Developers Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Atari's Centipede Origins available for free, Pong World due this month

by Mike Schramm (Nov 8th, 2012)

Atari is revving up iOS releases for the holidays by kicking out a few long-awaited titles. First up is Centipede: Origins, which hit the App Store this week. It's a modern take on the old shooter classic. The app is free and universal, though (surprise!) it's also freemium, which means you ...

Joseph Wain designs near-ubiquitous iOS icons

by Steven Sande (Oct 18th, 2012)

Chances are very good that almost any iOS app you use contains icons that were designed by one man -- Joseph Wain. Wain doesn't work for Apple and never has. Instead, he's a designer who was impressed at an early age by the work of seminal Apple and NeXT icon designer Susan Kare, but not ...

Lodsys: 150 iOS developers give in to patent demands

by Mike Schramm (Oct 9th, 2012)

Lodsys filed what many are calling a "patent troll" lawsuit against a number of smaller iOS developers last year, claiming that while Apple may have licensed its in-app purchase technology patents for iOS, individual developers have not, and should be held accountable for using it. Despite ...

GDC Online coming to LA, rebranded as App Developers Conference

by Mike Schramm (Sep 18th, 2012)

For the past few years, the Game Developers Conference has held a satellite show in Austin, Texas called GDC Online (and I went there a few years back for TUAW to cover the mobile gaming track). But GDC has announced that this year is the last year it'll do GDC Online in Austin. Starting next ...

Arqball modeling app now works almost anywhere

by Mike Schramm (Sep 13th, 2012)

A while ago, we covered the Arqball Spin, a special stage which, when used with an app, allowed anyone to create a 3D model of any object by rotating your iPhone's camera around it a few times. Back then, the whole thing was more idea than actual product, because you needed a special setup (so ...

360iDev: The case for 'fair pricing' on iOS apps

by Mike Schramm (Sep 12th, 2012)

A few developers have talked before about the App Store's "race to the bottom" problem, and Joe Cieplinski has clearly been doing some thinking about the issue as well. In his talk at 360iDev this week, Cieplinski (a former English teacher and Apple Store employee who now works as a designer ...

Report: Freeverse co-founders leave the company

by Mike Schramm (Aug 24th, 2012)

Freeverse is a classic name in the Mac gaming field: The New York-based developer was one of the world's biggest indie Mac game developers since long before the App Store existed or the iPhone was announced, releasing big titles like Wingnuts, Horde of Orcs and more. When the iPhone and its ...

Facebook speaks out on the big app rebuild

by Mike Schramm (Aug 24th, 2012)

We posted about the Facebook app update the other day, and if you haven't updated your app yet, you really should. The app is a prime example of why native development is almost always better than trying to do things with cross-platform web connections, and why it's so important, even for an ...

iOS developer toolchain will bid farewell to the iPhone 3G

by Mike Schramm (Aug 8th, 2012)

Cocoanetics has noticed something that's become apparent to most iOS developers already: with the advent of iOS 6 in a few weeks, Apple is essentially phasing out support for iOS on the iPhone 3G. Apple is slowly deprecating frameworks that iPhone 3G-compatible apps require from Xcode and app ...

App Store has growing population of never-downloaded "zombie apps"

by Mike Schramm (Aug 6th, 2012)

Here's a discouraging statistic for independent developers looking to break into the increasingly crowded iOS App Store. According to a report from mobile analytics firm Adeven, over two thirds of the store consists of "zombie" apps, which generate few downloads and almost no revenue to their ...

Apple releases iOS 6 beta 4 to developers

by Michael Jones (Aug 6th, 2012)

We are receiving word that Apple has released beta 4 of the upcoming iOS 6 software, which is expected to be released this fall. As with previous updates, this update is expected to deliver bug fixes for developers who are testing their applications with the new operating system. As this is the ...

Apple delivers Black Hat talk to mediocre reception

by Mike Schramm (Jul 30th, 2012)

CNET's posted a strange writeup for Apple's first talk at the Black Hat security conference, and though the piece is short on details, the theme is clear: There wasn't a lot of groundbreaking news shown off to attendees. Manager of Platform Security Dallas De Atley basically gave a quick ...

Mountain Lion 101: Gatekeeper controls app launches for security's sake

by Mike Schramm (Jul 26th, 2012)

Gatekeeper isn't the most obvious feature of the new OS X Mountain Lion system that you probably downloaded and installed yesterday, but it might be one of the most important. Gatekeeper essentially oversees a list of verified developers who have applied for and received a Developer ID from ...

Mountain Lion 101: Game Center

by Mike Schramm (Jul 25th, 2012)

Yes, with the arrival of Mountain Lion on the Mac today, Apple has finally extended its Game Center iOS gaming social service to the desktop. The easiest way to find Game Center on your Mountain Lion-equipped Mac is to jump on over to the Launchpad, where Apple's already set up an icon for you. ...

EA joins Iron Monkey and Firemint mobile studios to create Firemonkeys

by Mike Schramm (Jul 24th, 2012)

EA has announced that it's consolidating its two biggest mobile studios. Firemint is the developer behind Flight Control and Spy Mouse (and was acquired by EA last year), and Iron Monkey is the developer behind EA's iOS hits like Mass Effect Infiltrator and Dead Space. Those two Melbourne, ...