If you’ve browsed through Apple’s App Store before in search for games, you’re likely already aware that there’s a disturbing amount of “games” in the e-store that are blatant, unapologetic rip-offs of other games on the App Store and/or other platforms.

Thanks to Apple, there are now far less of the clone games on the App Store right now. The company removed 59 clone apps from the App Store today, including such “greats” as Angry Ninja Birds, Plant vs. Zombie, and Temple Jump.

Natalia Luckyanova, co-founder of developer Imangi, is especially excited about Apple’s intervention. Temple Jump was a shameless rip-off of Imangi’s Temple Run, and it actually significantly surpassed the sales of Imangi’s game.

“We’re really happy with how quickly Apple responded to the situation and removed [Temple Jump],” Imangi co-founder Natalia Luckyanova told Gamasutra. “The app was clearly a scam that traded entirely on the popularity of Temple Run and was packaged to confuse users.”

“This was really upsetting to us and damaging to our brand, because we work really hard to put out very high quality polished games and win the love of our fans, and we don’t want them to think that we would put out crap to steal a dollar from them,” she said.

Apple’s move to purge clone apps from the App Store follows a week after Triple Town developer Spry Fox filed a lawsuit against 6waves Lolapps over its suspiciously similar iOS title, Yeti Town.

Apple removes several ‘clone’ games from App Store is a post from: The Inquisitr

iPhone and iPod Touch users can now download Apple’s newest mobile version of their popular GarageBand software.

The program is available in the App Store for $4.99 and iPad users who have already made the purchase can also now access the program for free via their iPhone or iPod Touch devices.

According to Apple the new offering is compatible with iPhone 3GS, 4, 4S and fourth-generation iPod Touch models along with the iPad and iPad 2.

According to Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing:

“GarageBand on iPad has been a big hit and we think customers will love using it on their iPhone or iPod touch,” and “The innovative Multi-Touch interface combined with Smart Instruments makes it easy to create great sounding music, even if you’ve never studied music or played an instrument before.”

Using the program is as simple as touching the display to “play” drums, keyboard, guitars, bass and more, the program also allows users to choose from a library of custom chords to play and strum to their favorite songs.

For more advanced users you can also plug your electric guitar into an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch and play music as you record using classic amps and stompbox effects. Singers can also record their voice via the microphone while mixing up to eight tracks which can then be shared with friends or sent to the users computer for further mixing.

Do you plan on spending $4.99 to have this useful mobile recording study at your disposal?

iPod Touch and iPhones Get New Release Of GarageBand is a post from: The Inquisitr

Every couple of months we get these bragging posts about how many apps are in the Apple App Store and how it is dominating the whole landscape; and admittedly it is pretty impressive, but really how many of those apps are worth the ones and zeros that went into making them up.

Regardless this kind of news does make for a really fancy infographic material and lo and behold we have one for you courtesy of Cool Infographics.

Half a million apps in the Apple App Store and still climbing is a post from: The Inquisitr

What’s more offensive?

A game called “Smuggle Truck: Operation Immigration” in which gameplay centers upon smuggling virtual Mexicans into the US for iPod, iPhone and iPad? Or the fact that since the app wasn’t approved, it was renamed “Snuggle Truck,” and the Mexicans in the game were replaced with teddy bears?

Actually, neither is all that offensive in context, but it was pretty much a given the app wouldn’t make it past Apple’s strict and somewhat arbitrary apps approval process. Game developer Alex Schwartz described the controversy to press:

“Smuggle Truck” caused controversy earlier this year when immigration advocacy groups took exception to a trailer for the game, featuring a truck racing to carry cartoon immigrants through obstacles and over a border. Schwartz said the controversy was based on the release of an early YouTube trailer, which didn’t properly convey the game’s satire.

If the iTunes version of “Snuggle Truck” sounds too tame for you, the game’s developers also released the fully offensive original version for Mac and PC yesterday. Original “Smuggle Truck” even has a “legal immigration” mode, but according to Kotaku, it takes “19 years worth of waiting to beat.”

Silly: Apple bans immigration game “Smuggle Truck,” becomes “Snuggle Truck” is a post from: The Inquisitr

Apple recently sued Amazon for opening the Amazon Appstore for Android, a term Amazon has called generic considering there were various “App stores” in existence well before Apple trademarked/stole the term.

Amazon lawyer’s wrote:

“In press releases, Apple has claimed that its app store is ‘the largest application store in the world.’ In October 2010, Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs called Apple’s app store ‘the easiest-to-use, largest app store in the world, preloaded on every iPhone.’”

Very smart Amazon lawyers, very smart!

As part of any Trademark a company must guard all uses of their term, typically through lawsuits, however when a word is deemed “generic” that trademark can quickly lose it’s trademark designation.

Amazon Uses Steve Jobs’ Own Words Against Him In Lawsuit is a post from: The Inquisitr

Barnes & Noble have released a massive firmware update to their Nook Color, edging the device closer to tablet status and gaining some distinct edges over Amazon’s Kindle.

It’s a bit interesting that while Amazon seems to be focusing on price-centric updates- last week, the online retail megalith announced the ability to borrow library books and previous released a dead-cheap ad-supported Kindle- Barnes & Noble has kept the price static at $250 while making the device more feature-rich. Today’s update- which will be available for download directly on Nook devices next week- adds an app store, built-in email and support for Android 2.2 (Froyo) and Flash.

Nook Color users can now play Angry Birds, stream music using Pandora and browse recipes on Epicurious with the new app store updates. The company says that at $250, Nook Color is the best value tablet available when compared with devices like Motorola’s Xoom and Apple’s ubiquitous iPad 2. While Nook currently lags behind Amazon with a 25% market share, the new functionality could drastically change that fact.

Does the new update make you more keen on using a Nook over a Kindle, even at the higher price point? Do you think with Flash capabilities and apps, it might grab market share from Apple, too? Have you given the update a spin on your Nook? What do you think?

Nook now supports Flash, Android 2.2, built-in email is a post from: The Inquisitr

The name “App Store” is generic, Apple may not think so, but let’s be honest, it’s a store with applications, hence an “App Store.” In fact I often make the mistake of calling the Android Market the “Android App Store” simple because it makes sense. That’s the same point Microsoft is trying to employ with a recent trademark spat with Apple over the “App Store” name.

According to Microsoft, Apple can’t maintain the App Store trademark since it signals a “competitive need” from various company’s and while not at high levels the App Store concept existed before Apple tried to claim it as their own. In fact 17 other “App Stores” already existed before Apple attempted to grab the trademark for their own exclusive use.

According to Microsoft:

“Apple’s enforcement testimony misses the point,” while adding, “Even if some third parties have stopped using ‘app store’ to avoid being sued by Apple, the fact that they were using the term in the first place shows that ‘app store’ is a common name for online stores offering apps and that allowing Apple to appropriate this name for its exclusive use will prejudice competitors.”

In a clever turn of wording, Microsoft pointed out that two word dictionary use makes no sense since two words are rarely featured as a single entity in the dictionary. According to Microsoft it would be like Payless Shoe Source calling their “Shoe Store” a trademark, even though “Shoe” like “App” is a generic word that has been used largely since the advent of their own items (shoes).

Microsoft also pointed out to the courts that Apple CEO Steve Jobs has referred to other companies application storefronts as “App Stores” in the past, removing the exclusivity of the term.

Microsoft, Amazon, even DirectTV’s App Store show that Apple has lost control of a trademark that relies on a generic term that users don’t associate with Apple software unless preceded by the Apple name, such as “Apple App Store.”

Sorry Apple, but you can’t simply take a popular term that was used before your own first use and trademark it, talk about money wasted in a near two year trademark battle. There’s good reason the Amazon AppStore is still operating under and will always operate under the same name that it currently offers.

[via GeekWire]

Microsoft Mentions Amazon In Apple “App Store” Trademark Suit is a post from: The Inquisitr

I don’t own any Apple products, and I really don’t ever expect to because there isn’t a product out there that I can’t find a more reasonable priced version of and I don’t have to worry about their increasing platform lock down.

It has always amazed me how everyone continues to target Microsoft as the big bad monster of proprietary platform when in fact Apple is proving over and over again that it is much more tyrannical when it comes to their platform.

The interesting thing is that while Microsoft did deserve to get beat up on in the past for its anti-competitive actions Apple has done much the same thing and yet everyone continues to give them a pass. Even with the news today regarding the Sony e-reader app being rejected from the Apple App Store people continue to give the company a pass.

It was along these lines that Thomas Baekal raised an interesting point in a post today where he suggested that what apple is doing is profoundly illegal at worst but anti-competitive at best. He goes on to point out how if you took the same documents used to haul Microsoft before the DoJ and substituted Apple, and their products, for Microsoft there isn’t much of a difference.

Try this. Head over to Wikipedia, and find the article about the anti-trust lawsuit between the US Government and Microsoft (over the anti-competitive nature of Microsoft vs. Netscape), and then replace the words with Apple.

Here is the converted introduction:

Apple abused monopoly power on Mac OS based phones and tablets in its handling of device sales and application sales. The issue central to the case was whether Apple was allowed to bundle its flagship iTunes App Store software with its iOS operating system. Bundling them together is alleged to have been responsible for Apple’s victory in the mobile application wars as every iPad user and developer were required to use the App Store.

It was further alleged that this unfairly restricted the market for competing app stores. Underlying these disputes were questions over whether Apple altered or manipulated its application programming interfaces (APIs) to restrict the iTunes App Store over third party App stores, Apple’s conduct in forming restrictive licensing agreements with 3rd party developers, and Apple’s intent in its course of conduct.”

“Apple stated that the merging of iTunes App Store was the result of innovation and competition, that the two were now the same product and were inextricably linked together and that consumers were now getting all the benefits of iTunes. Those who opposed Apple’s position countered that the App Store was still a distinct and separate product which did not need to be tied to the operating system, since a separate version of the App Store was available for jailbreaked devices.

With Microsoft vs. Netscape we still had a choice. It was still a disaster for Netscape, but we could always just download Netscape. We see the same pattern with the iPad, but we are not given a choice. We can’t download Sony’s ebookstore directly.

One has to wonder just at what point apple will have pushed too far and suffer a backlash that could drastically hurt the company.

There is making money and then there is downright greed. Apple goes for the latter. is a post from: The Inquisitr

Now that single-station radio apps have been put on the same level as fart apps the gatekeepers of the Apple App Store have begun to ban them because in the words of Apple to Jim Barcus, president of DJB Radio Apps, “they (single-station apps) are the same as a fart app and represent spam in the iTunes stores”.

According to a post at The Register Barcus says that Apple began rejecting the single-station radio apps starting on November 10 with a logic that Barcus says is ridiculous and shows that Apple doesn’t understand the stiff competition radio stations are facing.

Given that it is the business of DJB Radio Apps to convince as many radio stations as possible that they must have these type of apps I think Barcus’ argument is a little on the facetious side but he has taken his gripe public:

Barcus is now broadcasting his gripe via an article in Radio Magazine, urging radio station owners to complain directly to Apple and Steve Jobs. “I think after enough broadcast professionals complain and make Apple aware of the fact that radio stations are in fierce competition with each other and listener loyalty makes the listener want to only listen to his favorite radio station, Apple may change this rule,” he says.

As Cade Metz say in the post on The Register – Good luck with that.

Apple’s newest ban hammer: Single-station radio apps is a post from: The Inquisitr

Another crass app that’s popular with kids has hit the iTunes App Store, and this one has a bit of “cyberbullying” stigma attached to it.

The app scans iPhone pictures and rates them on a scale of one to ten, with one being more attractive, and ten prompting some insults from the app. Stephen Balkam, CEO of the Family Online Safety Institute in Washington, expressed concerns that the app could be harmful if used by teens or tweens in a school or social setting:

“I can see that the guys who programmed it were having a bit of fun and all,” Balkam said. “If you’re 25, 26 or 28, this sort of thing could be quite funny or amusing. But in the hands of a 14- or 15-year-old, it could be quite the reverse, and particularly if someone is submitting someone else’s photograph and then circulated that photo around school. For impressionable young teens and tweens, it could potentially be quite damaging,” he said. “It could be used in cyberbullying.”

Eugene Overline, one of the apps creators, pointed out that if children plan on being cruel to their peers, the app won’t stop that behavior. Also, he grudgingly admitted that he scored a very ugly 8.7 on his own app.

iPhone ‘Ugly Meter’ app prompts cyberbullying concerns is a post from: The Inquisitr

Back on December 2009 it appears that Apple applied for a trademark for their famous ad tagline “There’s an App for That” and word out today is that they have been granted the trademark for it.

Here’s that it covers:

Retail store services featuring computer software provided via the Internet and other computer and electronic communication networks; retail store services featuring computer software for use on handheld mobile digital electronic devices and other consumer electronics.

Oh joy, more fodder for the Apple lawyer machine.

via Geekosystem and TUAW

Guess who trademarked “There’s an App for That”? is a post from: The Inquisitr

Sure, news about Apple taking down, or refusing to include apps in its iPhone App Store because they are deemed as being of questionable moral standing but their newest take down borders on gatekeeper stupidity.

While I am sure that Apple can justify its earlier take down of iChatr – an iPhone version of ChatRoulette, other which known as count down to genitalia exposure in 3… 2… 1, but word comes today about a DLP Mobile app that got rejected.

Apple’s reason for the rejection? The submitted screenshots for the app were deemed “obscene, pornographic, or defamatory. Well OMG it must have been some terrible purveyor of moral degradation – right?

Um.No.

The app developed by DLP Mobile is a mirror app that is nothing more than a lighted vanity mirror. From their Facebook page is this simple description for the original Mirror for the iPhone 4:

• Uses the built-in forward-facing camera to turn the iPhone 4 into a lighted vanity mirror.
• Comes with adjustable light settings: day, office, evening, and home.
• Users can customize their mirror by adding unique frames around the display.

However Apple considers the updated version that was submitted for approval not up to their puritanical standards. This is the letter that the DLP Mobile team got from Apple concerning the rejection is as follows (from the team’s blog):

SUBJECT: Mirror App: Application Submission Feedback
Dear Mr. [redacted]

Thank you for submitting your application to the App Store. Unfortunately, Mirror App cannot be posted to the App Store at this time because the screenshots provided contain content that is objectionable for certain age groups. This is in violation of Section 3.3.18 from the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement that states:

“Applications may be rejected if they contain content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, sounds, etc.) that in Apple’s reasonable judgment may be found objectionable, for example, materials that may be considered obscene, pornographic, or defamatory.”

The application screenshots must meet the requirements for a 4+ rating (no objectionable material) since these images are visible on the App Store by all users even when purchasing is restricted by the application’s rating. The inappropriate images have been attached for your reference.

While your iTunes Connect Application State is displayed as Rejected, it is not necessary to upload a new binary. Once you have made the necessary modifications, please reply to this email and we will proceed with your application review.

Best Regards,

App Review Team
iPhone Developer Program

Oh and the pictures that caused the app to be refused?

These are them.

Yup. A lot of porn going on there.

Apple show once more it has a warped sense of what is disgusting and pornographic is a post from: The Inquisitr

How is it that a leading newspaper with a global reach doesn’t get it. I mean here we have the New York Times competing with all the other big brand papers to establish a foothold on the Web and yet when an iPad app uses their publicly available RSS feed they get all pissed off and have it yanked from the Apple app store.

Not only that but they sent Apple the take-down notice on the same day that the app got high praise from no other than Steve Jobs during the WWDC conference keynote speech. I am of course talking about the Pulse RSS reader app that everyone who has used it has nothing but good things to say about it.

This action of course has lead to the take-down being the hot topic of discussion in the tech blogosphere this morning with just about everyone wonder what the hell is up with the New York Times.

From Kara Swisher at Boomtown

Kothari said that the pair plan to contact Apple in the morning and take steps to remove Times material from the feeds.

It is not immediately clear why they need to, since Pulse draws from publicly available Times RSS feeds, as do many other apps, and does no scraping.

In fact, Pulse is little more than a really well-designed RSS reader, which is what the Times said it was in its write-up. You add feeds to it and it visualizes them in a way that’s easy to get through.

From Charlie Sorrel at Wired

Pulse takes the plain text from the NYT RSS feed and displays it. If you choose to read further, it opens the actual NYT page in a new browser window which, like every other in-app browser, uses Safari’s webkit engine to display it. The person reading it is therefore getting the exact same content as they would if reading in Safari.

Clearly the NYT doesn’t understand the purpose of RSS.

From Mathew Ingram at GigaOM

It’s not clear why the New York Times decided to target the Pulse app, however, apart from the fact that it is (or was, until it was pulled) one of the most popular paid apps on the iPad. There are dozens of applications and services that do fundamentally the same thing as the news-reading app does, by pulling in the RSS feeds of media sites such as the New York Times — and many of them are paid applications, just as Pulse is. There are also many websites, including Yahoo and Google’s customized homepages, that allow users to embed RSS feeds from other sites.

The argument being put forward by the NYT lawyers boils down to a section of their Terms of Service when it comes to the newspaper’s RSS feeds

The Pulse News Reader app makes commercial use of the NYTimes.com and Boston.com RSS feeds, in violation of their Terms of Use. Thus, the use of our content is unlicensed. The app also frames the NYTimes.com and Boston.com websites in violation of their respective Terms of Use.

Well I hate to break the news to the NYT’s obviously overpaid legal counsel but this is how just about every RSS reader out there operates. Are they now going to start going after Google Reader or my favorite reader, FeedDemon, after all I paid for the licence to use it (or at least to remove the ad) which is no different that me buying Pulse from the App Store.

The funniest part of this whole thing – one of New York Times’ own bloggers gave Pulse high praise

Pulse is a stylish and easy-to-use news aggregator. Users select which news sources to follow and the latest articles are presented in a grid of texts and photos. Users can finger-swipe back and forth across various articles from a single news source, or up and down through up to 20 news sources.

This is definitely one case where the lawyers should have been lead back to their cage and told to shut up.

image courtesy of alphonsolabs.com

The New York Times pulls dumbass move after getting free Apple publicity is a post from: The Inquisitr

While any one with an iPhone regardless of age or sensibility can access the most hardcore of porn via the internet, Apple has been notoriously draconian when it comes to optimizing smut for the iPhone and iPod touch.

“But…” you may object, “the internet is for porn! And devices designed to present the internet to us in other ways should embrace and nourish this natural partnership!” Many would agree. And while there are apps to get you off and apps to tell you just how drunk you can drive, bikini apps have remained a sticking point for Apple when it comes to its precious App Store. Apple sticks to its guns in protecting “the children,” who probably make up a very small share of regular iPhone users.

Philip Schiller, a marketing rep for Apple, spoke to the New York Times about the decision.

“It came to the point where we were getting customer complaints from women who found the content getting too degrading and objectionable, as well as parents who were upset with what their kids were able to see,” Mr. Schiller said.

More frustrating than Apple telling us what we can and cannot see on the devices we pay monthly to use, however, is the double standard when dealing with independent companies who may have invested a lot to bring an app to market versus well known, moneyed companies with iPhone apps. Two popular apps by Playboy and Sports Illustrated show the same content featured in many suddenly banned apps, the key difference being those companies are owned by rich people with swimming pools full of money:

When asked about the Sports Illustrated app, Mr. Schiller said Apple took the source and intent of an app into consideration. “The difference is this is a well-known company with previously published material available broadly in a well-accepted format,” he said.

Hopefully Apple will eventually realize that it is not their place to dictate what you can and cannot do with your iPhone once you bend over and pay them for it, and continue to pay hefty data charges monthly to keep the damn thing running. As a parent myself, I would never expect a massive company to decide what my child can or cannot see, nor do I feel that the world should quit turning until my son is old enough to look at a set of tits on an iPod touch screen. I’ve handled the issue of objectionable content by monitoring what I allow my children to be exposed to and not allowing them unfettered access to the internet or the Disney channel. Parents who believe that this kind of global childproofing is acceptable need to be set straight and quickly, before the future of mobile smut is compromised.

The introduction of a parental control setting could head this entire controversy off at the pass. Or, we could all poke our eyes out with sticks so we don’t see bikini covered boobs on the iPhone. Which option sounds better to you, Apple?

Apple clarifies App Store censorship, only indie boobs apps are banned is a post from: The Inquisitr

It is really funny to watch all this gnashing of teeth over Apple’s decision to institute a whole new set of guidelines as to what apps are copesetic or not in its App Store. I mean seriously some of the headline grabbing hyperbole that is being pumped out there in both the tech blogosphere and now the mainstream press is ridiculous.

Even Mr. Apple blogger himself John Gruber had a few choice words for what is happening

I don’t see how it’s anything other than hypocrisy to say that Time Warner can have an app showing swimsuit models and others cannot. I totally understand Apple’s desire to keep the App Store free of flat-out or even borderline pornography. I do not think it’s wise to remove/ban R-rated content, though — isn’t that exactly what the 17+ rating is for?

But to allow Sports Illustrated and Playboy to publish it and others not? That’s bullshit.

Uhm. This is Apple we are talking about right?

The same company that thinks social media is some sort of new sexually transmitted disease that they prefer using their lawyers to stomp into oblivion. The same company that has produced more closed products than any other company in the tech world and couldn’t care less whether you like it or not. The same company that all these moaning voices willingly line up like besotted lovers willing to hand over their credit cards at the mere mention from the Almighty Steve Jobs of a new product.

Does anyone really think that all this moaning and wailing over 5,000 apps being pulled from the App Storm is going to have any effect? Seriously.

The thing is all you Apple fans and App Store developers knew exactly what to expect from Steve Jobs and Apple when you signed up. You opinions don’t matter one iota. Steve Jobs couldn’t give a shit whether you get upset over some bobble-head app being pulled.

You want to play in Apple’s sandbox then you live by their ever changing commandments as handed down by Jobs. No amount of so-called pressure from the social media peanut gallery and blustering by tech bloggers is going to affect any decision made by the company as long as Steve Jobs runs it.

But go ahead and keep beating your chests because from where I sit it makes for a nice humorous diversion in a day.

Apple asserts itself and we’re all so shocked? Get over it. is a post from: The Inquisitr

Apple has instilled a culture of fear within both the handset makers and the biggest wireless carriers around. I would be willing to bet that you mention App Store within earshot of any executive heading these companies and you’ll see the shakes start.

After all the idea that one cellphone maker controls one of the biggest mobile cash cows on the planet with no sign of letting up is enough to send even the most hardened executive running to check and make sure that their golden parachute is still in place.

So what is their answer to this?

Well it appears to be something called The Wholesale Applications Community - otherwise known as WAC – and they are looking to unite a fragmented marketplace which is to be an open platform that will serve as a single path for mobile developers to bring their apps to market regardless of the end platform.

A great idea except for one problem. The companies that make up WAC.

Seriously, do you think that cut throat corporations like AT&T, Verizon Wireless, a couple of European big boys and the two biggest telcoms from Asia can actually play nice with each other? This isn’t even taking into account the three major OEMs that are suppose t o be a part of WAC.

AT&T and Verizon fight over a map for crying out loud what makes anyone believe for a second that they can play nice long enough to even dream of threatening Apple’s dominance in this space.

It’s a nice dream but with the parties involved it is more likely to end up as a big nightmare.

A WACy idea that will never survive is a post from: The Inquisitr

Wait, what? That doesn’t even make any sense.

MTV’s popular reality show Jersey Shore, which is basically The Real World with a gas-tanker full of orange tan lotion and a whole bunch of Scarface memorabilia, now has an app for your iPhone. The Jersey Shore iPhone app includes a bunch of guido-centric activities to help you become your orange skinned, spiky haired best. Functions include a name generator to select a name for you that would be in line with Pauly D, The Situation, JWOWW, and Snooki; a ”fist pump challenge” to ensure you’re doing it right and a pickup line generator, which is pretty self explanatory.

Because you can’t rush perfection, the Jersey Shore app is a work in progress. Upcoming features for the app include a feature to “catch a fake tan,” too. Might I suggest push notifications for when the guy who punched you in the face in a sleazy Jersey bar is released on bail?

Inevitable: Jersey Shore iPhone app hits is a post from: The Inquisitr

Coming soon to a mobile phone near you – the Firefox Mobile (otherwise known as Fennec) and with the promise, at least in Mozilla’s eyes, of no more App Stores. This of course is an obvious shot at Apple and its massively successful App Store.

They are basing this on the fact that Firefox Mobile will be launching with the fastest Javascript engine of any mobile browser and the belief that this will encourage developers to develop apps using Javascript and HTML instead of having to develop for each platform. In an interview with PC Pro Jay Sullivan, vice president of mobile at Mozilla said that anyone with knowledge of Javascript and HTML will be able to develop a great app.

Sullivan claims developers are frustrated by the difficulties of writing for multiple mobile platforms. “We look at the problems it creates for small innovators,” he said. “You have to create an iPhone app, an Android app, a Windows Mobile app…”

“As developers get more frustrated with quality assurance, the amount of handsets they have to buy, whether their security updates will get past the iPhone approval process… I think they’ll move to the web.”

Sullivan says it will take time to wean developers away from the app store model, which has been heralded as one of the chief reasons for the iPhone’s success. “In the interim period, apps will be very successful. Over time, the web will win because it always does.”

This of course is dependent on their being a viable ecosystem that will allow developers to make money since this is really the big driving force behind the success of the App Store.

Mozilla promising an app store free mobile future is a post from: The Inquisitr

A federal lawsuit filed Wednesday claims that popular App Store app developer Storm8 may have bypassed safeguards in order to obtain data such as phone numbers via games downloaded over 20 million times.

World War, iMobsters, Racing Live, Vampires, Kingdoms, Zombies Live, Rockstars Live and Ninjas Live are some of the iPod Touch and iPhone titles listed on Storm8′s website. Court documents point to “secret code” written into games to circumvent protections preventing apps from collecting data on unsuspecting users:

“…Storm8 makes use of the ‘backdoor’ method to access, collect, and transmit the wireless phone numbers of the iPhones on which its games are installed,” states the complaint, which was filed in US District Court in Northern California. “Storm8 does so or has done so in all of its games.”

The Register points to a column written back in August about privacy concerns and the iPhone. The columnist highlights data-gathering in Storm8′s Vampires Live mini MMORPG:

One of the best selling iPhone app is Vampires Live, a very cool game which is a take off from the current pop culture fascination with vampires. The app is built by Storm8 and is the 8th best selling iPhone app.

The game is essentially an massive multi-player online game which will use your 3G or WiFi connection. 3G is your data plan. So far so good. While playing vampires is fun, it does not involve exchanging phone numbers with other players. In fact, no one needs your phone number to play with you.

But guess what?

Without your permission, Storm8 harvests both your UDID, phone number, email and name (on registration).

(Examples of code.)

As you can see, the personally identifiable information which is the PNUM is being transmitted and I guess stored with Storm8′s servers. For non-technical types, PNUM is phone number and I changed the telephone number on the log to hide my personal number. I would not want just anyone to have my personal phone number. Worst of all, the information is transmitted unencrypted in plain text.

Storm8 is claiming that the data collection was unintentional and part of a “”a bug that has been fixed.” But the prosecution is skeptical, saying the developers used “very specific and specialized software code to do so.” The claimant in the case is hoping to obtain class action status.

[Source: The Register]

Lawsuit: iPhone app developer Storm8 stole phone numbers, user data is a post from: The Inquisitr

This kind of seems like one of those things that sounds crucial when you’re expecting a baby, but after five minutes with an actual baby, you realize it’s probably totally pointless.

If you’ve ever dealt with more than one baby, you know some babies will sob rather calmly regardless of need while some will shriek like they’re being murdered when they want to be held or when they’ve got a half-teaspoon of moisture in their diapers. But Biloop Technologic claims that science supports their new “Cry Translator” iPhone app- from their website, a blurb about the studies that lead the the “96% accuracy” rate:

Dr. Antonio Portugal Ramírez, M.D. and Chief of Operations of Pediatric Services at Clinic Hospital Juaneda Menorca, Spain conducted a clinical study of the Cry Translator between December 15, 2008 and January 6, 2009. The objective of the study was to validate the diagnostic capability of the Cry Translator.

A total of 140 children from 0 to 2 years of age participated with a random sample of 104 children used in the analysis. Of those included in the test group:

> 54% of participants were male; 46% female
> 72% originated from Europe, 4% Sub-Saharan, 4% Orientals and 8% Latino Americans
> 77 % of the tests were conducted with children who visited the Clinic
> 33 % of the tests were conducted with children hospitalized in the Clinic

Is “Orientals” an acceptable clinical term? In any event, a reported “96% of the babies ceased crying after following the suggestions indicated on the symptom chart,” which does leave an average of 4% wailing babies even if you buy the app. Interestingly, one of the bigger health/science stories yesterday was that babies have just been shown to cry “in their native languages.” Not to worry- the Cry Translator maintains a high 96% accuracy rate for babies of all language backgrounds – even Orientals!

The “Cry Translator” is available for a steep $29.99 after 11/11, on sale for $9.99 before that date in the app store.

Would you spend $30 on an app to decode your baby’s cries? is a post from: The Inquisitr