Comments on: Nothing’s worse than a really bad day

By: Gerry White

Gerry White — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 07:14:15 +0000

Yes, thats what I heard as well, I wasn’t sure if I believed it at first as it seems an odd thing to restrict…

As for the original thread, I do think the currect store model is good and right, so maybe the solution is to have an editors review within it? for example “Apple give ‘nothing’ 1 star” clearly thats a bit more work though, but as they do get serious cash from the store, maybe it is something they should invest the time in…

By: Matt Radford

Matt Radford — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 13:47:31 +0000

Gerry – there was only one problem:
Apple wasn’t allowing turn by turn GPS driving apps. Now that they are, there’s no problem for TomTom – they sidestep any map licensing problem by not using Google Maps.

By: Gerry White

Gerry White — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 13:34:41 +0000

Keith ? – I had heard there was only a licensing issue which stopped it from being released … It is definently something which I would buy!

By: Matt Radford

Matt Radford — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:51:47 +0000

Keith, you’ll be pleased to hear that TomTom have already demo’d an iPhone app, and I’ll bet it’s going to be released pretty soon after iPhone OS 3 comes out.

By: Gerry White

Gerry White — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:21:44 +0000

@Steve.

I know it wasn’t from you, I just recall the big protest that it wasn’t quite open enough, i.e. if you spend months working on an app and for some reason Apple decides they don’t like it, well it might not get in, suddenly apple relaxed it and any old bodily noise machine was allowed.

Personally I would like it open enough that I can make up my mind what I would like to install on ‘my phone’ there are apps that just apparently aren’t allowed on which would ‘make’ the iphone something else and, as you said above these would fix issues that it has that maybe the 3.0 would update. These include tethering and the awesome “TomTom” which I used to have for my Nokia N95 (or N80 come to think of it) … A combination of A2DP and TomTom would make the perfect in car “computer”…

Review sites such as this one are critical in helping the better stuff float!

By: Nikolay Andreev

Nikolay Andreev — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 09:20:56 +0000

Matt, thanks for the link. It’s a great article.
It’s interesting to note that resent sucess in OS X share is probably because Apple started simplifying things, making all it’s new software not feature full bit feature nessesary.

By: Matt Radford

Matt Radford — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 08:21:53 +0000

@Nick
I wish this site had a bigger following too! We’re working on it

Symbian has a mature OS with so much functionality built in that I often wonder how much more it can do. In contrast, Apple started from scratch quite recently with iPhone OS, so it’ll be a while before it has as many features. So there are some things missing. Plus Apple is dealing with running the whole iPhone OS ecosystem, including the App Store, and there will be some teething troubles. I’d really recommend reading John Gruber’s latest feature article “Complex“, on beginning iPhone OS simply, before adding more and more stuff (rather than starting by including absolutely everything).

By: Steve Litchfield

Steve Litchfield — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 08:21:46 +0000

@Gerry: You have to be kidding me. The outrage wasn’t from my direction. Quality rather than quantity should be an adage for all walks of life. And the Apple App Store is a prime example of what can happen when the adage is ignored. And no, good stuff doesn’t always float – I know of many pro iPhone apps that have never even received a single review because they’ve never made it into the top 25/50 because of the abundance of $0.99 novelties…. 8-(

By: Gerry White

Gerry White — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 08:16:00 +0000

“..Or amongst 100 different bodily noise simulators..”

Its funny I remember the outrage when the iFart application wasn’t accepted, now your complaining because it is in! – I thought for a second this was an April the 1st things, but hey …

Seriously, rubbish sinks, good stuff will float and have a QC on the entries would be great as long as it wasn’t one mans view … I want more for less and competition is the way to go …

By: Steve Litchfield

Steve Litchfield — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 07:10:19 +0000

@Nick: Oh, I rant enough about Nokia and S60 as well, though Apple are definitely a much easier target at the moment, being so behind in many ways. I suspect things will change quite a bit once the next-gen iPhone, with OS 3.0 onboard, plus A2DP, 5mp auto-focus cam, etc, appears.