Kid-friendly and kid-loved

The iPad and the iPhone have a knack with kids, as any parent and iOS user will tell you. The brightly lit, touch-screen technology that appeals at an emotional level to adults is no less effective on children, who are more liable to indiscriminately touch things to see how they react to begin with. Kids are also voicing their demand for iOS devices as soon as they’re able to; recent surveys found that iPhones, iPod touches and iPads topped the wish lists of children ranging from the very young to the nearly adult. In fact, 52 percent of children between the ages of zero and eight already have access to a mobile device of some kind, many of which are probably running iOS.

Cross-branding opportunities

Accessories and apps seem to be either fueling or cashing in on this trend, too, at a growing pace. Consider the partnership announced Tuesday between Disney and iHome, maker of audio accessories for iOS devices. Characters from Disney’s stable of brands will be adorning iHome iPhone docks, headphones, and speaker systems starting this holiday season, at major outlets like Toys ‘R’ Us and Bed Bath & Beyond. Think about it: A Kermit the frog docking alarm clock assumes a lot of kids either are already or will be sleeping next to iPhones next year.

Disney and iHome aren’t the only ones cashing in on the youthful appeal of Apple’s mobile gadgets. Perennial Apple accessory maker Griffin is partnering up with Crayola to create the iMarker, essentially a branded stylus kids can use in conjunction with a coloring book app. Both Disney and Crayola are playing it smart, taking parent-trusted brands and combining them with the expertise of industry-leading third-party gadget manufacturers who already know the ins and outs of making devices for Apple products.

A new vector for content-makers

It isn’t just accessories getting the kid-friendly treatment. Content producers have kids in mind with their iPhone and iPad offerings, too. PBS announced Tuesday (.DOC link) that its PBS KIDS video app for the iPad is now available on the iPhone and iPod touch, too. The iPad app, which launched in May, has delivered on average two million video streams per day to its more than 450,000 users, growing steadily since its introduction. Reaching out to iPhone and iPod touch users broadens the potential audience, so that kids can check out full episodes of programs like Sesame Street and Super Why on smaller-screened devices if they don’t happen to have a tablet handy.

This is just the beginning of a coming flood. Whereas once the kid appeal of iPhones and iPads was an unexpected bonus to a parent’s purchase, now parents are seeking out Apple devices with full knowledge that they also make good distractions and educational tools for their young ones. And since people are often even more willing to spend money on their children than on themselves, the market for kid-focused apps and accessories has likely only begun to heat up.

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Amazon’s tablet was the device of choice for 22 percent of the 3,043 customers polled by ChangeWave for its latest survey. The next closest device was Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, with just 4 percent of those surveyed expressing a desire to pick up that product. The Kindle Fire’s emergence as a strong second to Apple’s iPad is mostly bad news for other Android-based competitors, and less of an issue for Apple, which currently enjoys around 67-percent market share, but that doesn’t mean it should quietly allow the Fire to dig itself in as the budget-conscious shopper’s tablet of choice.

How Apple can put out the Fire

The easy answer, of course, is to make a cheap iPad, but that’s not something Apple will do easily or without a very specific, measured approach. Apple’s brand cachet and success depend on consumer perception of its products as high quality; just pulling things out until a smaller iPad resembles a Fire in terms of specs but runs iOS isn’t likely an option. That said, Apple also isn’t afraid to take a good idea from the competition and make it better in order to move hardware. That’s what I think it’ll do in this case.

Take away the huge price gap

Amazon’s Fire is really appealing because it provides cheap access to content acquired and stored in Amazon’s extensive ecosystem of music and movies, and its growing AppStore. The hardware is really secondary to those considerations, and likely accounts for why Amazon is willing to sell it so cheaply.

If Apple wants to regain its absolute dominance of the tablet market, it needs to take price off the table, but also to avoid setting itself up for the kind of criticism Amazon and other low-cost tablet makers face because of corner-cutting. It’s a tricky balance to strike, but Apple has a lot of advantages that could make it possible, chief among them being Tim Cook and his masterful control of the component supply chain. And Apple doesn’t need to close the gap entirely. It needs to bring an iPad close enough that the Kindle Fire’s faults seem like unwarranted sacrifices for what you save.

Apple can go cheap with few sacrifices

Amazon is taking a big risk on a relatively unproven market (7-inch tablets), and in doing so, it probably can’t achieve the parts-ordering volumes Apple could manage. That should allow Apple to eke out more profit per device even at a much-reduced price point. Apple is also making great strides in achieving big price breaks by leveraging older hardware; the free (on contract) 3GS is a great example. A smaller iPad would automatically save on display costs, and Apple can also save money using the older A4 processor (or an A5 if it debuts alongside a next-gen A6 for the existing iPad).

It will likely be difficult for Apple to get Kindle-Fire-cheap with a product it can stand behind, but the entry-level iPod touch recently hit the same $199 mark, and a similarly specced, slightly larger device at $249 (same price as the Nook Tablet) or $299 isn’t too much of a stretch to imagine. It would likely mean the death of the iPod touch in terms of cannibalized sales, but Apple is famously willing to release forward-looking products even if they might hurt past top producers.

Ecosystem plus

Apple’s content ecosystem can go toe-to-toe with Amazon’s, especially in international markets where lots of Amazon’s content isn’t available. ICloud and access to past iTunes purchases help make the differences between the two minimal, and despite Amazon’s big advantages with books, Apple still wins in terms of digital movie and music sales. If a smaller, cheaper iPad can provide access to that content, with fewer hardware/software downsides, it’ll win over customers, even with a price disadvantage.

Apple also still has a huge app advantage. That, plus value-add features like AirPlay, iMessage and other things iOS provides that the competition currently doesn’t, will be enough to win back Apple customers just looking for a quality 7-incher to fill out their gadget lineup. In terms of the early adopter crowd, that alone could pay big dividends.

Groundwork

Apple has the elements of a low-end market play in place: the pedigree of the iPod touch, its recent willingness to target mid-market by leveraging older tech, the lessons and supply chain control it has amassed in making the iPad a huge success, and the market-leading content ecosystem that continues to drive and be driven by its hardware device purchases.

Amazon’s ability to win out over other Android devices and take a big chunk of tablet interest by undercutting Apple on price might not even bother Cupertino. If it can’t work out how to make a competing device with a reasonable profit margin, it won’t bother. But if it can, that’s when we’ll see the real sparks fly in the tablet mark

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1. Not just apps, but an app store. The current Apple TV has apps. They aren’t advertised as such, but the menu options that lead to MLB, NBA and NHL subscriptions, as well as the Vimeo and YouTube channels are basically apps. While doling out new apps in batches via software updates is appreciated, a real app store is the special sauce that will cause an Apple television to take off.

2. High quality live content. Live video could go a long way toward convincing users to switch ponies and abandon traditional cable or satellite providers for streaming video. Apple has done a good job of bringing sports to the current Apple TV, but it’ll have to deliver pay-per-view events, nationally broadcast live programming, and still more sports to sway users who demand to be kept in the loop and don’t like spoilers.

3. Break the bundle. The aspect of current cable and satellite TV packages that makes them most unpalatable is the bundle; If you’ve ever tried to order a speciality channel on its own, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Breaking up the bundle would probably be the most effective way to tempt users to buy its product, but it’s the part that Apple will probably also have the hardest time striking deals to achieve.

4. Games. A lot of the questions I’m seeing about an Apple television have to do with games. The reason? IOS did (and still does) an amazing job of generating high-quality gaming experiences at a fraction of the price of consoles. Suddenly, people who always thought picking up a controller was a waste of time and money are flinging things at other things like there’s no tomorrow. If Apple can translate its iOS gaming success to an integrated television, iOS gamers will flock to it.

5. Stand-out hardware. One question during today’s Q&A stuck out in particular: Why would Apple make a television set when it could just make a better box? The reason is another potential selling point; specifically, Apple could only justify making its own TV if it makes that TV really amazing. Apple definitely has the pedigree, since it produces industry-leading displays on its mobile devices, computers and computer monitors. Make a TV that dazzles and really looks great in a living room, and you’ve got a big buying incentive right there.

Siri integration and a unified content browsing and playback experience through iCloud and the iTunes media ecosystem are things that could make an Apple television interesting, but they won’t set an industry aflame. That’s what the five points outlined above could do, by reaching out to consumers and providing them with outstanding experiences in areas where a lot of current service offerings fall flat.

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So why the controversy? Apple prohibits publishers from offering more attractive (read: cheaper) subscription deals to customers outside the walls of the iOS App Store. Whatever publishers offer outside the App Store must be matched (or bettered) inside the App Store. Oh and just one more thing; Apple will not hand over to publishers the personal details of customers making in-app purchases/subscriptions without the permission of those customers. This last point is great news for consumer privacy, but another nail in the coffin for publishers accustomed to using said data in valuable advertising deals.

If you’ve ever subscribed to a magazine or newspaper you know how it works: A subscription card often asks for far more than just your name, address and credit card number. Those mini questionnaires publishers require of their subscribers supply them with a huge variety of valuable information they can use when selling space to advertisers. In fact, advertisers now demand it; after all, they want to be sure they’re placing their ads strategically — and therefore, spending their money wisely.

It matters not one jot if a publication acquires a few thousand subscribers through the App Store; without the typically-concomitant subscriber data, advertisers will be less inclined to buy space in any iOS publication.

How Did We Get Here?

Much publishing today is less concerned with quality than it is with quantity. The more copies there are of a magazine in circulation — or clicks on a web page — the more eyeballs see accompanying ads. In a world where, more than ever before, readers have more choice of content, but less time to engage with it, for many publishers, the key to generating appreciable revenue lies not in value, but in volume.

And I’m not talking small-time publishers here; in early February, Business Insider revealed AOL CEO Tim Armstrong’s guide to his network’s editors, titled “The AOL Way”, in which the editorial priorities of the company are laid-bare; on a page directing editors in how to decide what topics should be covered, “Editorial Integrity” (in other words, editorial quality) is ranked last, after “Traffic Potential,” “Revenue/Profit” and “Turnaround Time.”

Changing the Game

Online publishing’s focus on advertising, sponsorship and syndication is problematic, for viewers and for Apple as a company that wants to provide worthwhile content for users of its platforms. Great quality content, in this model, is of little use to publishers, despite the fact that it happens to be precisely the thing readers actually want.

Apple, I think, has noticed this problem, and is now taking positive steps to solve it. Apple wants to ensure that publishing on the iPad is never anything less than top quality, where the paramount priorities of publishers lie always in ensuring the quality of their content.

Hard Work for Big Returns

You see, with the rules as they stand today, the only way publishers can be successful in the App Store is by concentrating on producing the very best content. And that won’t happen because they place “Editorial Integrity” in first place on a PowerPoint slide. Publishers will have to commit themselves to produce nothing less than the very best content in the industry. It will take a lot of investment, a lot of insanely hard work and, for some publishers, a serious restructuring of their editorial staff and policies. None of that is easy or cheap, and, for publishers used to and dependent upon advertising revenue, it must seem a ludicrous proposition.

Apple has established a sales and distribution platform that emphasizes content sales and subscriptions over advertising, but if the company really wants to help publishers embrace the “content is king” philosophy, I think they need to do much more to assist in content creation and promotion. However, it begins with giving publishers with something that is still sorely-missing; top-flight iOS publishing tools made available — for free — to all publishers and authors everywhere. iOS is a publishing platform bursting with potential. Apple needs to give content creators an easy — and powerful — set of tools for leveraging it. Its iAd Producer application for the Mac might be a good place to start.

In the end, I believe most publishers genuinely respect their readers and care about the quality of their content; and I suspect they would happily unshackle themselves from their reliance on advertising revenue if only subscriptions and sales revenues could take its place. Apple has provided a tantalizing new path for publishers to tread, provided they don’t just throw their hands up and walk away citing Apple’s greed as a way to take the easy way out.

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Yojimbo

In case you’re new to Yojimbo, you can check out our coverage here at TheAppleBlog. The app lets you store and tag all the flotsam and jetsam of your digital life for later use. You can drag and drop files and clippings using a handy Drop Dock applet, paste your current selection into the app with keyboard shortcuts, or type content into a pop-up Quick Entry panel. You can also send PDFs to the application directly from any print dialog.

Bare Bones also introduced the ability to scan documents or images directly using TWAIN-compliant scanners in the latest release of Yojimbo.

The new iPad app has the quality and polish one would expect from any Bare Bones release. While the absence of the ability to add new items will disappoint some, many Yojimbo devotees will be thrilled to be able to carry their database with them. I had a chance to talk with Rich Siegel of Bare Bones just before the release, and he explained that adding items on the iPad is something they would like to do at some point in the future.

The lack of iPhone support is another gap for the time being, but it makes sense from a purely practical perspective; the iPad is great for viewing content now and the iPhone will be great for adding items when that feature gets added.

Yojimbo 3.0 is a free upgrade for 2.0 users, and a $20 upgrade for those with earlier versions. An individual license will run you $39. Family and educational pricing is also available. Yojimbo for iPad is $9.99 in the App Store.

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A new patent application making the rounds suggests that Apple’s plans for iOS go beyond its Apple TV revamp, too, and extend to the desktop. The patent in question describes a modular iMac, with the ability to pivot down to a more touch-friendly angle and the power to switch between OS X and iOS, depending on your needs at any given computing session.

Obviously, Apple considers its forays into touch-enabled mobile computing a success and wants to translate that success to its traditional desk and laptop computing divisions. Anyone who’s used an iDevice and/or gotten used to multi-touch gestures using either a Mac notebook trackpad or the recently released Magic Trackpad peripheral will likely attest to the convenience and ease of use of Apple’s take on touch computing. But can the iOS model be successful on more traditional computers, and who will reap the benefits of such a change?

In some ways, of course, a unified iOS platform across all devices will be a boon to consumers. Presumably, apps purchased for one platform will be installable and usable on each of the others (with limitations and exceptions, as evidenced by the iPad and iPhone differences). So your money will go farther, and a more uniform experience means that even the most casual computer users will get the most out of their devices.

But the consumer isn’t the party that stands to gain the most from a move towards iOS. Apps are the key to Apple’s mobile operating system, and apps, as we’ve seen, present a sort of “walled garden” version of the Internet for safer, more controlled consumption of content. Apple’s policies regarding the policing of that walled garden are of debatable merit, but what isn’t in question is the advantage to content producers.

By segmenting, repackaging and reselling focused content bundles in the form of apps, Apple is making it possible for web content creators to charge users directly for their wares, instead of having to rely on the unpredictable revenue stream provided by advertising, which has by far been the dominant model to date. The widespread availability of free information on the web has been cited as responsible for the gradual decline of traditional media outlets, like print news.

iOS on more devices means more potential revenue sources for media providers and content creators, and could provide the boost that journalism is looking for. Ironically, it should help Google, too, since the relevance of its search capabilities depends upon the continued production of good and useful information sources, which apps could help fund in a big way going forward.

Of course, the upshot is that Apple gets to operate as the arbiter of taste and morality for all of the content that passes through its gates. Is it a small price to pay for the continued sustainability of media production, or a pill you’re ultimately unwilling to swallow?

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News of the policy change comes via a letter sent to the developer of “Wobble iBoobs,” which informed them that under the new guidelines the app was determined to be inappropriate and would be removed. In the letter, Apple explained that the App Store policies are subject to change, and that it is “constantly refining” its definition of what’s deemed appropriate, based at least in part on user feedback.

TechCrunch received a copy of the email notifying Wobble iBoobs developers about the policy change and resulting removal of their app. Apple does note in the following excerpt that the ban is reversible:

We have decided to remove any overtly sexual content from the App Store, which includes your application. Thank you for your understanding in this matter. If you believe you can make the necessary changes so that Wobble iBoobs (Premium Uncensored) complies with our recent changes, we encourage you to do so and resubmit for review.

While a few other similarly-themed apps have been removed from the App Store, too, apparently in keeping with the new policy changes, some others remain, raising the question of what exactly Apple categorizes as “overtly sexual.” The top 25 and 50 lists appear to have been scrubbed pretty much clean, but some apps in the Entertainment category still seem pretty sexual to me. Hard to mistake the intent of the official “Playboy” app as anything but, for instance.

Though my gut reaction is to decry Apple for censoring something as relatively innocuous as sexually suggestive material (caveat: I’m a Canadian; we’re pretty okay with nudity and sex in general), I actually can’t help but be really pleased with the move as a regular App Store customer. As far as I’m concerned, the kind of novelty sexual app that Wobble iBoobs represents wasn’t doing much more than taking up valuable real estate in the App Store’s top downloads list, blocking spots that might otherwise be occupied by something useful I’d actually consider downloading.

Apparently, the apps were somewhat popular, since they managed to appear on those top lists with fair frequency, and Wobble iBoobs was downloaded more than 970,000 times during its App Store career. But if you feel the need to get your jollies on the iPhone (and I really can’t imagine why you would, for screen size issues alone), then take to the web and leave my App Store out of it. Mobile Safari’s right there, and I guarantee you’ll be much better served going that route anyway. Does anyone else see this as a change for the better, or am I alone here?

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Google is the one with the most to worry about, though, according to a new report (subscription required) posted at GigaOM Pro. Google does have a significant interest in the netbook market, like Microsoft, thanks to its upcoming Google Chrome OS, but that isn’t the reason they need to be scared. The real reason is the demise of the web.

Paul Sweeting, in the GigaOM Pro piece, contends that the reason the iPad poses such a threat to Google is that it rewrites the rules of content delivery, eliminating the avenues through which Google makes money via search and advertising. As I’ve written about elsewhere, Apple’s aim is clearly to control not only the content that appears on its devices, but also the conduits by which that content arrives.

Apple promotes a tunnel vision version of the Internet, with content funneled, separated and kept specific to the app you happen to be using. It’s a cellular model of consuming Internet-based content, and it is attractive to the consumer in the same way a walled Japanese garden is attractive to the appreciator of nature. The garden is safe, predictable, contained and aesthetically pleasing. Raw nature can be all of these things, too, but it isn’t necessarily so all of the time.

My only question, and the one which Sweeting poses without asking directly is, is that something I want to happen as a consumer of media? Do we want to “settle” the web, so to speak, by allowing Apple to pacify it, distill it, and then sell it back to us through tightly controlled channels? It may seem alarmist, but it isn’t. It’s what Apple has to do to grow its consumer base as a mobile device maker.

In an ideal world, from Apple’s perspective, Cupertino would have exclusive control over all major media distribution. The company desires that, or as close as is possible in the real world, because by controlling the distribution of content they can also control which devices consumers have to use to consume it. That, in turn, means hardware sales.

It sounds bleak, but it might not be all bad. Apple seems committed to providing quality content in innovative ways, so maybe handing them more control is the right move. What do you think? Is convenience, ease of use and quality of finish worth the trade-off required in terms of autonomy?

Read the full report over at GigaOM Pro →

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The format the new hardware takes will actually be only the superficial impact of tomorrow’s announcement, though. What will really amaze, and what will matter far more for the future of Apple and the personal electronics industry, will be the content deals that are announced alongside the launch of the new device. If the deals go anywhere near as predicted, Steve Jobs could be crowned the new king of all media.

Alright, so maybe I’m overstating things a bit, but not by much. The story of how Apple’s iTunes affected the music industry, and gave the company an amazing degree of control in setting policy and pricing splits for digital music distribution is well known. It is widely accepted that record companies begrudgingly acquiesce to Apple’s demands, although occasionally they demand a concession, like the iTunes price policy change that accompanied the move to DRM-free music files.

Even now, Apple is reportedly trying to use the same strong-arm tactics on providers of television video content who hawk their wares in the iTunes store. MacRumors reports that the Mac-maker is urging TV networks to lower the per-episode price of content from $1.99 to $1, as part of its selling strategy for the tablet.

If the tablet proves to be even half the multimedia wunderkind it is being hailed as, other media providers can expect the same kind of pressure brought to bear. The book, magazine and newspaper industry in particular stands the least chance of resisting Apple’s power grab, since at this point it’s already looking for a life raft to save it from a daunting future steeped in decline. Some rumors are now circulating that the tablet will ship with a built-in Barnes & Noble bookstore, but whatever the outcome, you can bet Apple will have significant support from magazine and newspaper providers looking for a lucrative alternative to print.

Where Apple has the advantage, even if it is seen as an unsavory source of salvation by those wary of what its done for the music industry, is that it isn’t the Internet. People almost invariably like things that are free, and the Internet makes free easy. The only thing people like more than free is easy, and Apple’s distribution method makes things very easy, especially if the iTunes store is married to an extremely light and thin portable device with a decent size screen and a range of connectivity options.

Selling through Apple also takes a lot of the backshop issues out of the hands of providers. They no longer have to worry about setting up advertising, controlling access, preventing piracy and security exploits, etc. And the revenue picture becomes much more clear, with a per unit price that stockholders and stakeholders alike can easily understand. Taking the long view, siding with Apple makes sense, even if the upfront price is quite steep in terms of power dynamics.

So will Steve Jobs inherit a kingdom tomorrow? Not quite yet, I think. More like he’ll take control of quite a few lucrative fiefdoms, but it’ll take a little longer to unite the entire media nation and declare himself monarch. Make no mistake, though, this is what the tablet will accomplish in the long run. It’s the inherited legacy of the iPod and iPhone, in fact, and this is simply the next building block. Fancy gadgets are lovely, but what draws customers to those shiny screens is the content that they’re displaying; control the content, and you control consumer spending.

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The news comes via Australian paper The Sydney Morning Herald, which reports that Apple is providing technical details about the tablet multimedia device (which remains unconfirmed, despite all the buzz surrounding it) to media providers in the hopes of sussing out how strong interest is.

No one representing the Australian companies approached would actually go on record about the recent sales pitch by Apple, but presumably the Herald’s source is someone from one of them speaking off the record. The source clearly wasn’t privy to the specifications themselves, or I’m the sure the Herald would’ve printed those, too. Instead, the paper just mentions existing rumors about the device’s size, touchscreen and purpose.

Also mentioned is the Kindle, which had previously attempted to make the same kind of overtures in Australia that Apple is supposedly now making. The problem with the Kindle was that Amazon wanted a 70 percent cut of revenue from all media sold for its device, while Apple is said to be looking for the same 30 percent that it asks of developers selling applications via the App Store. That’s one of the benefits of being a hardware company first and foremost, I suppose.

The content will apparently be delivered via individually branded apps that will allow for in-app purchases and direct digital distribution — which reinforces rumors that the tablet will be based on iPhone OS, not on Mac’s desktop and notebook OS X. Personally, I’m finding it harder and harder to pinpoint exactly where this device will fit in with current customer needs. It seems sort of like a Nokia Internet Tablet or Archos’ recent Android-based media player.

Earlier this week, it was reported that New York Times editor Bill Keller mentioned the “impending Apple slate” in an off-the-record meeting with newsroom staff, and many NYT executives and book publishers have made comments in the past year about Apple approaching to take the temperature for a tablet-type device.

Long story short, the storm clouds are gathering, and now there’s little else we can do but watch and wait for the rain to start, unless Apple has found little reason to make it rain at all. All of these rumors talk about Apple gauging the interest of media companies in such a device, yet none talk about how the companies in question responded to said inquiries. If an acceptable level of interest wasn’t present, could Apple shelve this tablet before it ever sees the light of day?

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Syncing in general has been improved in the sense that users can now drill down and sync more specific content. Music can now be synced by a combination of playlists, specific artists or genres. Podcasts can be synced by specific episodes and TV shows can be synced by specific episodes or seasons.

New altogether is the ability to sync iTunes U content which also has its own category, instead of being mixed in randomly between podcasts and music. Photo syncing has also been greatly enhanced, allowing support for specific albums, events or faces. Searching has also been enabled in many of these areas to allow you to quickly narrow down your choices. While these are all great features, they have really intensified the syncing interface. Hopefully it’s not too much for some users.

Still No Love for Audiobooks?

As mentioned in my wish list, I was really hoping for an improved way to sync audiobooks. Apple answered my hopes in an odd way. In the Music section, you can now search through your artists and, upon searching for a particular author, I was able to sync up those specific audiobooks. This isn’t a perfect solution though as a user may have multiple audiobooks from the same author. Why not just add another tab across the top? Apple added one for iTunes U. (I’m completely kidding. Remember, the interface is getting too complicated. iTunes 8 had eight tabs for syncing options while iTunes 9 brings the number to 10.) I personally feel the number of tabs across the top is too many, but I do feel audiobooks are important enough to warrant a more selective approach for syncing instead of just creating playlists for them.

Home Screens, Sweet Home Screens

Of course, the part most of you will really care about is the ability to organize your iPhone and iPod touch home screens via iTunes. This is simply amazing and is surprisingly quite functional. You simply navigate amongst the home screens, deleting or adding as needed and dragging applications between them. If you want to drag an item from the first screen to the fifth, just click and drag the app and hover over the fifth screen. It’ll pop up in the main view and you can place your app.

You can also select multiple apps by holding down the Command (Mac) or Control (Windows) keys. Moving complete screens around is also a snap, just by clicking and dragging them. All in all, this feature works quite well and should give users no excuse for messy randomly placed apps on their iPhones (or at least quell frustrations of people who attempt to switch between pages while editing apps only to grab and app and move it instead).

Generally speaking, these new syncing options do give users more flexible options to manage content on their devices, but I’m curious to see if any of you feel the interface itself has become a little overblown?

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The fact that they included parental controls for games in the 3.0 beta sort of hinted at this, but along with the iPhone 3.0 update today came app ratings, which appear rather inconspicuously under the app’s price and buy button on the detailed info screen. It also appears next to an app’s name in the list view of the iTunes store browser.

Interestingly, all apps appear to be getting a rating, as I checked out even one so innocuous as HP’s MediaSmart Server iStream app and found that it was “not yet rated.” It may be that all harmless utilities will receive this nondescript side-stepping of a rating going forward.

Games, though, and apps like Exterminator – Shooter Sounds Massacre! (9+), definitely have been rated using Apple’s own internal standards. The ratings are are as follows, taken directly from iTunes:

4+: Applications in this category contain no objectionable materials.

9+: Applications in this category may contain mild or infrequent occurrences of cartoon, fantasy or realistic violence, and infrequent or mild mature, suggestive, or horror-themed content which may not be suitable for children under the age of 9.

12+: Applications in this category may also contain infrequent mild language, frequent or intense cartoon, fantasy or realistic violence, and mild or infrequent mature or suggestive themes, and simulated gambling which may not be suitable for children under the age of 12.

17+: You must be at least 17 years old to purchase this application. (emphasis in the original)

Applications in this category may also contain frequent and intense offensive language; frequent and intense cartoon, fantasy or realistic violence; and frequent and intense mature, horror, and suggestive themes; plus sexual content, nudity, alcohol, tobacco, and drugs which may not be suitable for children under the age of 17.

Sounds like we’ve got some exciting 17+ apps coming our way. And, without a doubt, endless debate as to the merit of Apple’s ratings system, and the categories they’ve devised, and which apps receive which ratings and why.

A quick test of the restrictions found that they do indeed prevent me from downloading Exterminator with the settings turned down to 4+ and below only. You can view the app’s info screen in the App Store, but that’s as far as you’ll get. Notice the grayed out “Free” button at the top right of the screen. No novelty gunshot noises for junior.

In addition to a rating, each app also receives a brief description of how it earned that classification, so you know Apple reviewers weren’t just choosing at random because their eyes are bleeding from reviewing thousands of apps. Doubt the ESRB is pleased with the company’s decision to go it alone, but I expect we’ll hear first-hand what they think of the move any moment now.

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Support is growing for some kind of ratings system for the games found in Apple’s App Store for its iPhone and iPod touch platform. Adding its voice to those already calling for ratings implementation, including the ESA and the ESRB, is the National Institute on Media and the Family (NIMF), a not-for-profit organization dedicated to “watch[ing] what our kids watch,” or basically conducting research on the effects (both positive and negative) of media on children.

Unlike the ESRB, which, as at least one commenter pointed out in a previous post, may have a vested interest in pushing Apple to adopt its ratings system, NIMF simply wants some kind of ratings system in place to protect children, but not necessarily an ESRB-controlled solution.

Letting someone else handle App Store ratings would take a big bite out of the ESRB’s dominance of electronic game rating authority, which currently extends to all major platforms. The one exception are Microsoft’s Community Games (soon to be renamed “Indie Games”), which receive a rating as part of a peer review process. These ratings don’t work with the Xbox’s automated content blockers, but they do come in handy if you’re using parental discretion instead of locking down your console.

For its part, the ESRB is still pushing to provide ratings for the platform, arguing to everyone and no one in particular over the weekend that not only can it scale to deal with the influx of work that could come with such a large base of developers and games, but that it can do so at a cost that isn’t prohibitive to Apple and its development partners. That’s possible, according to the organization, since its usual fee gets discounted up to 80 percent for any game that costs less than $250,000 to develop, which represents a fair chunk of the App Store crowd.

It also claims that any suggestions that it may be after Apple for the considerable cash it would bring in are unfounded. Instead, speaking to Kotaku, it discusses its “actual” motivation:

Apple’s integration of ESRB ratings into its parental controls for iPhone games would afford parents the ability to block those video games that carry an ESRB rating utilizing the same tool they are being offered to block video content that has been rated by the MPAA or carries an official TV rating.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think the organization cash-motivated in this instance, either. But its eagerness to answer objections raised not by Apple, but by forum posters and online tech writers, is a clear indication that it’s afraid of losing relevance if Apple bypasses it and implements a solution of its own. Still, there is something to be said for cross-platform standardization, in terms of helping parents out when interpreting ratings. Whatever the outcome, this could be a watershed moment in how game content is rated and controlled.

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Below is a roundup of weather apps for the iPhone, with features ranging from video forecasts to airport delays.

AccuWeather (FREE)

Features: Video forecasts, Radar, Severe Weather Alerts, and Weather Indices

This app’s user interface was by far my favorite, but at times it still felt a bit flawed. AccuWeather should have integrated typical iPhone gestures into the application as I often found myself wanting to swipe or enlarge something, only to discover that those features had not been implemented.

Despite this app’s shortcomings, AccuWeather still impresses me by the plethora of weather and climate information it provides. I love when things give me more than I need, it doesn’t matter what the product is. If I get more than I asked for, I am a happy customer, and AccuWeather sees to this.

One of my favorite features is its risk monitoring system, which breaks down severe weather conditions (rain, ice, fog, wind, etc.) and shows the chance of each of them happening over the course of the next 8 hours. Another feature that set AccuWeather apart was its indices feature, which shows UV, Air Quality, Flu, and Arthritis indexes for the day.

Weatherbug (FREE)

Features: Severe Weather Alerts, Weather Cameras, Radar, and Maps

I’ve always been a fan Weatherbug’s desktop variants, and was pleased to find that the iPhone version was comparable. Weatherbug has all the typical bells and whistles you would expect from a weather app, with a few extras, one of which is a real-time wind tracking, which is updated every few seconds, showing wind speed and direction. I don’t fly many kites or participate in many nautical activities, but I still find this to be a cool feature. It has the simplicity of Apple’s Weather app, but with a few extras, and unlike other free weather apps, it isn’t ad-supported.

The Weather Channel (FREE)

Features: Location-based Forecasts, Radar, Severe Weather Alerts, Video Forecasts, and Traffic Cameras

Being the No. 1 free weather app in the App Store comes with a bit of scrutiny. But what can I say? They are The Weather Channel, and they know what they’re doing.  This app doesn’t give any more information than the Weather Channel web site, but it’s great to have such information at your fingertip while on the go.  The map feature of this app uses Google Maps with a live update of radar, clouds, temperature, precipitation and UV index.  I have very few complaints about this app, but my biggest is the large banner ad on top of the application. I understand that it’s a free app and they have to make money, but it’s a bit obtrusive at times.

Weathereye (FREE)

Features: Weather Alerts, Hourly forecasts, Traffic Information & Cameras, and Radar

This app is brought to you by The Weather Network, which is a Canadian company. Therefore, this app doesn’t have many of the smaller U.S. towns and cities. Regardless, I still liked it. It’s very similar to Apple’s Weather app in that it is as easy as “swiping” your finger across to switch locations. However, like many of its counterparts, Weathereye is ad-supported.

This app does a great job of covering Canada as well as larger U.S. towns and cities. If you live in rural America…sorry, you’re out of luck.

Pascal Dreer: AeroWeather (FREE)

Features: Altitude, Wind Speed/Direction, Sunrise/Sunset Times, Location Awareness, and Runway Reports

I have dabbled in aviation in the past, and have always found it interesting. In the end, my pursuit of aviation was a short-lived one. When I was up there, I could only imagine how crucial knowing the weather could be — literally life or death.

Pascal Dreer took this into consideration by giving us AeroWeather, an iPhone weather app designed with aviation in mind. AeroWeather is a full-service app that displays wind speed/direction, altitude, sunrise/sunset times, runway reports and more. This is the perfect weather app for anyone in the aviation field.

NavClock (99 cents)

Features: Displays Time/Location, Elevation, Coordinates, and Zulu time for aviation

I like this weather app simply because it displays an exorbitant amount of information in an easy-to-read way. There’s no complicated user interface, no gestures, just a page of information, some of which is fairly irrelevant most of the time. Skipping the bells and whistles of other weather apps, this one leaves little to be desired. One feature I would like to see in upcoming versions would be the ability to customize the way NavClock displays the information.

Deluxeware Weather ($2.99)

Features: Wind Direction/Speed, Local Time, “Actual Feel” Temperature, UV index, Dew Point, Visibility, and Humidity.

Deluxeware Weather is a pretty basic app for the weather genre. That means no radar, no maps, no airport delays, or wind direction/speed. What it does have is all of your basic weather information, such as 7- and 14-day forecasts, current time, the “actual feel” temperature outside and UV index.

Weather Pro ($3.99)

Features: Location Awareness, Wind Speed/Direction, Radar, and Satellite Images

When released last October, Weather Pro had more than its fair share of bugs, many of which seem to be fixed now. This app did crash on me a couple of times, while the other apps in this list did not. However I kept coming back and retrying Weather Pro. What brought me back to it time and time again were the small things, such as a great-looking interface, 3-hour climate monitor and up-to-date wind speeds for all locations. So for $3.99, I suggest giving this one a try.

Fizz Weather ($5.99)

Features: Landscape Forecast Mode, Sunset/Sunrise, Radar, Wind Speed/Direction, Barometer, Visibility, and UV Indices

There were three main features in Fizz that set it apart from its competition. One of those was the slick user interface, the other was the creator’s decision to include reported and predicted airport delays. The third feature that appealed to me was Fizz’s landscape mode. If your iPod touch or iPhone is turned sideways, you have the ability to browse through several informative charts and graphs displaying weather-related information, which was a huge plus.

Overall this is a decent, feature-heavy weather app, however there are a few shortcomings. As most of these weather apps have a built-in radar feature, I found Fizz Weather’s to be the most lacking, which is surprising for one of the more expensive apps.

My Weather Mobile ($6.99)

Features: Radar, Wind Speed/Direction, Landscape Mode, and Satellite View

The term “perfect” has earned a certain point of exclusivity in my vocabulary. When I saw the rave reviews this app got in the App Store, I was a bit skeptical. Surprisingly, it lives up to every expectation and is as close to perfect as it could be. This app comes in as the most expensive of this lot, but I will say that as far as paid apps go, it’s easily among the more feature-rich.  In fact, it may just have everything you could ask for with a weather app.  The full-screen radar and 36-hour trend graphs are extremely beneficial.  The graphs are by far one of the greatest features of this application, as they are the powerhorse behind My Weather Mobile’s information.  There are graphs for total precipitation, estimated/active precipitation, UV index and more.

Like any iPhone App genre, there are hundreds of options, costing anywhere from small fortunes to nothing. There isn’t necessarily a right or wrong choice as far as choosing a weather application, rather ask yourself which app would be more suitable for your situation.  But since it’s also hard not to choose favorites, I find myself using Navclock quite often as a desktop weather and clock solution, and I tend to use Fizz Weather and My Weather Mobile while on the go.  I love the information My Weather Mobile provides, yet Fizz’s sleek interface keeps bringing me back for more.

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As someone who works in the broadcast industry, I like to load my iPod with videos to refer to as references. Oftentimes, I find myself spending hours importing and sorting videos, which come in a myriad formats, just so I can get them onto my iPod.

Designed as a companion application for iTunes, VideoDrive lets you batch convert, import and tag videos to add to your iTunes library in as few steps as possible.

Typically, importing a video into iTunes requires a user to perform these steps:

1. Drag and drop a video file onto iTunes.
2. Right-click the video now listed in iTunes and click on ‘Get Info’.
3. Go about renaming or, more often than not, filling in empty fields such as Title, Year, Artist, Genre, Sorting Kind, etc.
4. Search on the Internet for cover artwork and then adding that to the video.

Step 1 is possible only if the video is in a format recognized by iTunes. If it isn’t, you will have to either convert the video with QuickTime Player or create a reference file to import into iTunes, a manual process that can quickly take up a lot of time.

VideoDrive strives to eliminate steps 2 to 4 by automatically doing all that for you. You can choose to import videos on an ad-hoc basis, by dragging files into VideoDrive, or as a batch operation; VideoDrive can be set to watch a folder for incoming videos, automatically import them as they are added, or queue them for processing later.

Once the videos are in iTunes, VideoDrive will, with an Internet connection, search for and add the correct metadata and cover art for your videos. It can also do this for existing videos already in your iTunes library. For the control freak, worry not; you can specify exactly what kind of metadata you want VideoDrive to add to your videos. Finally, as a convenience, it can bundle recently-added movies into its own iTunes playlist.

VideoDrive recognizes all major video formats such as mov (QuickTime movie), mpg and mpeg (MPEG-1), m2v (MPEG-2), mp4 and m4v (MPEG-4 or H.264), avi, wmv, wma and asf (Windows Media video and audio), swf and (Flash), mkv (Matroska), and DivX (a variant of MPEG-4). VideoDrive also recognizes videos with SRT or SUB subtitles (commonly found in videos ripped from DVDs), and can toggle subtitles on and off in the videos in your iTunes library.

VideoDrive is currently at version 1.66 and is available from Aroona Software for €14.99 (approximately US$20). As someone who likes to load up videos into my iPod before a flight or long commute, VideoDrive is just the kind of set-and-forget application I need, the conveniences it offers are worth every penny. What’s more, you can use your license of VideoDrive on two computers, allowing you to stuff your iTunes twice as fast.

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These days, Sony seems lost.  They missed out on the digital audio player market after being the dominant player in the portable audio market.  The PS3 has not been warmly received.  The XBOX 360 was given a one year head start and is hitting its stride while the PS3 languishes.  The Nintendo Wii is the darling of the casual gamers with its low price and is the antithesis of the PS3 in styling with its compact white form-factor as opposed to the PS3′s gigantic black curved box.  Sony is trying desperately to make the PS3 the only set top box you need in your entertainment center.  It’s a gaming machine, a next-generation DVD player, and will soon be a DVR.  The PS3 is either a jack of all trades or is having an identity crisis.

Apple hasn’t seemed lost in years.  It is the leader in the DAP market and has quickly become a major player in the cell phone market.  With Apple dropping “Computer” from its name, Apple is clearly focused on the consumer electronics market.  So why would Apple even bother adding a DVR to its lineup of gadgets?  The argument against an Apple DVR is simple.  Apple and studios make money when people purchase their shows or movies from iTunes.  A DVR would diminish purchases from the iTunes store.  Plus, the iTunes DRM locks the content to Apple products like the iPod or the Apple TV.

The Apple TV

However, there is one thing that makes me think that Apple could easily come out with their own DVR.  Apple is a hardware company.  The Apple TV, Apple’s hobby, is the most likely candidate for DVR functionality.  The device was quickly upgraded with a larger hard drive and new software features.  Why would Apple bother negotiating with television and movie studios for content when Apple could just make a device that records content?  Apple could easily add the same DRM to keep Apple recorded shows on Apple products.

There is one thing I can’t shake.  Has Apple ever added such a major function to any of its preexisting products?  The iPod may have changed in physical dimensions, added a color screen and revised its clickwheel, but it has not added major new features (other than video playback).  The iPod still lacks an FM tuner, wi-fi and bluetooth even though many competitors have these functions.  The iMac has been through several aesthetic changes, but once again, the all-in-one computer is still just an all-in-one computer.  Apple’s products do not normally evolve into new products.  Apple is a company that jumps from one product to the next (look at how they killed the iPod mini for the iPod nano).  This suggests that if Apple were to do a DVR, it would not be an upgraded Apple TV, but some other product.

Maybe not…

I do not think that Apple would come out with a DVR of its own.  Apple is on a course to become a content provider like Comcast or DirecTV.  Their iTunes model is similar to buying cable a la carte.  If Apple has a direction, a DVR would be a step in the opposite way.  It appears as if Apple sees content coming through downloads and not from recording television programs through traditional content providers.  Just as Apple has declined to enter the bargain basement PC market, Apple will most likely decline to enter the DVR market.

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