Cydia creator and developer Jay Freeman - aka Saurik announced on Twitter today that he will be launching a new Cydia Store soon for developers who’s apps have not been approved by Apple for distribution via the iTunes App Store will now have a portal to distribute their apps and more importantly control payments and allow comments via Facebook Connect.
Apple has kept tight control of what apps they think are worthy of the AppStore, some apps that either run in the background or access forbidden parts of the iPhone OS and hardware.
The Cydia Store may lead to some pretty cool apps that we have not seem before being released, but the idea of TomTom or Garmin for example seling a GPS app that has been denied by Apple’s AppStore is far fetched. But it will give the more grass roots developers a better way to distribute their apps.
Cydia is NOT a source for pirated apps but rather a source for apps like Cycorder, Winterboard, MobileFinder, Terminal and others that Apple will never allow in the App Store. Great work jay!
Apple’s on again-off again negotiations with China’s largest mobile carrier, China Mobile, have supposedly come to a standstill yet again. According to Interfax China, China Mobile CEO Wang Jianzhou is none too thrilled with the idea of Apple selling apps directly to China Mobile customers.
The latest rounds of talks with both Steve Jobs and Tim Cook came to a standstill when China Mobile supposedly refused to give up sales of smartphone apps to Apple. “Wang said China Mobile should operate the
application store itself in order to maintain its advantage,” a source told Interfax China. Another sticking point was that the App Store requires the use of a credit card, whereas most customers in China pay
by depositing money into their mobile phone accounts.
Our friends over at Apptism, a site that tracks and rates App Store apps, have pointed out that their counter recently flipped over the big two-zero… zero zero zero. That’s right, only three months after hitting the 10,000 mark (and that took only six months), the amount of apps in the store has doubled, and there’s no sign the acceleration will be stopping any time soon.
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - While most children his age sketch on paper with crayons, nine-year old Lim Ding Wen from Singapore, has a very different canvas — his iPhone.
Lim, who is in fourth grade, writes applications for Apple’s popular iPhone. His latest, a painting program called Doodle Kids [AppStore link], has been downloaded over 4,000 times from Apple’s iTunes store in two weeks, the
New Paper reported on Thursday.
The program lets iPhone users draw with their fingers by touching the iPhone’s touchscreen and then clear the screen by shaking the phone. “I wrote the program for my younger sisters, who like to draw,” Lim said. His sisters are aged 3 and 5.
Lim, who is fluent in six programing languages, started using the computer at the age of 2. He has since completed about 20 programing projects. His father, Lim Thye Chean, a chief technology officer at a local technology firm, also writes iPhone applications.
“Every evening we check the statistics emailed to us (by iTunes) to see who has more downloads,” the older Lim said. The boy, who enjoys reading books on programing, is in the process of writing another iPhone application — a science fiction game called “Invader Wars.”
(Reporting by Melanie Lee; Editing by Bill Tarrant)
It seems more and more that Apple wants to position the iPhone and more so the iPod Touch against Nintendo’s DS and Sony’s PSP in the hand held gaming market. Recent rumors suggest that Apple may be looking to set up a premium gaming section that will offer games at a price point of $19.99 - and not the trendy $9.99 and lower that we see today.
The move may be to attract more serious developers and of course more serious titles. By fixing a price at $19.99 game developers can spend more time/money on R&D for native iPhone games and big game houses like EA could offer preimuim titles usually on seen on gaming consoles. The fixed price of $19.99 would ensure profits for the developers, and of course Apple. It will also make the market for highend games in the AppStore more stable, where currently a premium game may launch at $9.99 but because of the flood of other games for $0.99-$4.99 the developers may drop their price to be noticed in the top 25 (50) most popular games. But with games of a certian quality and from the top developers all put on a level playing field, the games may actually be ranked on their quality and not their price. It should also clearly seperate the iFarts from the Rolando’s.
But - Would you pay $19.99 for a game for your iPhone or iPod Touch?
I spend allot fo time using my iPhone, I have over 25 games, and I must admit, i maybe spend 10 minutes a month playing games, other than that its social and productive apps for me. I have recently taken all the games etc off my 3G and have left my iPod Touch as my gaming toy. Games currently make up about 25% of all App sales in the AppStore.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_c.png?x-id=50fbc2cd-3f9b-84c0-a554-12aa145f7e3c)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_c.png?x-id=15c62793-478c-41a7-8153-fe5587237a60)
Join the forum discussion on this post
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_c.png?x-id=1f39b262-5511-4c71-b4fe-9260c51388b4)
Our friends over at Apptism, 
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_c.png?x-id=6a1a5dcd-95c7-4a51-903d-f08dc1514d30)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_c.png?x-id=9292c0c9-854e-4dc9-8b00-3f8a28a12b9a)
