AppMakr full speed ahead…

Many customers, press outlets, analysts and industry observers have called us over the last couple days to ask about the Techcrunch and Macworld articles referencing Apple cutting down on cookie-cutter app services, and wondering how that affects AppMakr.  Here are the recent articles:

http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/07/apple-cookie-cutter-apps/
http://www.macworld.com/article/146954/2010/03/template_apps.html

The reality is, this initiative from Apple has been great for us.  Here’s why:

We’ve been working with Apple one on one for over 5 weeks to add rich features to our product.  We are thrilled to announce that they have approved our latest templates and have given us the go ahead to move full steam ahead with our app making framework.    We have also jointly agreed to start implementing some content practices that will increase the quality of the applications we create with AppMakr.

Here are the six content practices we are putting in place:

1.  Applications need to have 3 or more tab bar icons

2.  Application tab bar icons must to connect to feeds that have 5 or more stories

3.  Applications need to have rich content within the feeds and not just a sentence that says “read more…” with a link out to a webpage.  From a technical perspective this means that RSS <description> tags or ATOM <content> tags need to have full stories and not just be links to web pages.

4.  Applications need to be ‘industry’ specific and not ‘organization’ specific.  For example, if the application is built by a university for its students then the app should not only contain the university schedule, staff bios, etc, but also contain content that speaks to the educational vertical as well.

5.  If applications contain Twitter or Facebook feeds they should be related to the industry the application speaks to versus personal info (ex. if tweets are of the type “I’m at this conference”, Apple will reject the app.  Tweets or Twitter searches about an industry are OK)

6.  If you are using non-YouTube video in your application, you must use the Apple HTTP Streaming protocol documented here http://developer.apple.com/iphone/library/documentation/NetworkingInternet/Conceptual/StreamingMediaGuide/StreamingMediaGuide.pdf

Hats off to Apple for spending the time necessary to work with us one on one.   They want high quality applications and we want AppMakr to create high quality applications, so we both have the same goals. We see this as Apple reaching out to the development community and find it a refreshing change from the past.