Wellala has released a remote printing app for the iPhone and iPod touch, Print Magic. The app allows users to print content from the mobile device via Wi-Fi, without the need to first sync to a computer. It can print directly to network printers that support the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP), along with any printer capable of sharing from a Mac via Printer Sharing. In order to print content, users simply copy the data into the application or, when printing web pages, copy the URL….

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, App Store, SDK

iPhone developer Dan B. wanted to know if Apple would reject his application based on the name he wanted to use for his app.

So he did what you’d expect a sane developer to do. He wrote Apple. He used one of his technical support incidents to speak with the Apple Developer Technical Support teams and waited for them to reply.

They were quite prompt in answering, redirecting his question to the iPhone App Review Team.

Thank you for contacting Apple Developer Technical Support. We provide support for code-level questions on hardware & software development, and are unable to help you with your app naming question.

Please contact the iPhone App Review Team for assistance. You can contact them directly at [address redacted].

While you were initially charged a technical support incident for this request, we have assigned a replacement incident back to your account.

I hope this information is helpful to you.

So Dan contacted the App Review team. And they wrote back too.

Thank you for contacting the iPhone Developer Program. This email address is for inquiries regarding status of application submissions.

Apple is not able to provide pre-approval to developers for proposed application submissions.

We ask that you please review the Program License Agreement details against the specific application you wish to develop and submit any applications for App Store consideration in line with the application submission processes for the program.

If your application does in fact get rejected by the app review team, then we will notify you on what appropriate corrections/changes should be made.

So what’s a developer to do? It seems like the only way to vet an application (let alone an application name) is to submit it and see whether Apple rejects it or not. If the name is used in the application art, you might have to redesign your screens. If the application idea is not okay, you might end up throwing away all your development costs because Apple would not give a preapproval before starting serious development.

Dan’s problem reflects a wider problem with Apple’s App Store black box. Developers should be able to pay for support incidents for exactly this kind of situation. It appears that Apple does offer this high level of consultation to partners and other companies that they work with (even to the point of having Phil Schiller call Google directly to discuss the progress for the Google Voice app review). Shouldn’t they offer a similar kind of service to smaller developers?

Have you been able to get these kinds of answers out of Apple? If so, how did you approach the matter? Let us know in the comments…

TUAWApp Store Lessons: Picking an application name originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 15 Oct 2009 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Technocel has announced the PowerPak, a new all-in-one portable battery and home charger. The PowerPak is designed to extend the run time of portable electronic devices when users are on-the-go and away from power outlets. It supports a wide range of devices including cellphones, PDAís, MP3 players, or Bluetooth headsets. A variety of interchangeable tips are included, enabling the charger to work with almost any USB-powered product….

Global management consulting firm A.T. Kearney has placed Apple on its Global Champions 2009 study. Apple was third overall, behind Nintendo (1st) and Google (2nd) in the study which focused on companies that outperformed peers over the past five years. Most of the top 25 companies managed 15 percent growth, compared to an average 8 percent growth for the entire sample of 2500 companies. Apple managed 41 percent median sales growth and 24 percent growth in median value….

AquaFold has launched a major upgrade to its database administration software, releasing Aqua Data Studio 8.0. The software is geared toward visualizing and working with multiple relational databases in a single view. Aqua Data Studio already supports Oracle, DB2 for iSeries, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, Sybase, Informix, apache Derby and PostgreSQL. Version 8.0 adds native support for new databases including Teradata, DB2 for z/OS, Sybase IQ 15 and nCluster….

Rawzor has updated its lossless RAW image-compression utility with support for Mac OS X. The self-titled Rawzor software, in Beta version 0.45, delivers compression rates of 20-60 percent with no change to image quality or metadata. Rawzor promises a complete restoration of the original file on decompression, and Rawzor has an SDK that allows independent RAW processing software to open the compressed .rwz files. The new Mac-compatible version has a core engine fully ported for Mac….

Recosoft has launched a new PDF converter, PDF2Office, for iWork ’08 and ’09. The software converts PDF files by changing each page to an equivalent format for either Keynote or Pages. It recreates paragraphs, reconstructs tables and can regroup independent graphical elements. The utility also retains most layout elements of the original PDF….

InfoLogic has released MathMagic Personal Edition 6.8. The equation editor handles mathematical symbols using a simple interface designed to be easy to work with. It reads and writes expressions in LaTex and MathML, and works with any word processor or presentation software such as Pages, Word or Keynote….

Filed under: iPhone, Jailbreak/pwnage

Oh, so tempting. Engadget and Slashgear link to this video from our friend Steven Troughton-Smith: Exposé-style app management running on a jailbroken iPhone. No, you can’t download it anywhere yet; no, we don’t know when it will be ready for prime time and available on the Cydia repo; no, we don’t expect Apple to have anything similar in the pipeline for vanilla iPhone use.

But wouldn’t it be nice?

TUAWFound Footage: Expose-esque UI for iPhone app management originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 15 Oct 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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