“To be appropriate for the App Store, your app must be published under a Seller name and Artist name that reflects the [redacted] brand, as required by the iOS Developer Program License Agreement.

Section 1.2:
“You” and “Your” means and refers to the person(s) or legal entity (whether the company, organization, educational institution, or governmental agency, instrumentality, or department) using the Apple Software or otherwise exercising rights under this Agreement. For the sake of clarity, You may authorize contractors to develop Applications on Your behalf, but any such Applications must be submitted under Your developer account.

If you have published these apps on behalf of a client, it would be appropriate for your client to enroll in the iOS Developer Program, then add you to their development team so you can develop an app for them to submit under their developer account.”

So if you’re planning on creating a series of white-labeled apps for different clients under one umbrella account you better think twice. You’ll need your clients to create their own developer account then add your development team to their account. It’s not the end of the world but something to be aware of.

]]> http://iamnotrobot.com/2012/01/apple-rejecting-white-labeled-apps/feed/ 0 http://iamnotrobot.com/2011/12/planned-parenthood-siri-sucks-humans-are-better/ http://iamnotrobot.com/2011/12/planned-parenthood-siri-sucks-humans-are-better/#comments Sat, 03 Dec 2011 00:44:28 +0000 Jeff http://iamnotrobot.com/?p=1425 Continue reading →]]> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cecile-richards/what-siris-blind-spot-on_b_1125377.html

“It’s fully accessible on mobile devices, and it won’t mislead you about where to find the health services you need. The humans who manage it make sure of that.”

The above quote is from Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund. Perhaps a little passive aggressive? Siri hasn’t mislead anyone and it’s a bit silly to call Siri’s lack of information on abortion clinics a “programming glitch”. It’s not a glitch. Sometimes Siri’s vocabulary and knowledge just doesn’t cover the question being asked and while Apple has touted Siri as your personal assistant it’s obvious to most people that Siri can’t do everything. If you depend on Siri to help you navigate complicated life issues, then there is something wrong with you. Siri is a novelty.

There are plenty of things Siri doesn’t know the answer to and some things it just likes to have fun with. Skynet will be here before we know it and will be begging again for the days when Siri didn’t even know where the nearest abortion clinic was located.

]]> http://iamnotrobot.com/2011/12/planned-parenthood-siri-sucks-humans-are-better/feed/ 0 http://iamnotrobot.com/2011/12/skeuomorphism-and-siri/ http://iamnotrobot.com/2011/12/skeuomorphism-and-siri/#comments Fri, 02 Dec 2011 04:35:45 +0000 Jeff http://iamnotrobot.com/?p=1408 Continue reading →]]> http://www.tuaw.com/2011/12/01/why-siri-is-like-skeuomorphic-uis-the-magic-is-just-skin-deep/

 ”Skeumorphic UIs resemble physical objects, but they cannot hope to emulate the myriad ways we have to emulate physical objects — so they are always doomed to disappoint on some level if we let ourselves be fooled.”

The latest hoopla regarding Apple’s iPhone 4S Siri feature and its lack of information on abortion clinics has tied into another hot topic in the design world: Skeuomorphism. Simply put, I think it’s amazing that consumer technology is getting to the point where things like UI and UX seriously matter to ordinary, non techie, people.

“Don’t hang on to ideas from the past even if they have been successful for you. You don’t build a product just because everyone else has one.”

Great insight into what makes Apple tick.

“Inspired by the collaborative intelligence of her fellow software designers, Kare stayed on at Apple to craft the navigational elements for Mac’s GUI. Because an application for designing icons on screen hadn’t been coded yet, she went to the University Art supply store in Palo Alto and picked up a $2.50 sketchbook so she could begin playing around with forms and ideas.”

I’ve always been a huge fan of sketching notebooks. It allows for free thinking, sketching, and planning you wouldn’t get otherwise using desktop software. I always have a notebook within arms reach and carry one in my bag. You never know when inspiration will strike.

Did I ever show you my autographed Susan Kare print?

Your legacy will live on forever.

Thank you Steve Jobs and may you rest in peace.

A few days ago Spotify made its USA debut and wow wee wow what a service. If you know me even a tiny little bit you’ll know that I am really hard to impress when it comes to apps and/or web services and Spotify knocks this one out of the park.

The music industry has been hurting for a LONG time thanks to Napster, P2p, and Mp3s and while iTunes put a bandaid on the music labels, the artists themselves (at least indie ones) have still been hurting. While I can’t say I’ve always acquired all of my music via iTunes or some other legitimate online music store, the process of purchasing, downloading, dealing with DRM issues, backing up and syncing music has been broken for a long time- making it easier to pirate music than to actually pay for it.

Last night after two glasses of Gosling’s I signed up for a Spotify premium account. Holy. Shit. All I can say is Spotify will trick you into paying for music again and you’ll feel good about it.

Spotify Key Observations

• SUPER FAST – searching seems almost too fast. WAY faster than the itunes store hands down.
• OTA Syncing – syncing is so seamless  you won’t have to think about it
•  An interface that makes sense both on the desktop version and the mobile version
• Sharing with other Spotify friends is really easy. You can drop a song in someone’s inbox and they have it!
• Spotify seems to have a good majority of the music I like (even the obscure stuff).
• Since everything streams (although you can make things available offline) you save A TON of disk space

How does Spotify stack up against iTunes
I believe Spotify just took a shot across the iTunes store bow. With the feature set iTunes Match introduces it might be too little too late. Although iTunes Match is $25/yr vs Spotify’s $120/year for a premium account, the functionality you get with Spotify is well worth it. From my understanding, iTunes Match will find music you’ve previously downloaded (from anywhere) and will match that song to one in the iTunes Library if it exists. In the other corner Spotify removes the need to even think about illegally downloading a song or album. It’s all right there in Spotify’s library and ready to sync. So from a user experience perspective, Spotify crushes the iTunes and the iPod ecosystem. All I can do is hope Apple is paying close attention to what Spotify is up to and continues to innovate the iTunes Match and iCloud system. People like things that are ‘easy’ to do (like illegally downloading music), so if ease of use is backed up by a large music library, an awesome feature set, and is also significantly easier to use that iTunes … that sounds like a recipe for [something].

It’ll take sometime before Spotify is a household name but mark my words in this permanent blog post that will live on the internet for eternity: Spotify will become a household name.

UPDATE:
After a week of using Spotify I have noticed that the one important feature it is missing is the ability to browse for music.  You can check out “What’s New” but there is no way to browse music by genre. Essentially Spotify needs a solid music discovery layer. Only a matter of time but this is an area where services like Pandora and Last.fm shine a bit more than Spotify.

Watch the Keynote
The keynote will start at 10:00am PST. In the past, Apple has had video streams available for viewing the Keynote speech.There is no indication that this event will be streamed but you never know. Typically during keynote speeches that are not streamed, you will want to keep up with a site that is live-blogging the event. I recommend checking out Engadget.com for coverage.

Follow Devs at WWDC
I could easily list of a bunch of of the usual suspects (ahem @daringfireball) .. but I won’t. Instead you should try using search.twitter.com to find people tweeting about the event. I’ll leave it up to you to decide who you should follow but at least this way you’ll get first hand impressions of the event and updates on all the drinking that will most likely happen in the evenings. I’ve seen a few hashtags being used so far including #wwdc #wwdc2011 and #wwdctips

Check out the forums
Anything announced pertaining to iOS 5 will be under NDA but Apple will usually add a section to the forums for discussing things that are under NDA. This section will have a red folder indicating absolute secrecy!!! Regardless, It’s always a good place to go see what people are chatting about.

Meeting up with the locals
Chances are if you didn’t end up going to WWDC this year, you’ll find there may be other developers in your city or neighborhood that also didn’t go. Here in Brooklyn I’ve decided to host a meetup on Monday night so we can chat about WWDC and the keynote presentation.

—–

To those enjoy who are going to WWDC, remember to bring your shorts, sunscreen, and t-shirts. SF is a scorcher this time of year! :-x

Peep it here: Making your iPad Magazine

I honestly can not believe it has only been a year since I left Apple Inc. It already seems like a distant past life and in that light, I am taking this moment to reflect on how great my time there was and how it has helped further my career tremendously. Before I do so, I should tell you a little bit about my time within Apple.

My First Real Job
Three days after I graduated college, I helped open Apple’s flagship Fifth Avenue store in NYC. I was hired as a part time Mac Specialist and while the hours were kind of crappy (fifth avenue is open 24 hrs a day), I had a job and that was good. I wasn’t particularly good at sales but I knew my stuff. After one too many late nights of working part-time on the sales floor, I decided I needed to do something with my life. The *Creative* position (now known as a “Trainer”) seemed pretty interesting to me. You were able to work directly with customers and teach them how to use their mac. The really knowledgeable creatives even got to teach pro apps such as Logic and Final Cut Pro to customers. Having a background in Audio, Communications and Broadcasting and a minor in music, I thought  I would be a valuable asset to the creative team. I approached one of the managers to tell her about my interest and the fact that well … I sucked at sales … but I was really good at teaching. I used to do the same thing in college for 3 years while working in the Department of Instructional Technology for Manhattanville during college. I spent a lot of time teaching luddites about email and the web so my head was in that space. Of course, the manager I spoke to immediately shot me down and told me I needed to up my sales in order to go anywhere within the company. I realized I had to take matters into my own hands and went over the manager’s head to a more senior manager who really gave me a chance to prove I had what it took to work in that position and was really willing to listen. Needless to say I had the job within a few weeks.

Working as a Creative at Apple was probably the most beneficial experienced I’ve gained during my time at Apple and perhaps even in my entire professional career thus far. Here are a few things I took away from that experience:

• Looking over the shoulder of customers using Apple products for 1.5 years will teach you a thing or two about how people interact with software and hardware.
• Working in this position gave me a true sense for how customers make their purchase decisions.
• Customer service is the most important thing in any business. Without it, the business is doomed.
• Spending 8 hours a day doing this type of training will help you grow super thick skin.

I will admit, the job is not as glorious as it may sound. Sometimes the thought of helping another upper east side millionaire sync their blackberry to their Powerbook Titanium made my stomach lurch. After one too many teaching lessons, I decided it was maybe time to move.

Did you get the Memo?
Coincidentally, in late spring of 2007 I received an email at my Apple address about a corporate internship opportunity that was happening company wide for retail employees. There were numerous positions posted for various departments within Apple. At first glance, I didn’t think much of it and closed the email. Worked a half day and went to lunch without think about that email again.

Later that day, a colleague of mine asked: “Did you see that Audio QA position?”. Do which I responded : “What?” - Then I saw it. An Audio QA Engineer internship at Apple. In Cupertino.

Next few months were spent convincing my supervisors and managers that I was the ideal candidate for the position and that they should nominate me for the position. Remember, each retail store was to submit their candidate and the hiring manager at apple corporate would be interview candidates across the nation.

So after many interviews, I got the QA internship. I was moving to Cupertino for 3 months to work as Audio QA engineer at Apple. Crazy!! While I was there I got the opportunity to work on Leopard as well as few other projects.

Back to Reality
Unfortunately for myself and for others in the internship program, reality struck at the end of the 3 month internship. Many of the retail employees participating in the internship thought this was their ticket. Some even bought houses, sold their cars, and generally made decisions as if they had already received full-time job offers. I was then faced with the reality of having to return to my Creative job which by then had become the “Trainer” position. This sucked. I had been living the dream and coming off the high of working at Apple corporate was rough. Depression was a real thing.

The Dream Continues
After a few months of working back in Apple retail. I had the opportunity to interview for a QA position on the iWork team and flew out to Cupertino again. I remember leaving that interview and thinking to myself – “Meh, I don’t really care if I get that job, the people interviewing SUCKED”.  Then as if the odds of ever getting a job at Apple corporate again were any tougher: I met my manager from my audio QA position in the parking lot in front of Infinite Loop 1 as I was about to leave campus. Told him about why I was there to which he immediately told me he could offer me a position on his team. Turns out some budgeting stuff needed to happen before any jobs to interns would be offered. A few weeks later, my girlfriend at the time (now wife) and I moved out to California so I could work at Apple. She took a job at a recruiting firm and worked with many of the top startups in Silicon Valley.

Mothership
I can’t really go into too much detail with my work at Apple but let’s just say I played with tested  a lot of Apple prototypes all the time. It was pretty  awesome and most of the people I worked with were great. I learned  a lot about the effort, attention to detail, and careful planning Apple puts into any thing they do. If something doesn’t work, they try something else until it is done to perfection.

Quitting
The time came however, after 2.5 years, to move on again. A lot of the people around me at Apple were older than me and were already settling down. California sucks as a state and San Jose was super boring. I think that was it really, I was bored with my surroundings and was bored with my job. I wanted to do more with my life and decided that I need to do something greater now. Around this time last year, I walked in to my manager’s office and told him of my decision to leave.

Life after Apple and starting my own companies
Since then I moved back to NYC with the ambition to build something great. I have started my own development agency working on freelance iOS projects. I have also worked with some friends to build a new magazine publishing platform for the iPad. Although, it has only been a year since I left Apple, my time there feels like a distant past life. Running two bootstrapped startups has been like riding the big scary roller coasters at the theme park. It has also really given me a new outlook on pretty much everything I do. I often miss my job(s) at Apple (especially the steady paychecks) but the creative and personal freedoms I’ve gained from leaving Apple have been well worth it.

Two words of advice
If you ever have the opportunity to work at Apple, you should under no circumstance should you decline the offer. Also, Seriously – Do what you love, everything else will work itself out.

1. Go to http://192.168.1.1
2. Username should be ‘admin’ and password should be ‘password1″ (don’t worry about the extra characters the text box automatically adds. It’s an encryption feature.)

3. Click on ‘Wireless Settings’ on the top navigation menu

4. Click ‘Basic Security Settings’ from the left navigation menu

5. Switch the Channel to 6 (or one of the standard Channels 1 or 11)

6. Click Apply at the bottom of the page

7. Click ‘Advanced Security Settings’ from the left navigation menu

8. Select WPA2 security (the default is WEP , which is weaker)

9. Set up your pre-shared key on the screen presented (this is your network password)

10. Click apply

No more dropped connections after following these steps!

The focus on Apple’s faulty iPhone 4 antenna seems to have robbed the spotlight from the iPhone 4 release and knowing Apple quite well, this is killing them.

With the latest blow being Consumer Report’s announcement that they can not recommend the iPhone 4 , Apple will really need to step up to the plate and show their customers some respect. The countless youtube videos reproducing the issues are not the kind of word of mouth Apple wants to spread.

Hoping to possibly avoid an iPhone 4 recall, Apple has decided to mask and cover-up the story with a simple software fix.While reprogramming the algorithm that is used to display bars on the iPhone 4 status bar will definitely fix the cosmetic issue , that’s like buying a ferrari and realizing it only goes 40 mph and then having a Ferrari mechanic tell you they’ll recalibrate the speedometer so it automatically adds 100mph to your speed. Bogus!

Apple can totally delete complaints from their forums all they want, but people will continue to voice their opinions. Sticks and stones rarely have an impact on Apple, but apparently these customer words do.

Don’t get me wrong, the iPhone 4 is an amazing device. It’s fast, it’s sleek, and the screen is gorgeous. Apps that have been update to take advantage of the Retinal Display look super crisp. Unfortunately, all of these technical achievements will remain in the shadows if Apple doesn’t fix the issue quickly and appropriately.

Here are my thoughts on the issue in no particular order:

If you are a AAPL stock holder, you should really be upset that Gizmodo didn’t do ‘the right thing’ and return the phone. Instead they chose to attempt to thwart an Apple release by releasing leaked information. It’s fun to read about rumors and see pictures of possible leaks, but when you knowingly have evidence that can really do damage, you’re crossing the line a bit. Can’t we just have fun and leave it at that?

Gizmodo will never be invited to a press event ever again.

I hope Jason Chen and the entire Gizmodo staff realizes that their actions have consequences outside of the bubble of their blog and Apple.

Gizmodo sure got lots of hits on their site but at what cost? I hope they save all that revenue to pay off the legal fees.

We’ll see how this all shakes out.

Written on my iPad

This weekend I had the opportunity to participate in iPadDevCampNYC. The event took place both in San Jose and NYC simultaneously and brought together  iPhone developers, designers, testers, and development enthusiast. I’m pretty sure I spotted a few incognito parents with their teens as well. Here’s a quick recap of the events:

Day 1
The first day was pretty much a mixer. We met at Gigapixel Creative and there was music, booze, and few finger foods. I mingled a bit with a few people, however, it was a little too loud to carry any sort of real conversation, so I left early. Before I left, I was approached by a Barnes and Noble recruiter who traded my email address for a $20 Barnes and Noble Gift Card. Nice!

Day 2
The second day included a pretty insightful industry panel which include:

• Moderator:Michael Prenez-Isbell, Director of Mobile Development at Blueswitch
• Peter Costanzo, Dir. of Online Marketing for Perseus Books Group
• Nina DeFrance, VP of Consumer Marketing for Forbes Digital
• Tarik Sedkey, Chief Digital Officer, Young & Rubicam
• Douglas Gottlieb, VP of Digital, Barnes & Noble

The general take-away from this panel is that print and advertising wants in on the iPad. These companies need iPad/iPhone developers BAD. They have no idea what they are doing since this is uncharted territory. All panel members are highly optimistic about the iPad platform and the impact it will have on their products. They are ready to embrace the platform and just need some help from developers like us.

The hackathon also started on day 2. Essentially we were tasked with coming up with some sort of iPad project. I was sitting next to @luciuskwok who I’ve known for quite some time (through twitter) and I gave him an idea for an extension to an existing project (HelTweetica) he was already working on. @thomasalvarez also joined our team and we quickly got to work.

Day 3
On the third day we listened to two presentations. One by Flurry and one by Barnes and Noble.
The Flurry talk was particularly interesting because Greg had some really insightful information into how users were behaving with the iPad. I wish I had the slides for the presentation (maybe they’ll post them) but hopefully you get the gist from the audio.

Listen to Greg Yardley, VP of Product, Flurry presentation below.

Listen to the Barnes and Noble iPad app dev team speak about the B&N app.

Day three concluded with project presentations by all teams and we even won “Best Social App”. Once the app is live somewhere, I’ll be sure to share a link. There were some really great projects by other teams including a sound activated cookbook for turning pages, a really slick boom box, a quija board, a developer text-editor for the iPad, as well as a few others.

Overall, the price of admission ($50) was a steal. They provided free food on both days (bagels, coffee, and OJ in the morning and Two-Boots pizza at lunch). Plus all the friends and contacts you make is well worth surrendering your weekend. Most importantly I’d like to thank the folks who put this event together. It was definitely a blast!

More to come …

What indie iPhone Developers need to learn now:
As soon as I began looking at the iPad SDK, I realized … I’m gonna need a UI/UX Designer now.With the introduction of the iPad, existing indie iPhone developers will be forced to either:

A) learn photoshop and illustrator
B) join forces with a good graphic designer.

Creating a compelling and engaging user experience on the iPad is significantly more difficult than on the iPhone. The iPad screen real estate is greater and you (the developer) need to fill that space up with visually striking goodness.

iPad Launch Day
Today the iPad launched and many developers will head to Apple Stores (or hopefully receive their shipments on time) and instantly load up their iPad app they’ve been previously working on using the simulator. The screen real estate is larger which makes for your potentially mediocre app to look even more medicore. Especially next to some of the apps that have already been showcased. Not to mention a few of the ridiclously awesome apps include: Netflix and Marvel.

What about you Jeff ?
At first sight, I could not place the iPad in my day to day. I already have a kindle and really enjoy reading books on it because of the e-ink. However, Indian Code clients have already gained interest and will undoubtedly be requesting services for this platform. So I will eventually need to own one pretty soon and will need to work closely with graphic designers to produce awesome releases. You can get away with using lots of the built in visual elements, but at some point , if you’ll really want to push the envelope and you’re gonna have to use visual elements outside of the SDK.

All in all, it is a great time to be an iPhone, iPad , and Mac developer. There is a lot of work out there if you seek it. Find yourself a good graphic designer who can be your partner and focus on making beautiful things! So go now and get started!

You can say I’m late to the game but for my recent consulting gig I’ve had to use Skype quite a bit.  I’ve had an account for several years now but I can’t say I’ve ever had an actual audio conference till recently. Instead of using my precious AT&T minutes to call into 2 hour conferences (ick!), I dial in using Skype- which is free! Actually, only calls to toll free numbers can be made using skype so as long as your virtual conference number is toll-free, you’re golden. Calls to land lines and cell phones can be made but you have to buy calling credits first.

Skype totally owns iChat when it comes to AV sessions. The whole experience is very smooth and not to mention, the quality is excellent. If you have a Skype to Skype chat using a Mac’s internal microphone your mind will be blown- I guarantee it. If you’ve ever done an iChat AV session you will notice how much better Skype is. I’m referring to both audio AND video. Also, connection problems hardly seem to happen with Skype. Initiating audio-only and video conference sessions is super smooth and jumping in and out of sessions is very responsive.

Anyways, you should check out Skype now.

The time has come to bid Apple farewell. It has been an amazing 4 years and so many things have happened while working at Apple. I met my future wife while working at Apple. I got the opportunity to work on the Mothership and live in California for two years. I was able to work alongside some of the greatest engineers, developers, and testers in the world. I worked on some super top secret high profile Apple products! Most importantly, however, I met some really great friends.

Apple will always have a special place in my heart.