For the sake of the developers, I’ll call them Team X. Team X had a great product on the market, it was great at updating Mac software. I wanted to take that to another level, and add App Store functionality, get funding, and make a software marketplace that would transcend Mac and Windows.

I’d been watching the iPhone (now iOS) App Store, and saw its potential. Mind you, this was circa 2007-2008, when Cydia was impressive before it took a single jailbroken App Store purchase.

So, what killed the project off? I listened to Steve Jobs. No, not the way normal people do. I listened for his commentary on a Mac App Store when someone asked him about its potential. He said bluntly that there were no plans for one.

When you hear something that blunt from an Apple leader, you should know, then and there, that it’s the exact opposite of what you were just told. Just like nobody wants to watch videos on their iPod, the screen after all is just too small. When I heard that, I knew it was inevitable that Apple would leverage the iTunes Store infastructure, combine it with digital signatures (which at the time were brand new to Mac apps), and roll out their own App Store.

What’s next? I suspect Apple will continue the burn and roll out a Windows App Store. You might think this is insane. After all, Apple wants to ship Macs, not convince people to stay with Windows.

I however would argue there is a lot of merit in a Windows App Store, fueled by the largest commercial digital content distribution store ever (iTunes).

First, it’s a product that Microsoft has failed in completely. The Windows Marketplace was so much of a dud that Microsoft had to kill it off to give Windows Phone Marketplace a fighting chance… the desktop version paled in comparison.

Plus, Apple wants to show users the “Apple experience”. They want to prevent people from buying into the “Google experience”. Those two factors drive Apple to be okay with distributing Windows apps, so long as it takes place inside of Apple’s systems and Apple’s rules. It convinces more and more people to use iTunes on a daily basis, and that will fuel the additional sale of more iPhones, iPods, and iPads… all of which are successful because they are Windows-friendly.

Take Safari. Apple’s brilliant web browser was ported to Windows in order to ensure people could get a taste of the Apple browsing experience. It wasn’t needed for iTunes, despite what many think.

And, let’s not forget QuickTime for Windows. Many (too, too many) forget that QuickTime existed on Windows a good decade before Apple shipped iTunes. Some have screamed at me in postings that QuickTime only exists for iTunes, a laughable assertion. The reason QuickTime existed on Windows was the same as all the above examples; to get people to like Apple.

If people are buying, downloading, updating, and maintaining their their Windows software, the Apple way, it will be pure profit for Apple, and pure sting for Microsoft. I’m not interested in getting into a product fight with a company that has billions in the bank, hence why you can rest soundly that I won’t be building a Windows App Store right now.

Not bad considering that Woot sells 4.3-inch GPS units for just $15 more, including shipping. And yes, today’s Woot offering is exactly that… made by TomTom.

I’ll be getting back to work tomorrow. Vacation is almost over…

I have some gripes about Snow Leopard, I’ll get to my largest in a second. First, overall, it’s a progressive upgrade for Mac OS X. Exchange is nice, and the iPhone OS UI crossovers (Expose, Finder, etc) are nice touches. But, there are some significant misses. GeForce 8600 owners get QuickTime H.264 Hardware Decoding (which from my testing, appears to be there), but Apple says it’s unsupported. At the same time, people paying much less for their 9400M-based Macs get guaranteed H.264 decoding. Seriously, Apple, clear the air there… support the people that paid $2,000+ for their 8600M-based Macs.

But probably the worst offender in Snow Leopard is the new-found demand that you enter your password after the screen dims. Previously, you could have your display turn off after a certain period (and, as long as a screen saver wasn’t triggered), you didn’t have to enter a password to wake the machine up. If you closed the lid, or triggered a full system sleep, then you’d be prompted for a password.

This made it really simple to leave your system logged in, running whatever task you wanted, and not require a password to continue using it. As I’m about to explain, this change is really bad for the environment.

Now, to keep my machine active, I have to delay the display sleep to a very long period, like 30 minutes. Previously, I had the display set to shut off after five minutes of inactivity (both while plugged in and on battery).

So, now my MacBook Pro is going to sit there, chunking away a task, with the display on… basically all day. Think about it, I am going to use the machine every 15-20 minutes, and so the display never will really go to sleep. As such, I don’t have to enter my password in constantly, but my power bill is going to punish me in the long run.

Apple, please give folks the option to undo what you did. The Security System Preferences panel could easily have an option to “Bypass password on Display Sleep only”. That would solve this, and avoid the environmental damage that is about to ensue.

Stay tuned for when we get release dates for that, and other MobileEdition-powered sites. Now that one is done, getting the rest up is the process that we’re starting right now. Well, okay, after we all get some rest (and maybe, just maybe, a rare weekend off).

In case you’re wondering why we don’t report on the minor nuiances of iPhone OS development on PhoneNews.com… it’s because we don’t give our writers ridiculous quotas to meet. Quality over quantity baby.

“PhoneNews.com has not been a regular source of Apple rumors and their last try wasn’t accurate.”

Immediately the staff started hollering “well, they can forget about us ever covering them again.” and “how the heck can they claim we were all wrong on the MacBook Air!”

Now, the team made some good points, but I told them to calm down a bit. This is a moment that could be turned into a learning experience.

I did contact MacRumor’s chief editor, and we spoke briefly. Unfortunately, they really couldn’t grasp the points that we raised. So, I’ll share them with you instead… hopefully you’ll be able to see why what MacRumors did was disingenuous to their readers.

Now, as you no doubt know, the MacBook Air that shipped was indeed different from the one we reported on. But, not by the stretch that MacRumors tries to gauge. The shipping MacBook Air did ship with the standard Penryn CPUs, and a 120 GB hard drive (both points we were criticized at the time for claiming), but the CPUs were slowed down to the same speed as the original MacBook Airs.

I won’t go into what system MacRumors claims to use, but basically, they weighed each point of our article equally, and then tallied. It didn’t meet their “quota”. On top of that, they claim that because it took eight weeks to ship from our reporting, that made us more wrong.

What MacRumors should have done was ended their article by providing a synopsis of our past coverage… and let readers decide. It does MacRumors no good to Monday Morning Quarterback, because what we did was not rumor reporting. The situation changed after our report. Apple didn’t want to increase the wattage of the MacBook Air, because they couldn’t get the charging time below a breathtaking nine hours.

This touches on a common trend that I’ve blogged about. Everyone loves to call something that didn’t happen a rumor. Now, I have a stack of info that we haven’t shared about the MacBook Air. It would confirm what we’ve said was indeed true at the time.

There are these things in the world called developing stories, and that’s one of the reasons why Apple hates the rumor sites. They don’t cover Apple reliably, separating rumor from fluid news. Both can be covered properly and with journalistic ethics. Unfortunately, this is a key area where the “rumor news sites” need to improve on.

Had MacRumors posted a synopsis (which, would have probably been possible in around the same number of words), we wouldn’t even have to ask ourselves if we should link to MacRumors anymore. More important, MacRumors should ask themselves if journalists with less cool minds would even hesitate to stop covering them. I suspect that other sites that receive Monday Morning Quarterbacking from MacRumors just stop linking to them altogether.

Glittering, and needless generalities about a site’s coverage does colleagues no good. We don’t do that at MechaWorks, and I encourage others to take a lesson from what MacRumors did. It will help make online media more friendly, something that we’ve seen decline quite a bit as the economy has declined.

Touching on what I also said earlier in the week… it also will discredit MacRumors if they decide to Monday Morning Quarterback us at WWDC, only to find a future iPhone OS version adds some of the HD stuff we talked about on iPhone. Remember, we never said all of what we covered this week was going to happen at WWDC.

But, let’s take a look at history for a second first, just in case the crowds at Moscone West decide revolt if Apple doesn’t announce iPhone HD at WWDC.

When the original iPhone came out, Apple categorically denied that it was even capable of TV Out. Time and time again, Apple Media Relations clearly stated that the iPhone lacked the hardware to output video.

Then iPhone OS 2.0 came out, along with 480i (SDTV) video output on each and every iPhone and iPod Touch. iPod touch 2G then went 480p at the next revision.

Will Apple announce iPhone HD at WWDC? I have no idea. I do know that you shouldn’t shoot the messenger if they don’t.

Kega Fusion is one of the most popular SEGA Genesis + CD + 32X emulators out there, and the developer has just finished porting it as his first Mac app.

This really opens up a lot of potential for better emulation on the Mac, as well as possibly on iPhone and iPod touch. I haven’t had a chance to use it throughly, but all three platforms are supported in the first release, and netplay will be added eventually. The only real caveat to the Mac version right now is that SEGA CD games have to be in BIN/CUE format to be played.

Kega Fusion

“Hollenshead informed us that ZodTTD’s port would be illegal and not sanctioned by the company and, as such, not allowed in the App Store.”

Hold the phone. iD releases the full source of Quake onto the web, under the GPL. A developer then ports to iPhone, and iD calls Apple to halt its release. Apple, appears to oblige.

Now, before you pick up a pitchfork and charge towards iD’s headquarters… there are a few things I’ve discerned are probably going on here. I’m basing these on my understanding of GPL, and a bit of common sense.

I suspect that the developers of these Quake ports are trying to charge for them. An iPhone OS port of Quake takes a lot of time to perfect, and make App Store-polished. That does require the approval and consent of iD to do.

And, that also explains why iD hasn’t been sued yet. If iD were to halt a port of Quake onto a particular device (iPhone), but approve of ports for everything else, that would be a violation of the GPL for which it was originally licensed. In short, iD can’t put the genie back in the bottle. The author of the port would have a case against iD for intimidating Apple into halting the port, and violating the GPL to prevent the port’s release.

So, if it’s free, can developers push it through the App Store? Maybe. In order to be assured legit status, the application probably would have to come without any maps. Those maps could then be downloaded from iD’s source/demo after the application has been installed. This would also allow for the user to install other mods and maps themselves (much like many App Store games offer already). Even though maps may be included with the source, iD could assert that they were just examples for the source code to be used with… that would be a cloudy argument at best though.

And, finally, the argument of the trademark on Quake. You can’t say software if free for use under GPL, and not grant some limited use of the trademark. Might the app have to be sold under a different name? Maybe, I would aruge that it doesn’t. Still, even in the worst light, the port would be allowed to refer to itself as a port of Quake in its description.

Still, the moral of this story is, bad iD. Don’t make broad generalizations about your intellectual property. One, the market will correct any lies of omission. And, two, you’ll be fingered for intentionally leaving it out.

But, in all of this, you can start to see why we at MechaWorks are only working on air tight applications, that are locks to be posted on App Store. We’d like to innovate, but Apple isn’t letting us. Without any assurance that our investment can make it to market, I’m not going to let my company burn money on the project. Especially in this economy…

Do I blame Apple for halting the app’s release? In this case, no, since there appears to be a valid reason. But, this is just goes to show you that you shouldn’t make the investment in a groundbreaking app, if you aren’t willing to let Apple rip the ground out from under you. If a company wants to sue a developer, Apple getting involved just leaves everyone with a bitter taste, consumers included.

Like many, I just didn’t see the need for them. If I want to watch a video, I’ll search for it on the web, download it… and usually watch it in higher quality than via a podcast. I don’t need a talking head to feed me information.

iPhone 2.2 changes quite a bit. Now, you can have video and audio streamed to your pocket, and you don’t need to download it before hand. You’re now not just limited to YouTube, you can search a plethora of podcasts to find late-breaking information and analysis… all while mobile. Plus, unlike YouTube, you aren’t dealing with poor quality (or an inability to save content to the iPhone/iPod).

I’m going to make a bit of a bold prediction here, but I believe that iPhone 2.2 will mark the largest increase in podcasting activity ever. Yeah, it’s that big.

So, I’m going to start working on a podcast. Can’t say how it will be formed just yet (be it here, a PhoneNews.com Podcast, or a greater MechaWorks podcast)… that’s still being hashed out.

Also, don’t be shocked if it won’t happen for a month or two, these next two/three months are a really exciting… and stressful… time for me and MechaWorks. We are trying to do a lot of innovative things, and bring on a lot of new people, all at the same time. While many are starting to celebrate, we’re just getting started.