a great e-reader and portable gaming device. However, 60% said that the best mobile gaming device would be a “portable gaming device” and only 23% pointed to the iPad. 8% mentioned that a smartphone offers the most enjoyable mobile gaming experience. The implication seems to be clear: Despite the fact that Amazon’s Kindle is generally considered to be the better e-reader, the iPad is invading its turf and the Kindle may need to drop further in price.

Resolve also looked into the purchase decisions – and what made people buy the iPad. 56% of buyers are looking for entertainment and 42% simply think the iPad is “cool”. The iPad is generally see as an “expensive toy” and a “breakthrough technology” device. Reasons for not buying the iPad currently include its price and the fact that people simply do not know what to do with it. 37% of iPad buyers do not own any other Apple products, Resolve said. 49% own an iPod, 24% an iPhone and 16% a Macbook.

Books and games appear to be the biggest opportunities on the iPad, if Resolve is correct.

Apple’s Huge iAd Payout

So we have heard about Apple’s ginormous advertising deals for iAd, but it seems that Apple’s deals reach through to developers as well. One developer, Jason Ting, said that his LED flashlight app (LED Light for iPhone 4), which is offered as an ad-supported free version, turned in $1372.20 of advertising revenue in one day.

That revenue was based on 9000 downloads, 9300 ad impressions and a click-through rate of 11.8%. The eCPM rate came in at close to $150, which is about 100 times higher than what other mobile deals currently pay. And if you compare the deal against standard eCPM models, Apple’s pay is up to 300 times higher. Of course, Ting appears to be an extreme example, as we have heard other reports with much lower eCPM rates as well. And Ting’s revenue still includes Apple’s 40% cut.

Another developer, Kenneth Ballenegger, said that his eCPM was somewhere between $10 and $15. He also noted that iAd’s fill rate is at just 10% and the ad refresh rate is much lower than that of other ad networks and he, in fact, said that he expects iAd eCPM rates of just over $1 in the long run. In the end, the fill rate seems to be what is the biggest concern out there and it’s so low that, for many developers – those with extremely high ad views – it just does not replace Google yet. However, iAd just launched and like other networks it needs some time to ramp up. So let’s be patient.

We should be realistic about the eCPM rates. Of course, there’s a novelty to iAds and that certainly benefits developers right now. Eventually, the eCPM rate will fall, but we would expect the numbers to remain higher than on the desktop. You can run iAds and use other networks such as Google as a fallback option.

Asset Libraries and Blocks in iOS 4

iOS 4 presented a million billion new API’s by Apple’s count, but for this post I am going to show a quick demo of the new Assets Library API where you can now get to users photos and videos with more access than ever before. This new API relies on the new programming device called Blocks that has been introduced with iOS 4. Blocks are used through many of the new API’s as a kind of extended @selector. We will look into this new development device and make a small project to create our own UIImagePickerController. In the end we are going to create a tableview that is filled with all the photos within our library. Check out the video below or follow the steps typed out below.

Screencast

Using the Assets Library API in iOS 4 from Collin Ruffenach on Vimeo.

Creating the Project

Create a new project in xCode. Make it for the iPhone since this is an iOS 4 framework. A view based application will create a view controller for us, so lets use that. Call your project MyImagePicker.

Adding in the framework

This project will revolve around taking advantage of the AssetsLibrary framework introduced with iOS 4. Due to this you must have the newest xCode and iPhone SDK installed with iOS 4.0 support. If this is done you should be able to expand the frameworks folder of your project. Right click on UIKit.framework and select “Reveal in Finder”. This will open up the folder that contains all of the frameworks you can use in an iOS 4 project. Find AssetsLibrary.framework and drag into the Frameworks folder of your project. Once dragged in make sure that the Copy items into destination folder options is deselected and that it is set to recursively create groups for any added folders.

Using the framework with blocks

iOS 4.0 introduces a totally new programming concept for Objective C developers to take advantage of when creating their own code and when using Apple’s API. Blocks in the most simple terms are Objective C objects that are methods. A block uses the special character ^ to denote its beginning and is a required parameter of many of the API’s introduced within iOS 4.0. Apple has some great documentation on blocks, and how they conceptually fit into the current objective C landscape. You can see their concise but effective overview here. For our purposes I am just going to review the simple syntax of a block.

Before we dive into blocks lets take a look at the AssetsLibrary framework methods that will require them. The general flow of the object access we will be doing is as follows.

We are going to create an ALAssetsLibrary and call a method on it that will enumerate through all the ALAssetsGroups it has access to. For every ALAssetsGroup we will call a method on it which will enumerate through the ALAssets it has access to. We will save each ALAsset into an array we will use to populate our tableview. The two different enumerations we are going to perform is where the blocks will come in. But lets first set up our view controller appropriately.

MyImagePickerViewController.h

#import &lt;UIKit/UIKit.h&gt;;
#import &lt;AssetsLibrary/AssetsLibrary.h&gt;;

@interface MyImagePickerViewController : UIViewController {
 
	IBOutlet UITableView *tableview;
	IBOutlet UIActivityIndicatorView *activity;
 
	NSMutableArray *assets;
}
 
@property (nonatomic, retain) IBOutlet UITableView *tableview;
@property (nonatomic, retain) IBOutlet UIActivityIndicatorView *activity;
 
@end

We are going be using the assets array here to hold the assets that we are going to pull using the AssetsLibrary Framework.

Now open up MyImagePickerViewController.xib and drag in a UITableView and a UIActivityIndicatorView. With these in place connect them to the IBOutlets you created for this class. Also make sure to connect the UITableViewDataSource and UITableViewDelegate to the MyImagePickerViewController as well. With that done we can start to use the AssetsLibrary Framework.

Using the Asset Library

Now we are going to use our AssetsLibrary framework. This will be done within the viewDidLoad method of your MyImagePickerViewController.m. Put the following code in there.

1 - (void)viewDidLoad {
2
3    [super viewDidLoad];
4    [activity startAnimating];
5
6    void (^assetEnumerator)(struct ALAsset *, NSUInteger, BOOL *) = ^(ALAsset *result, NSUInteger index, BOOL *stop) {
7	if(result != NULL) {
8		NSLog(@"See Asset: %@", result);
9		[assets addObject:result];
10
11	}
12    };
13
14    void (^assetGroupEnumerator)(struct ALAssetsGroup *, BOOL *) =  ^(ALAssetsGroup *group, BOOL *stop) {
15	if(group != nil) {
16		[group enumerateAssetsUsingBlock:assetEnumerator];
17	}
18
19
20	[self.tableView reloadData];
21	[self.activity stopAnimating];
22	[self.activity setHidden:YES];
23    };
24
25    assets = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
26    library = [[ALAssetsLibrary alloc] init];
27    [library enumerateGroupsWithTypes:ALAssetsGroupAlbum
28					   usingBlock:assetGroupEnumerator
29					 failureBlock: ^(NSError *error) {
30						 NSLog(@"Failure");
31					 }];
32 }

We are going to be going though this code line by line. On line 4, we start animating our activity indicator. I will explain why we have to do that a little bit later. Lines 6 – 23 are the lines that will declare the two blocks that we will use to fill our tableview with pictures. We are going to declare two blocks to use as parameters to methods within a ALAssetLibrary object and a ALAssetGroup object. The first method call we will make will be on our ALAssetLibrary object. So for the moment lets skip passed the block declarations and look at line 25. On line 25 we instantiate our NSMutableArray to hold the ALAssets that we will pull out from the AssetsLibrary. On line 26 we will create our ALAssetsLibrary object. We will call a single method on this object to loop through all of the assets in a library. The method is:

– enumerateGroupsWithTypes:usingBlock:failureBlock:

This method takes in 3 parameters. An ALAssetGroup type, a block to be performed on each group and a block to be performed on failure. Lets talk about block syntax. A block is a native Objective C object. It is a subclass of NSObject. With that said it is also an Objective C method. An objective C method is composed of three things. A return type, a parameter list and a piece of code to be executed. We are going to pass the assetsGroupEnumerator block object that declare on line 14 into this method. Lets take a look at how the block is declared.

You begin by specifying a return type for the block. Void in this case. Next you enclose a name for the block which is proceeded by a carrot ^ character. This is the special character Apple has decided on to denote blocks. You begin block names with blocks as well as the actual declaration of what a block is. This name is wrapped in parenthesis. This is followed by the parameter list that the block will accept. In this case it is a ALAssetsGroup object and a Boolean indicating whether to stop. Now I did not come up with these parameters by myself. Since I will be passing this block into an ASAssetLibrary the documentation will tell us what will be passed into the block. ALAssetsLibrary objects documentation can be seen here. With that all said, lets take a look at the code that will actually compose this block. Starting on line 15 we will make sure that we are seeing a valid group. If the ALAssetsGroup object that we are passed is valid then we will call another enumeration on the group which will enumerate through assets. This enumeration method also requires a block. We declared this block above. This block is called assetEnumerator. Once again we retrieved the parameters list from the documentation of the object asking for, in this case an ALAssetsGroup.

For this block, which begins on line 6, the block is passed an ALAsset object, an index and a stopping condition boolean. Within the code of the block we will ensure that the returned ALAsset is valid and if it is we will add it to our array which will hold all of our assets. With this block declared we pass it into the call to our ALAssetsLibrary object on line 16. Once every group has been enumerated and our array is filled with all of our ALAssets we will tell the tableview to reload its data and get rid of our UIActivityIndicatorView.

With all of this done all that remains if filling in the required UITableViewDataSource methods. The tableview will be filled with the assets we collected. ALAsset objects are cool in that they include a method called -thumbnail which returns a CGImageRef to a thumbnail we will use. I won’t explain the development of these methods any further since they are pretty straight forward.

// Customize the number of sections in the table view.
- (NSInteger)numberOfSectionsInTableView:(UITableView *)tableView {
    return 1;
}
 
// Customize the number of rows in the table view.
- (NSInteger)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView numberOfRowsInSection:(NSInteger)section {
    return [assets count];
}
 
// Customize the appearance of table view cells.
- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath {
 
    static NSString *CellIdentifier = @"Cell";
 
    UITableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:CellIdentifier];
    if (cell == nil) {
        cell = [[[UITableViewCell alloc] initWithStyle:UITableViewCellStyleDefault reuseIdentifier:CellIdentifier] autorelease];
    }
 
	ALAsset *asset = [assets objectAtIndex:indexPath.row];
	[cell.imageView setImage:[UIImage imageWithCGImage:[asset thumbnail]]];
	[cell.textLabel setText:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"Photo %d", indexPath.row+1]];
 
    return cell;
}

How To Get Booted From The App Store

Most of us may scratching their heads over the question how to get some apps into the App Store in the first place. Mozilla, for example, is still hoping that its Home app is making the cut. Once you are in the store, it appears it’s a fair game and you can focus on marketing your app. But you can also do what Thuat Nguyen has done and get booted from the store altogether. And if you heard about Nguyen already then you might be upset, but, realistically, it was just a matter of time until we would see some fraudulent exploit.

What happened is that Nguyen was able to occupy 42 of the top 50 sales positions in the App Store’s “book” category using bogus apps. Interestingly, when Nguyen’s apps appeared, there was also a spike in complaints of iTunes accounts being hacked and being overcharged. Apparently “only” a few hundred accounts were affected until Apple booted Nguyen, which is the good news. The bad news is, of course that the exploit happened and that it may have affected the credibility of tens of thousands of other developers.

Courtesy of Engadget, Apple has posted a statement, which reads:

The developer Thuat Nguyen and his apps were removed from the App Store for violating the developer Program License Agreement, including fraudulent purchase patterns.

Developers do not receive any iTunes confidential customer data when an app is downloaded.

If your credit card or iTunes password is stolen and used on iTunes we recommend that you contact your financial institution and inquire about canceling the card and issuing a chargeback for any unauthorized transactions. We also recommend that you change your iTunes account password immediately. For more information on best practices for password security visit http://www.apple.com/support/itunes.

The App Store and Apple’s tight grip on what is published and what not through, let’s be honest, a walled garden approach, has always promoted the idea of high quality applications and a sense of security that, for example, Google just can’t provide with Android. But it should be a wake-up call for app buyers as well as developers that the App Store can be exploited in way it was not designed for. This case may have been just a shot in front of the bow and the damage could have been worse.

Of course, Nguyen’s approach was a sure bet to get booted from the App Store and I’d be surprised if that was already everything we have heard about him and Apple. The App Store has been and still is a relatively safe environment to make purchase and I doubt Apple will risk this perception. But, personally, I would wish Apple would be a bit more vocal in its support for developers in this situation. And more vocal to calm potential concerns of consumers. Just silencing the topic does not always work.

A version of the good old neighborhood watch may be the best protection of the community against such fraudulent exploits. However, even on an individual level, you should be making sure that your reputation is not affected by such exploits. More and more consumers may be trying to find ways to determine whether an app is real or not and you should make it as easy as possible for them to figure that out. Make sure you have a functioning web site and an active support section. Make sure you can be contacted and maintain a public persona, perhaps through a Facebook page. Public exposure creates confidence and you can use this way to earn trust.

Mindshare Migration: Mobile Developers Care About Revenue

Vision Mobile has just posted one of the more impressive research reports and surveys that focus on mobile application development. This new report, called Mobile Developer Economics 2010: The migration of developer mindshare examines facts and emotions that guide developers these days in their efforts to make a living from app development. The survey included 400 developers across 8 platforms (iOS (iPhone), Android, Symbian, BlackBerry, Java ME, Windows Phone, Flash Lite, and mobile web.)

The 57 pages are easily considered a must read if you are interested in competitive app development, publishing and marketing in any way, as the data lets you keep an eye on your colleagues and rivals and possibly reveal one or the other surprise.

Vision Mobile’s survey found that Android is carrying the mind share right now, as 60% of its respondents said that they recently developed for that platform. iOS follows in second place and then, … well, then there is really nothing after that as far as mindshare migration is concerned as those two platforms are described as leading the “industrial revolution era” of the mobile app development space:

From the report: “The next five years will completely remap the mobile industry landscape. RIM and Apple, two verticalised companies, move into the top five, displacing the incumbents, leaving one Finnish and two Korean companies in pole position. The operating system landscape will consolidate into two tiers; the top-end open to iconic products dominated by Apple and followed by the iPhone clones powered by Android; and the feature-phone market where licensable operating systems (Android and BREW) will finally allow handset OEMs to move away from legacy RTOS platforms. Google’s Android will also power a diverse range of new form factors, from picture frames to car dashboards, offering for the first time a simplified platform from which to achieve convergent interconnected services. In this age of Industrial Revolution, mobile developers will be responsible for most of the innovation on mobile devices, and can act independently from the mobile industry powers-that-be – OEMs or network operators – to get their applications to market. In this age, developers have both power and choice.”

The lion’s share of the report is dedicated to Android and iOS and if you have ever had competitive questions you might find some answers here.

Among the data that captured my interest was:

– 75% of app developer choose their preferred platform by evaluating the market penetration
– 50% of Windows phone developers have an iPhone
– A standalone developer can expect to sell somewhere between 1000-2000 copies of a $1.99 app
– 5% of iPhone developers said there apps had “very good” revenues
– 27% of iPhone developers said their revenues are as projected
– 24% of iPhone developers reported poor revenues
– The App Store has three times more apps than Android Market, 30 times the apps of Symbian and more than 40 times the apps of Flash Lite.
– 21% of developers say they do not get any support, only ten 10% report very good support

You can discuss why Android carries the mind share and I would have to say that it isn’t entirely clear to me, based on this report. The respondents did criticize Android quite a bit, for example that its App Store model that has virtually no flood gates, makes it harder for high-quality apps to compete. Developers complained about the lack of support, which they can’t even get for money, and they highlighted the lack of documentation of open source platforms, which impacts their development.

You can read the entire report here.

How Much Data Do We Really Consume?

AT&T caused some waves recently when it simply canceled its flat fee wireless data plan and replaced with two plans that have caps, which, in some scenarios could get rather expensive for the user. Some analysts, such as Jack Gold from J. Gold Associates, have said that efficient data usage of apps may become a part of future wireless benchmarks.

However, even if those 200 MB and 2 GB caps sound tight, most of us will have to admit that we simply have no idea how much data we actually consume on our smartphones. Common sense would suggest that there are smartphones that promote data usage and there are some that are too clumsy and create a barrier for data usage. The iPhone, with more than 200,000 apps on tap and countless apps that heavily rely on data, may be among those devices that consume considerable data – which, in fact may have been a reason for AT&T to introduce those new caps just before the introduction of the iPhone 4.

But that does not answer the question how much data we actually consume, of course, and is very much speculation on our part.

Nielsen tried to give some answers by revealing some of the results it got from analyzing 60,000 phone bills. And, as you may imagine, there were some surprises.

What was expected is the fact that increased smartphone data penetration, the availability of more apps and the simple fact that we are getting more comfortable using smartphones results in more data usage. The average monthly data consumption jumped from about 90 MB in January 2009 to about 298 MB in January 2010.

However, Nielsen found that 6% of smartphone users are consuming half of all data. 25% of smartphone users consume less than 1 MB of data. Another 25% do not use any data service, despite the fact that they have signed up for such a plan and pay for it. They use their smartphone only for voice calls and messaging. Nielsen criticized the carriers for this scenario and urged them to do a much better job educating their customers.

More than a third of smartphone users do not subscribe to a data plan at this time. Nielsen said that these users got their smartphones before operators required a data plan.

All these numbers aside, it is somewhat clear that the bandwidth discussion has trickled down from the desktop to the mobile landscape. Data is the new revenue opportunity as voice is commoditized. AT&T is leading the charge, while others with substantial market share may follow soon. Other carriers that have built their business model on a monetary value proposition may have it more difficult to switch to such a model.

In that view, it is interesting to note that, at least for now, AT&T’s new tiered pricing plan may be a good value and not be as expensive as it seems. Nielsen said that 99% of cellphone subscribers are better off with the new model. That is, of course, until applications such as video calling will make it to 3G/4G networks.

iAd To Debut Tomorrow

Apple will be rolling on its iAd service on Thursday and open up a potentially very lucrative revenue source for application developers as well as another revenue source for itself. It’s a high-rollers market now, but don’t expect mass advertisers to be playing ball just yet.

Recent reports indicated that iAds are commanding huge premiums. The first row of advertisers is reportedly shelling out at least $1 million each for the privilege to get advertising exposure. If you intend to cover channel exclusivity, the price can top $10 million. Apple recently said that it has already sold $60 million in committed ads – which Apple claims is about half of the total committed ad spending for mobile platforms this year. Among the first advertisers are AT&T, Best Buy, Campbell Soup Company, Chanel, Citi, DirecTV, GEICO, GE, JCPenney, Liberty Mutual Group, Nissan, Sears, State Farm, Target, Turner Broadcasting System, Unilever and The Walt Disney Studios.

iAd pricing is the highest in the mobile segment, as far as we know. Banners get $10 for 1000 hits, once click gets $2. It is interesting to note that all ads will be targeting the iPhone initially, as iOS 4 will not be available for the iPad until November. AppleInsider recently wrote that most advertisers are still in the early planning stages for their iAd campaigns and that they aren’t ready to roll their ads out just yet. By the end of the year, iAds should have much greater traction.

Some advertising agencies seem to be unhappy about the fact that Apple controls the technical production of iAds itself. According to AdAge, Apple tells advertisers that it takes about 6 – 8 weeks to run an ad after the artwork has been delivered. However, this fact does not seem to turn down many customers.

“Any brand that does it is instantly aligned with Apple,” said Darrell Whitelaw, creative director of mobile shop MIR, which is designing Citi’s iAd, in an interview with AdAge. “It’s instant credibility, instant cool. You’re on the new iPhone 4; it really is the one way you can align yourself with that little Apple logo.”

iAds require iOS 4, which means that the iPad will not get iAds for now. However, AdAge said that it has noticed iPad campaigns being scheduled for November, which would mean that iOS 4 will be coming to the iPad in that time frame.

Google Docs Viewer, Mobile Edition

Google has just released a new version of its Doc Viewer, which enables iPhone users (and developers) to display various file formats right within the browser windows.

The viewer supports Microsoft’s DOC and DOCX formats, as well as DPS, TIFF and PPT. The viewer can be used online at http://docs.google.com/viewer.

However, Google also offers an embedded version. The viewer URLs uses the address path http://docs.google.com/viewer and supports two parameters: url points to the url of the document and embedded enables the embedded mode interface.

A direct link to a PDF file would look like this:

<a href=”http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.test.com%2F123.pdf”>Document Test</a>

The embedded version: