App Store

Rogue Amoeba has announced in a post on their blog that Apple has reversed their policy on using pictures of Apple products like Macs, iPods and iPhones in iPhone apps, and has allowed a new version of Airfoil Speakers Touch [App Store, Free] to be released with the original images intact. The policy change comes not long after Rogue Amoeba quit the iPhone app business due to Apple's over-agressive defense of product images that resulted in a minor update being delayed three months.

The App Store has received quite a lot of criticism recently, first with Facebook developer Joe Hewitt's decision to stop development for the iPhone, and then Rogue Amoeba announcing the same thing a day later. To defend Apple's position, Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice-president for worldwide product marketing, sat down with BusinessWeek for an interview on the matter.

In the interview, Schiller defends the review process by stating that they've created a store that people can trust:

Despite official iPhones not having Wi-Fi, a large population of jailbreakers and rampant app piracy, the Chinese App Store is managing to grow at a healthy rate. Meanwhile, China Unicom is optimistic that the iPhone will become the device top-selling smartphone in China.

Apple has released two new iPhone ads, each spotlighting six different applications available for download on the App Store. Gift gets its name from the free Target, which can be used for "picking the perfect gift," and Song from the Shazam app, which has seen a second appearance. Both ads now tout the fact that Apple now has over 100,000 applications available in the App Store.

The complete list of apps, courtesy of MacRumors, follows:

Apple "recently" started running all new App Store app submissions through a filter that checks their code for the use of private APIs. Private APIs, which have been prohibited in the developer agreement section 3.3.1, restricts the use of private APIs in apps. While the rule was always in place, it was impossible for reviewers to comb through the code of every application. Now, all apps with private APIs will be filtered out by machines.

Apple has added a new feature on to the Apple's Dev Center that lets developers see the status of their iPhone applications that have been submitted for review, giving them a better idea of what phase of being reviewed it is in. “It’s the coolest new feature they’ve added [for developers], in my opinion,” said Oliver Cameron, developer of Postman [App Store, $2.99].

With 100,000 apps to chose from, figuring out which ones are worth your attention can be a chore. We'll always do our best to find the gems in the rough for you, but a new app for finding good apps has been released that shows promise. Chorus [App Store, Free] is an app that gives you app recommendations from friends and people around you.

Apple has announced that the App Store has officially reached an inventory of 100,000 available apps for the iPhone and iPod touch. While more than 100,000 have been submitted and approved, not all of them stayed available for long, keeping the number below 100k. Apple issued a statement on their website about what they think this means about their success.

A T-Mobile advertisement for an app for Android mobile devices actually boosted sales of a similar iPhone application with the same function. In the latest ad for the myTouch 3G, Dana Carvey is shown writing "call me" using an application that simulates steam on glass that can be wiped away. After the add aired, iFog [App Store, $0.99], an iPhone application that does the same thing, saw a spike in sales.

According to App Shopper, Apple has approved more than 100,000 apps for the App Store, 100,867 to be precise (at the time of writing this). Of course this number is somewhat misleading as there are only 92,310 currently live in the App Store. This is, of course, due to some applications either being pulled by their respective developers or by Apple. Regardless of this fact, it's pretty great to see how quickly the store has grown in just over one year.

Apple's most recently reported App Store download count was two billion with 85,000 apps in the store, reported in late September.