Apple has released a new beta version of iOS 5 to iPad and iPhone app developers. The iOS 5.0.1 is intended to fix battery issues currently plaguing in some iPhone 4S. Further, the new beta is also expected to fix a number of other issues.

Apple launched iPhone 4S in first week of October. But, barely within a month of its release, some iPhone 4S owners complained of battery problems particularly rapid drainage.

The iOS 5.0.1 will add multitasking gestures on the iPad, fix bugs in the iCloud, improve features in Siri for Australian users and will also contain security improvements.

Australian users of iPhone 4S have been complaining on Siri- the voice recognition software-not working properly on their phones. The latest beta is expected to solve the issue. Similarly, iPad owners will welcome the arrival of multitasking gestures on their devices as it will make navigating on the device and switching between the apps fast and easy.

However, there have been a few reports of iPhone application developers facing trouble activating their devices with the latest beta.

Building an iPhone app and submitting it on the app store is half the battle won. The success of an application hugely depends on its marketing. And therefore iPhone developers must also promote their apps aggressively so that users know about it. Social media channels like Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn etc., provide ideal opportunity to iPad and iPhone developers to reach to users, create awareness about their applications and stimulate downloads. The best part of Social Media Marketing is that participating on most of these channels is free or requires very little money.

iPhone developers, however, commit a common mistake of thinking social media as a lead generation tool. Without doubt, it helps you generate more downloads for your application. But the use of Twitter, Facebook et al is more than generating leads. If harnessed creatively and efficiently, these channels can help you build long-term relationships with a community of users, help you build brand and understand your target audience better. And therefore instead of joining or being active in these channels on the eve of release of apps, iPhone developers would do well to be active throughout. Now let’s look at some other key considerations while using social media for app marketing-

Selecting Social Media Channel- Be where your audience is- will be the right approach while selecting the channel. Every social media channel has its distinctive user base and hence iPhone developers have to identify social media sites where they can reach to their target audience. If you have developed a business app then you have to pick channels where you will get a significant number of business app users. So, based on the category your app falls, wisely choose the appropriate social media site.

What to do- Simply saying that you have an iPhone app which is excellent and then providing the app store link will get little response from your audience. iPhone application developers should channelize all their activities in such a way that they engage their target audience and, the more creatively…the better. Look for new ways to interact with your audience. Facebook and Twitter allows several customizations options wherein you can re-design your page. Use those customization options to provide pictures, videos of your app. If you have a blog or website wherein you have the various feature of your application in detail then provide links of it. Run contests for your users wherein the winners will get promo codes of your new app. There are so many things you can do…

Monitor and Revise- It is important for iPhone developers to monitor the impact of their social media marketing efforts. Is it meeting your set goals? Is it stimulating downloads? Depending on the answers to these questions, improvise or tweak your social media strategy.

In the end, Social media marketing offers tremendous scope to experiment and go creative. iPhone application developers should try innovative ways to reach, interact and engage with their audience and market their app.

If you are an iPhone developer and are looking for a new tool to reach out your target audience and showcase your iPhone apps then you can use Pieceable Viewer. The new tool, developed by Pieceable, allows iPhone developers to publish their iOS apps on the web and showcase to the world.

An iPhone developer doesn’t need to make any changes in the code of the app to use Pieceable Viewer. iPhone developers can build the app for the Simulator and upload their .app. They will get a link to their app on the web once the app is loaded into the system. Viewer supports most iPhone apps. Developers would also be able to upload iPad applications in future versions of the Viewer.

Pieceable Viewer is available on introductory pricing. iPhone developers can first try the services for free wherein they will get one application and one simultaneous viewer with an app link. The free trial will expire after one hour. For a monthly fee of $30, you can get 5 applications with 3 simultaneous viewers and for a $60 fee, iPhone developers can upload unlimited iOS apps with 10 simultaneous viewers. There are no time limits for the links to expire in paid services.

Adobe has announced significant tooling advancements in app development as part of the Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 release that will provide an iPhone developer for the first time a single app development platform for building high quality apps. These advancements consist of all latest tooling and framework support in Flash Builder™ 4.5 for developing, testing and deploying apps on iOS platforms. The released software also supports Android and BlackBerry platforms.

Adobe Flex 4.5 that provides support for building applications for iPhone developers is expected in June 2011. This new approach in app development enables an iPhone developer to take advantage of a single tool chain, programming language and code base to effortlessly develop high quality mobile apps. Flex 4.5 will significantly improve performance of an iPhone developer in addition to reducing development time and costs.

Flash Builder 4.5 will speed-up Flex and ActionScript project development including round-trip workflows with Adobe Flash Catalyst CS 5.5 software. It will also allow iPhone developers and designers to correspondingly work throughout app development. The software also includes new capabilities to facilitate faster and more productive coding.

Ed Rowe, vice president of development tooling, Adobe says “With these releases, developers for the first time have a single development platform for building highly expressive Web, mobile, and desktop applications, marking a leap forward for mobile app development”.

“With the proliferation of smartphones and tablets, enterprises now need to ensure that their applications work seamlessly across many different types of devices. Flash Builder 4.5 and Flex 4.5 will now allow companies to standardize on a common platform capable of delivering rich and consistent application experiences that perform great across Android, BlackBerry Tablet OS and iOS devices,” he added.

Adobe is planning to release updates to the Flex framework in June that will allow iPhone developers to reprocess most or all of their code across apps that target many platforms. Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 is planned to ship within 30 day. The software will be available through Adobe Authorized Resellers, Adobe Direct Sales and at www.adobe.com/store. The price is expected to be US$249 for Flash Builder 4.5 Standard, US$699 for Flash Builder 4.5 Premium, US$399 for Flash Catalyst and US$699 for Flash Professional.

Source- Adobe

MacRumours posts that Steve Jobs has responded to an e-mail from its readers in which he says that in-app ubscriptions for publishing apps, not SaaS apps. The reader wrote:

Hello Steve,

As a full time iOS developer, I am concerned (and confused) withe the new App Store guideline regarding “Apps offering subscriptions” (section 11.12).

Most of the iOS apps I have developed, as a contractor for other businesses, have been free apps that had login screens to allow the user access to some amount of private data and /or service. These businesses have all been well established companies that sell some kind of service to their customers (Software As a Service companies) and the iOS app was merely another “portal” for their users to access their data/services (in many times, in a limited i.e. “mobile” fashion)…. for example; SalesForce. I am concerned that most of these businesses will choose to not develop an iOS app for their customers if the IAP & subscription policy was in place.

Would these types of free apps be still be allowed in the App Store or will they now be expected to use IAP?

To this, Steve Jobs replied:

We created subscriptions for publishing apps, not SaaS apps.

Sent from my iPhone

There is a lot of confusion among iPhone developers and publishers with regard to subscription policies of Apple, especially after the Cupertino Company rejected Readability app. The app was rejected by Apple on the ground that it doesn’t allow in-app purchasing, a mandatory feature for all apps to be listed on Apple App Store. Readability, on the other hand, says that its services fall under SaaS category and hence is unhappy with Apple’s action.

Source- www.macrumors.com

Is AT&T following Verizon and offering Wi-Fi sharing feature, Hotspot, to its subscribers? The mobile network provider has reportedly provided Wi-Fi sharing feature of Beta 3 iOS 4.3 for an iPhone developer which has set the buzz indicating that AT&T may soon offer the sharing feature to mobile users subscribed to its network.

The iPhone developer to whom the carrier agreed to provide Personal Hotspot feature reveals that AT&T agreed to provision after he mentioned Verizon a few times.

The new Wi-Fi feature has been added the iOS 4.2.6, a version that runs only on Verizon iPhone 4. The new feature allows users to share the 3G connection over Wi-Fi.

AT&T has not yet officially announced any support to the new feature. However, it is expected that the carrier will sooner or later announced it. AT&T and Verizon war has already heated up with the new Apple-Verizon deal where iPhones are also available on Verizon network. The two carriers have launched an intense campaign to lure more subscribers to its fold and defend their customer base.

The Verizon-iPhone 4 deal was touted as a game-changer in the smartphone market. Breaking years of its exclusive partnership with AT&T in US, Apple struck a CDMA iPhone version deal with Verizon. It was expected that the deal would help the iPhone maker counter growing influence of Google’s Android in the market. However, if a news report from BGR is to be believed then the Verizon iPhone sales is not meeting expectations. The news report says that the iPhone 4 sales on Verizon are much lesser than what Apple, Verizon and iPhone app developers anticipated.

The news report further quotes data on iPhones from five App stores (including two leading App Stores) for Verizon and AT&T during the first five days of the launch of iPhone 4 on Verizon-

As per the news report, online pre-order sales for Verizon iPhone were nearly 550,000 units. Among the buyers, 30 percent were Android users, over 25 percent were BlackBerry users and around 14 percent were AT&T users.

iPhone app developers were banking heavily on the deal to leverage from the Apple’s growing market to boost their business. It would be interesting to see how the sales figure move, once the excitement settlement downs.

The app marketplace has seen unprecedented growth. To make most of the opportunities available, various telecom operators are making efforts into to luring mobile application developers to create new apps for their networks and app stores. However, the efforts have not yielded many dividends as app developers are more concerned with the revenue-model in the effort.

Now, Telefónica has come up with a novel program that brings in a new revenue-share model for all app makers. The operator has initiated a new developer community termed ‘BlueVia’. This community not only provides access of network application programming interfaces (APIs) to mobile app developers but also gives them a share of the revenue earned on any transaction that uses the API. Developers also earn share of revenue earned on app sales and subscriptions.

As per the latest model, the operator offers developers between 10 to 50 percent of the revenue earned from API transactions. Developers can earn 70 percent of the revenue generated from app sales and subscriptions. They will also get access to a real time analytics called “user context” API for free. Developers participating in the program are free to sell their apps on any store.

“The revenue model completely changes for developers,” says James Parton, head of developer marketing at Telefónica. “We’re adding more and more APIs that come with this transactional business model. Developers want longer transactional revenue streams,” he says.

This is the first time a telecom operator is initiating such a program for app development and services. “BlueVia recognizes that’s a challenging thing to do successfully. The developer community can innovate far faster then we can. We want to expose and provide those ingredients and allow them to bake the cake for us.” says Parton.

iPhone application developers looking for newer sources of revenue may opt for it and benefit from it.

iPhone developers were waiting with bated breath for the launch of Verizon’s iPhone 4. From today, the iconic iPhone 4 can be ordered online. Last week, the iPhone was available for pre-orders for existing Verizon customers, but from today it is available for the general public also. Interested customers can order online for the phone. The iphone 4 will be available for sales on stores from 10^th February.

The mobile app marketplace has got very intense with the entry of Android OS. iPhone app developers, who till then were having a comfortable run are now worried about their business prospects as Android based smartphones gain acceptance among users. Market studies reveal that the app business is directly linked with the performance of operating system and devices in the market.

The developers are expecting a huge success for Verizon iPhone 4 as predicted by many market intelligence reports as it will open-up new opportunities for these developers.

If you are an iPhone app developer and wish to develop a local shopping app akin to Google Shopper iPhone app then WishPond’s API can be of great help to you. Wishpond, a local shopping platform, is providing companies with free access to local product information on around 5 million products from 1400 retailers across North America. iPhone application developers can use the API to enhance their app with local product information.

The local product data provided by the API can help businesses to improve user experience by providing local product search, helping users to find local deals, giving them access to local information and promoting deals on the apps.

Integrating latest local information on an app is a costly and expensive proposition. It also takes several months to collect and assimilate data for an application. However, with the free access to local data, iOS developers can now create new local shopping apps with relative ease. The API is particularly useful to iPhone developers working on or interested in developing local mobile apps, business discovery apps, shopping/coupon apps and navigation apps etc.

The mobile API can be downloaded from here.