developers

Storm8, a developer responsible for iMobsters, Vampires Live, and Zombies LIve, is the target of a class action lawsuit accusing them of secretly collecting the phone numbers of users who download and play their games. The company claims that their games have been downloaded more than 20 million times. Storm8 admitted to transferring users' phone numbers back in August, but shook it off as only a bug.

A coding firm in India was recently exposed for falsifying their resume, claiming to have coded several popular apps in the App Store that they had nothing to do with in order to gain clients. The story starts with TapBots CEO, Paul Haddad, being asked if their popular app, ConvertBot [App Store, $0.99] was coded by Trucid. Of course, it was coded by TapBots LLC.

Apple Inc. today announced that more than two billion applications have been downloaded from its App Store, which currently hosts more than 85,000 apps available to the more than 50 million iPhone and iPod touch customers worldwide and over 125,000 developers in Apple’s iPhone Developer Program.

Today Apple announced a new section to its iPhone Dev Center called the "App Store Resource Center." This new section provides developers with important information on how to manage applications they've submitted to the App Store. In their words, it's "a single destination designed to make it easier for you to find details on everything you need to know about distributing your app on the App Store — from how to prepare for app submission to managing your app once it's been posted." While the new section doesn't seem to contain any remarkable info for App Store veterans, it's likely to significantly help new developers when managing their apps in the store.

Back in August Apple added a "News and Announcements" section, app approval statistics, and contact information to the iPhone Dev Center.

We've seen a lot of different ways developers will promote their apps, but this one is a first. Charleston, South Carolina-based developer Slicker has opened up a brick and mortar storefront, just for the purpose of spreading the word about their app Charleston City Slicker. The app takes users on a step-by-step tour of the historic city, and uses the iPhone's many features like location services and hi-definition video to immerse the user in the experience.

With the announcement of an iPhone with a faster processor, twice the RAM, and improved 3D rendering capabilities, there has been some concern that developers might start making apps that require the new hardware, leaving 3G and original iPhone owners in the dust. While it seems likely to happen eventually, it's still a ways off, and at least one developer, Ngmoco is sticking by previous-generation device owners.

Apple is ramping up their testing of the push notification system for iPhone apps by asking developers running the iPhone OS 3.0 Beta build to download an unreleased version of the Associated Press iPhone app that has been modified to include push notifications. The trial will last for seven days, after which time the redemption code for the app and the functionality of the app will end. Full text of the email after the break.

Apple has released version five of the iPhone 3.0 software (Build 7A312g) to developers, as well as a new pre-releas version of iTunes 8.2 and version five of the SDK (build 9M2735). As was the case with the last beta software download, iTunes 8.2 is required in order to install the latest beta OS. We're still waiting on details about new features and changes from the previous version.

We've already heard about the developers upset about late or missing payments from Apple. Now TechCrunch reports that that isn't the worst of it, and some developers are even threatening legal action. Many of the complaints on the developer forums (1,2) paint a pretty ugly picture of how Apple is treating their developers.

Apple has seeded version 4 of the iPhone OS 3.0 beta to developers, as well as a pre-release version of iTunes 8.2, which is required to activate the new beta OS. No new features have been found in the new beta as of yet, but we'll let you know as they come up.
[via Apple]