(Image courtesy of AppleInsider and iPhones.ru) Apple may take some heat for its App Store policies, but never let it be said that they aren’t constantly working to improve their developer relationships. This week’s big change came in the form of new tools to allow iPhone OS developers to set the exact release date of their applications as well as schedule price changes. AppleInsider has all the details on the new changes to Apple’s iTunesConnect web interface, which is not limited only to iPhone OS developers — it applies to all of Apple’s iTunes media partners. The new tools automate two tasks that publishers will likely see as a welcome change. Publishers can now schedule a release date in advance for both new and updated applications, which is perfect for developers who want to time an app’s release around a press release or other event. Developers can also schedule price changes to occur at a specific date, or even end them the same way, which will be useful for limited-time sale pricing. Previously, devs had to handle such tasks manually. As you can see from the screenshot courtesy of iPhones.ru above , “a publisher can choose to release an app on March 4th under pricing tier 1 ($0.99) and pre-schedule the price to rise to tier 2 ($1.99) two weeks later,” AppleInsider explains . “Successive price changes could also be scheduled in the interface; it’s not limited to two entries.” Never let it be said that Apple isn’t listening to developers and trying to make their lives easier.

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iPhone Developers Gain Ability to Automate Release Date & Price Changes

Section: iPhone / iPod touch / iPad , iPhone , iPod touch , iDevice Apps , Originals If St. Patty’s day for you means time to drink, then these applications can help you to enjoy the experience, play with your drinks and cope with the damage the morning after. Beer Brands Seller: Webworks Compatibility: iPhone and iPod touch Requirements: iPhone OS 1.6 or higher File Size: 1.4 MB Price: Free Age Rating: 17+ If you want to be the expert of all things beer, then this application will help you out with a guide to a wide range of beers. Sure, a Bud or a Sam Adams may be a find standard for everyday drinking, but on St. Patty’s Day it is time to step things up a notch and expand your pallet. It also gives you a nice set of pairing options for each of the 7,800 beers in the listings. Good news if you want to slow down your—or a friends—consumption. Download Beer Brands Leprechaun Drinking Game Seller: Brand Ambassador Group Compatibility: iPhone and iPod touch Requirements: iPhone OS 3.1.2 or higher File Size: 4.8MB Price: $0.99 Age Rating: 17+ Drinking is more fun with a gimmick. If you are too bombed to think of one , this application can help you. It is quite simple to play, so being too smashed won’t get you out of it. All you have to do is tap the leprechaun. He will give you a drinking line that gives you an idea of how much you need to consume. Then, you pass it on to the next unwitting victim, and watch him/her imbibe.

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iPhone apps for drinking your way through St. Patrick’s Day

Excitement over the iPad’s introduction continues to accelerate production of new App Store entries more than six weeks after Apple unveiled its tablet device. Indeed, the number of new iPhone OS apps produced rose 185 percent since the iPad became public January 27. “Over six weeks since Apple announced the iPad, Flurry continues to measure a

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Report: iPad Pushes New Apps 185% Higher

The web is buzzing today with reports that multitasking will be coming to the iPhone OS at least by version 4.0, and just maybe in 3.2. In fact, Just Another iPhone Blog shows a screen shot with an allusion to multitasking in a javascript comment block. The iPhone OS has always supported multitasking; otherwise you wouldn’t be able to receive a call while listening to music! That’s also how you can continue listening to music from your iPod app while playing many games. But Apple has limited it to their own applications in the past. (Unless, of course, you did a jailbreak on your phone and ran an app like backgrounder.) To be fair, there were some good reasons why Apple hasn’t enabled multitasking of third-party apps in the past. First, apps that can run in the background without the user’s knowledge are a potential opening for malware. Second, once you start loading multiple tasks at once you’re going to see a real hit in battery life–which was a sticking point for many iPhone users already. Third, once you have multiple apps running, you have to give the user a new interface to switch between them–likely with additional utilities to allow the user to balance resource usage. Fourth, multiple tasks slow the system down and the processors in the iPhone won’t stand up to too great a load. In general, the lack of multitasking hasn’t been a serious issue for most (other than Pandora users). The size of the screen doesn’t lead a user to be thinking in terms of multiple windows anyway. But the iPad runs the iPhone OS, and with its larger screen and faster processor there will be much more demand for multitasking. It may be called the iPhone OS, but this upgrade is pointed primarily at iPad users.

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Rumor: Multitasking Coming to iPhone OS 4.0

Are Microsoft employees “nuts for the iPhone?” According to a Wall Street Journal piece, yup… and that’s starting to cause some problems at Redmond as they prepare to roll-out their own would-be iPhone OS killer, Windows Phone 7. Essentially, everyone within Microsoft knows that their current smartphone operating system, Windows Mobile 6.5, chonks hoad. Microsoft employees

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WSJ: Microsoft workers have to hide their iPhones from management

Section: iPhone / iPod touch / iPad , iPhone , iPod touch , iDevice Apps , Originals Anyone who loves nature knows that camping can be both a fine art and a subtle science. When you do it right, it can be an amazing experience. Doing it wrong can make for a nightmarish evening in the woods. These applications can help make for a memorable and entertaining trip: Campwhere from Big Nerd Ranch, Firefly Night from Joseph Walters, and 100 Horror Stories, Sounds and Scares from Vroom LLC. Campwhere Seller: Big Nerd Ranch Compatibility: iPhone and iPod touch Requirements: OS 3.0 or higher File Size: 1 MB Price: $3.99 Age Rating: 4+ Anytime you camp, you need to find a camp site.  No doubt if you are an outdoor lover you have some favorite sites, but visiting those places over and over again defeats the exploration spirit that drew you out to begin with. Campwhere can help you to expand your options easily. The interface is an easy to use map that allows you to zoom in and out with a pinch.  The listings are color coded so you can tell if you are looking at a National Park, city or county park, state park or army corp of engineers site. It also has a handy array of secondary features that let you search parks, find the closest to your location, and save easy access to a few favorites. The new version covers Canada as well as the U.S. Buy Campwhere Firefly Night Seller: Joseph Walters Compatibility: iPhone and iPod touch Requirements: 3.0 or higher File Size: 20.2MB Price: $0.99 Age Rating: 4+ As things get dark, you may be in search of summer’s iconic bug: the firefly. If you can’t find any, this game can help you to get the experience. The game mode lets you sort different color flies into jars as a speed trial. Numbers mode is all about unlocking achievements by creating sequences of numbers in jars. Buy Firefly Night 100 Horror Stories, Sounds and Scares Seller: Vroom LLC Compatibility: iPhone or iPod Touch Requirements: iPhone OS 3.0 or higher File Size: 29.9MB Price: $0.99 Age Rating: 12+ When things get good and dark, the time has come for ghost stories. If your imagination is light or if you simply enjoy classic tales of terror, then this application is for you.  It houses more than 100 stories and has classics such as The Fall of The House of Usher , The Phantom of the Opera and The Monkey’s Paw , as well as a lot of newer, but compelling tales

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iPhone and iPod touch apps to take on the camping trip

Section: iPhone / iPod touch / iPad , iPhone , iPod touch , iDevice Apps , Reviews Category: Action RPG Seller: Gamevil Requirements: iPhone OS 2.1 or later Compatibility: iPhone and iPod touch File Size: 12.1MB Version Reviewed: 1.4 Price: $2.99 ( free version available ) Age Rating: 9+ for infrequent/mild cartoon or fantasy violence I’m not playing this game because I had tremendous interest in it. I mean, that’s the norm for an app reviewer, where our iPhone gaming schedule is pretty much dictated by the review requests we get. Therefore, we glossed over Zenonia at the time of its release, and that was a mistake. Zenonia’s nearly a year old, you see, having been released in the U.S. in May of 2009. So, why play through it now? Because Zenonia 2 is due out this month, and if that game is half as cool as it looks , you owe it to yourself to work through its predecessor before it’s released. In Zenonia, you play Regret. I kid you not, the main character is named Regret, which servers as proof to emo kids everywhere that their parents could be worse. Regret comes form unknown origins, of course.

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Appletell reviews Zenonia for iPhone, iPod touch

Section: iPhone / iPod touch / iPad , iPhone , iPod touch , iDevice Apps , Mac Software Macintosh and iPhone/iPod/iPad product updates and announcements for March 12, 2010: Macintosh iPod Macintosh Alesis has announced that the MultiMix 6 USB six-channel USB mixer, is now shipping to retailers. The MultiMix 6 USB is a six-channel desktop mixer designed for easy integration into a computer-based recording environment. This compact mixer is perfect for use in recording setups, video editing and production studios as it outputs not only line-level analog audio, but also stereo 16-bit, 44.1 kHz digital audio over USB for low-noise, simple computer connection. MacinMind Software has released Radiologik DJ 1.7 , optimizing loading and playback for this radio automation and DJ tool. This release includes several optimizations to help ensure the Radiologik system is as reliable and robust as possible for 24/7 radio stations both streaming and terrestrial. Radiologik DJ is the DJ music and playout system for radio or most DJ needs, offering beautiful real radio transitions by employing Track Prep through the accompanying scheduler program. Mode de Vie Limited has announced MyThoughts 1.1 , an update to their popular Mind Mapping software for Mac OS X. Intuitive, flexible and powerful, MyThoughts for Mac provides an ideal solution for those wanting to improve their brainstorming, learning and recall abilities through the use of Mind Maps. MyThoughts for Mac features an intuitive interface that lets the user focus on expressing and developing ideas with fluid, organic, Mind Maps. Bohemian Coding has released Fontcase 1.5 , a free update to the Apple Design Award-winning font manager that is like an iPhoto for your fonts. A few feature-highlights include versatile metadata support, the ability to share fonts on your local network and fantastic ways to preview all your fonts. Version 1.5 adds much-requested auto-activation, duplicates detection, speed increase and stability among other things

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Mac, iPhone, iPod and iPad product news – March 12, 2010

Happy iPad Preorder Day! We know many of you have the credit cards warmed up and are anxiously hitting the refresh button on your browser waiting for The Apple Store to come back to life, but before you bite, read on. Smart Money has a report that looks at the downside of being an early adopter of any technology, with a special focus on today’s belle of the ball, the iPad. While the earliest adopters are likely to bite the bullet today and preorder their new friend from apple.com , even more will probably hit their nearest brick & mortar Apple Store on April 3rd, when they can finally hold one in their cold, clammy hands. But is buying now a good idea? “Most people are better off waiting for the technology to mature,” says Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group. “Even the first iPhone owners were pretty unhappy.” We’re not quite sure how much truth there is in that statement, although those first-generation buyers in June, 2007 did get burned a price drop after only a few months, which Apple rectified with a nice store credit. Hear anyone complain after that? However, Smart Money seems to feel that a new iPad “could come down in as few as six months,” but Apple’s track record of late generally has hardware refreshes a year later, so we’d say you’re fairly safe on that front

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You Know You Want An iPad… But Should You Buy One Now?

In the wake of the tsunami of iPad related rumors and news both before and after it was unveiled in late January, new rumors about the next iPhone have been scarce by comparison. But that may be about to change, with various sources reporting that multitasking will finally come to the iPhone with the next major software update. AppleInsider is reporting that “people with a proven track record in predicting Apple’s technological advances” have leaked some significant details that point to a “full-on solution” to multitasking on iPhone OS 4.0. With competitors like Palm’s WebOS and Google’s Android flaunting their multitasking in recent hardware, it was probably only a matter of time before Apple figured out a solution for the iPhone. If the reports are true, it would silence once and for all the one major criticism of the device at long last. Apple introduced push notifications with iPhone OS 3.0 to stem some of the complaints, but ultimately that solution only made things more complicated, since the software is only capable of displaying one notification at a time, which limits its usefulness. Of course, since iPhone OS has its roots in Mac OS X to begin with, you wouldn’t think that multitasking should have taken Apple four generations to figure out in the first place. The current iPhone OS 3.x software is a “fully preemptive multitasking operating system, but it artificially restricts apps (other than specific ones bundled with the system by Apple) from running in the background” — for instance, the ability to leave the Phone app during a call while entering another app such as Maps, or playing music via the iPod app while reading e-mail or browsing the web. Multitasking on the iPhone is not a technical problem, but rather one of battery life and the ability to optimize resources, which Apple has not been shy about stating publicly. Jailbreak users already have the ability to install software via Cydia or Rock Your Phone which will allow multitasking on the device as well. If it’s true that Apple will introduce multitasking in iPhone OS 4.0 — presumably with a new hardware model in June as they’ve done for the last three years — the only challenge will be how to implement it in a user-friendly way without consuming further battery resources. Apple, we have faith in you… bring it on!

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iPhone OS 4.0 To (Finally) Bring Multitasking?