Preview iPhone Apps In Your Browser

Starting today (Feb 4th 2010), Apple finally activated the possibility to preview applications from the AppStore right in your browser. Our readers had the pleasure of seeing a preview html page of the actual AppStore page for the app in their own browser, instead of the dialog box prompting you to launch iTunes on your desktop. Note though, the dialog box is not gone. You will still be prompted to launch iTunes, but if you don't wish to, you can still preview the actual application's page, as if in iTunes.

The feature is rather limited at the time of this writing. You can't really browse the AppStore per-se. You can only jump from app to app (via "Customers also bought"), and any link you try to click on will get you to that dialog box. For example, clicking on "View More by this Developer" or the app's rating (i.e. "Rated 12+ for the following:") will prompt you to open up iTunes.

Plus, there is no way to start from the homepage of the AppStore and work your way within. You need an actual link to an app to start with. Add to that no search functionality and what you basically have is a simple preview page for the application. If you need more, please launch iTunes.

The AppStore browser preview comes a few months after Apple launched iTunes Preview, which let users see what music is available in iTunes from their own browser, before having to install the actual desktop software to listen to and purchase it.

If you wanna start "browsing" the AppStore from your browser, this is as good a place as any to start from: Rafter iPhone app (link does not open iTunes, *necessarily*).



If you decide to go to the store Click on "View in iTunes"

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Adweek names Apple the ‘Brand of the Decade’

AdweekMedia’s Best of the2000’s brought some of the best advertising awards of 2000’s. And Apple ended up recieving top honors in 6 categories including Brand of the Decade” and “Marketer of the Decade” for Steve Jobs. AppleInsider as usual did a great job covering this even on its blog:

Naming Apple the “Brand of the Decade,” AdweekMedia attributes the brand’s success to Steve Jobs, calling Apple “the embodiment of a living, breathing person.” Jobs was named “Marketer of the Decade” and is credited with relaunching the Apple brand with the “Think Different” ad campaign. Apple’s CEO is described as being visionary, iconoclastic, and fearless. Jobs is also up for Time’s Person of the Year and was named “CEO of the Decade” by Fortune in November.

With 220 million iPods sold worldwide, Apple’s music player was named “Product of the Decade” and is compared to the Walkman in terms of cultural impact.

Two of Apple’s iconic ad campaigns are represented on the list, with the “Get a Mac” ads winning “Campaign of the Decade” and “Silhouettes” winning “Out-of-Home Ad of the Decade.”

{Via http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/12/14/apple_named_brand_of_the_decade_by_adweek.html}

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What If Steve Jobs Hadn’t Returned To Apple In 1997?

TechCrunch carried this inspiring article on Thanksgiving, titled “What If Steve Jobs Hadn’t Returned To Apple In 1997?“. Steve Jobs (wiki) was thrown out of Apple, the company he co-founded in 1976 in 1985 by the then Apple CEO John Sculley. And in 1997, Steve sold his company NeXT back to Apple and officially joined the company.

What if Steve wouldnt have joined Apple? TechCrunch has few of those answers:

• In 1997 Apple had just completed a fiscal year where they lost about $1 billion on $7 billion in revenue. The company was worth about $4 billion. Today Apple is worth a staggering $184 billion on revenues of $36.5 billion and net income of $8 billion.
• In 1997 Apple had a snoozy product line that included the ill-fated Newton, the Performa, the Power Macintosh, the PowerBook a bunch of printers and a few servers. Today Apple has the sexiest products in the business: iMacs, Macbooks, iPhones, iPods and more. Even the Mac Mini has a place in my home, powering my television.

Forget all that, what would our world look like without Steve Jobs?

We’d likely still be in mobile phone hell. Chances are we still wouldn’t have a decent browsing experience on the phone, and we certainly wouldn’t be enjoying third party apps like Pandora or Skype on whatever clunker the carriers handed us. Even if you use an Android, Palm Pre or newer Blackberry today, you must thank Apple for pushing open the doors to mobile freedom. Think back to the phone you had in 2006, and then tell me you don’t love Apple for the iPhone alone (yes, I’ve moved on, but the iPhone was the genesis).

{Via TechCrunch}

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iTunes App Store “Release Date” Bugs

Check in iTunes App Store, pick a category, and get/go to the Sort by: Release Date listing and I wonder saw the apps with Release date 07 December 2009 and 30 November 2009 are displayed.



But these apps are on sale – Auto indexing sites (Appshopper) showing different dates:




For users looking to find new apps in iTunes, have to hit up third party tracking sites like AppShopper until Apple fixes the App Store proper. For developers who were hoping for the brief spotlight that listing provides for those users, well you’re out some primo free marketing. And for many, that’s going to hurt.

So, to sum up, yes Apple is still needs to get rid of bugs.

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iTunes App Store “Release Date” Sorting Broken?

Swing by the iTunes App Store, pick a category, and get/go to the Sort by: Release Date listing and it may look like Apple hasn’t added any new iPhone and iPod touch apps since November 19 — only they have, and it’s just the iTunes listings that are broken.



Rewind: We started getting questions from users who thought no new apps were being released, or that Apple had somehow frozen the App Store. Then we got reports from developers saying their apps weren’t showing up in the release date listings even though they’d been approved and put into the store. Finally, we got reports of the release date listings being flat out busted, and that’s what looks to be the case.

What does this mean? For users looking to find new apps in iTunes, good luck with that. Absent sort by release date, you’ll have to hit up third party tracking sites like AppShopper until Apple fixes the App Store proper. For developers who were hoping for the brief spotlight that listing provides for those users, well you’re out some primo free marketing. And for many, that’s going to hurt.

So, to sum up, yes Apple is still posting new apps, but no they’re not updating the release date lists, and yes this sucks for both user discovery and developer exposure.

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