Meh on Actual iPhone, Bullish on App Store

Restrictions lifted, guidelines published

(NEWSER) - Apple has done a U-turn and scrapped restrictions introduced earlier this year on what tools developers can use to build applications for the iPhone and iPad. Developers will now be allowed to use tools based on Adobe's Flash, and restrictions on other programming languages have been lifted, the Wall Street Journal reports. Shares in Adobe jumped after the news, though iPhone and iPad users still won't be able to access Flash-based content on the Internet. More»

Secure deals with a wave of the smartphone, or go elsewhere

(NEWSER) - Smartphone downloads of apps designed to help shoppers find the product they want at the cheapest price are way up this holiday season, making it what the Wall Street Journal calls the “first app-powered Christmas.” Particularly useful are programs that utilize the camera of, say, your iPhone to scan barcodes and compare retailers' prices. Armed with this technology, shoppers can haggle for discounts—or go where the deal is. More»

(NEWSER) - Apple and AT&T rejected the Google Voice app for the iPhone, driving TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington to drop the mobile device entirely. Why are Apple and its carrier blocking an innovative program that has amazing call-forwarding features and transcribes voicemail into text? “Because they absolutely don’t want people doing exactly what I’m doing,” Arrington writes. “Moving their phone number to Google and using the carrier as a dumb pipe.” More»

(NEWSER) - Apple has rejected Google’s application to distribute its Voice application through the App Store, and that shows that Apple is dead-set against innovation, Adam Pash writes on Lifehacker. The official line is that Google Voice “duplicates features already on the iPhone—namely the Phone and Messages app,” but that’s malarkey. “The real problem,” Pash writes, “is that Google Voice, and all it offers, is actually much better than what AT&T offers.” More»

(NEWSER) - Until recently, the iPhone ruled the smartphone roost, but a new crop of competitors could threaten Apple’s bottom line, Jon Fortt writes for Fortune. AT&T, the sole iPhone carrier, pays Apple $300 for every new customer. Until now, paying for the privilege made sense, because AT&T monopolized the “high-value data junkies.” But “these new iPhone rivals,” Fortt writes, “are bound to alter the math of the phone wars.” More»