Even this year’s CodeMash 2.0.1.2, a developer’s conference in Sandusky, Ohio sold out in an amazing twenty minutes to over 1,200 attendees.  So rather than holding out to see if Apple expands its own event, you should check out these upcoming alternatives:

• MacIT in San Francisco at the Moscone Center Jan. 26-28, 2012.
• 360|MacDev in Denver at the Embassy Suites Feb. 3-4, 2012.
• CocoaConf in Chicago at the Elk Grove Village March 16-17, 2012.
• 360|iDev in Denver at the Crowne Plaza Sept. 2012.
• MacTech in Los Angeles Oct. 17-19, 2012

You may even be able to score an event closer to home by checking Eventbrite, or by contacting a local CocoaHead. However, if you have your heart set on attending WWDC, there may be something you can do about it.

Cult of Mac points out that there is a service that will send you an SMS message the moment WWDC tickets go on sale.  WWDC Alerts, the site  extending this offer, also has a Twitter account that you can follow if you prefer. So sign up for the alerts, monitor your Apple information channels, and you just might get in.

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Hedging bets in case of an Apple television

That’s something Revolution Studios co-founder Tony Warriner suggested could be a good idea for game devs in an interview on Wednesday with PocketGamer.biz. Warriner said that AirPlay is “worth doing now, because as we all know, a big TV play from Apple is just around the corner,” even though for now it’s “like the big forgotten iOS feature” in many game developers’ minds.

Warriner’s suggestion for game developers to bake in AirPlay features now is mostly about future-proofing products. But even if an Apple TV set takes a long time to come to market, there is plenty of cause to use AirPlay now, for game developers and makers of any and all iOS apps, regardless of their niche or focus.

Apple TV’s shifting role

The current Apple TV is basically a great Netflix box for most users, which now also has the added advantage of being a full-featured audio and video streaming device for your mobile phone or tablet for just $99 (or $89 now, at Best Buy and Amazon). But in the near future, the Apple TV could see a role switch, with the expanded content of the entire App Store displacing the Netflix appeal as a No. 1 reason for owning and using the Apple set-top device.

The increased flexibility allowed by AirPlay Mirroring on Apple’s latest iPhone and iPad means that developers should start thinking about AirPlay not as an afterthought or preventative measure against future obsolescence but as a value-add competitive advantage that can help their product stand out from the growing crowd that is the App Store.

Go beyond the bare minimum

AirPlay compatibility isn’t just about allowing your content to be displayed on a TV when thrown from one device to another. It’s about making sure there’s a unique experience that only AirPlay users can access. Note that this also doesn’t mean taking anything away from the app itself as a standalone mobile product, just that users who can take advantage of the benefits of owning the Apple TV do have something more to make use of.

For some developers, providing a value-add AirPlay experience could be as simple as deciding to include a video or slide show alongside an article that can be thrown to the screen instead of providing text-based content alone or making sure it works in landscape orientation so it looks better on a TV. But more-ambitious (and therefore more-standout) examples could provide supplemental information or additional screens with hands-on demonstrations displayed back on the originating device while AirPlay video or slide shows appear on the TV screen. It’s definitely possible, as Real Racing 2 HD’s dual-screen gameplay mechanism demonstrates.

One more reason to buy

The bottom line is that if I’m looking at a video-focused app right now, I’ll try to find out how well it handles AirPlay. If it doesn’t, or if the experience is less than ideal, I’ll pass and try to find another. Soon, if any two apps are relatively close in terms of features and function but one offers a tailored AirPlay experience while the other doesn’t, it could become a crucial factor in a buying decision. The Apple TV isn’t yet a barn burner in terms of sales, but lower prices should help. It is still ranked No. 1 in Amazon’s Digital Media Devices sales charts and No. 2 in Television and Video.

Plus, AirPlay will only come to more devices as Apple goes about its regular update cycle, and it could even come to the Mac. In an ecosystem where discoverability can be a problem and marketing advantages are few and far between, real AirPlay innovation and dual-screen interfaces are the next frontier, and I can’t wait to see some pioneering developers stake their claim.

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The new version of TestFlight comes with an SDK that allows developers to make their beta testing process a lot more involved, and it provides improved tools for gathering feedback. Feedback and communication are key to a successful beta test (which is why I’m not a great tester myself), and the new features available to developers through TestFlight’s API are all about improving information flow between devs and testers.

Highlights of what developers can look forward to include:

• In-App Questions. Trigger questions at specific checkpoints to get feedback from users as they’re using the software exactly at points where you think there might be an issue.
• In-App Updates. Make sure your test group is on the same page with in-app update prompts, which also allow you to update to the latest version instantly over the air.
• Feedback. In-app forms and tester email responses all feed into the developer dashboard and allow for instant replies between tester and coder.

There’s more, too, so be sure to head over to the official TestFlight website and check it out if you’re interested. Developers and testers alike can still sign up for free, too, and all of these new features arrive as free updates for existing and new users alike. Inevitably, TestFlight will have to bring some tiered paid options or advertising to the table to keep things going, but judging by developer response and its adoption by big brands so far, it won’t have too much trouble getting people to pay for the product when it does.

As for general consumers, even if you never actually use or see TestFlight in action, you’ll probably feel its effects: A better beta process with more communication options built in should lead to better shipping products popping up in the App Store.

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• Mobile Q1: All Eyes on Tablets, T-Mobile and AT&T
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Screentaker ($4.99) from developer Fabian Kreiser lets you drag and drop screenshots taken on an iPad, iPhone or iPod touch onto a simple window, choose from device and display options using drop down menus, and output a finalized screenshot ready for your website or display ad in no time at all. The app detects what device the screenshot came from automatically, but you can also override this and choose yourself.

Aside from device frames, you can also choose to remove the status bar (useful if you don’t want carrier or time info distracting from the app itself), and add a thin border and shadow to iPhone screens, among other options. Enterprising users can also create their own plugins for Screentaker to add their own custom effects to the options already available.

If you’re a developer, you can also grab screen captures from the iOS device simulator that comes with Apple’s suite of development tools, so that you can mock up how an app will look on a device before it’s ready to be deployed. This is especially handy for selling your early-stage projects to investors or clients.

Resulting files are in .PNG format, with background transparency preserved, so you can plug them into whatever graphic presentation you need to easily. As someone who regularly uses iOS screenshots, I’m happy to have found such a neat little tool that will add a little more visual appeal to app reviews and profiles, and I’m sure devs will welcome this time saver even more.

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• Flash analysis: Steve Jobs
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Dorsey’s post, in which he points to a new discussion thread opened by Twitter in order to gather feedback about what tools and materials developers are looking for from the company, seems like a bit of a peace offering aimed at smoothing relations with a community that might be understandably skittish. In April last year, Twitter raised developer suspicion by acquiring Tweetie, a client for the service that had been independently operated by developer Atebits. Then earlier this year Twitter implemented new limits on third-party applications plugging into the system that prevented developers from accessing any of the real value of the Twitter ecosystem, as Mathew Ingram noted at the time. The company also bought another client, TweetDeck, in May, seeming to indicate that it wanted control over all major app and web-based access.

Twitter has been trying to turn the relationship around, introducing a dedicated site for platform developers in June, but it has a lot to make up for to win back developer trust. Persistent, system-level iOS integration could go a long way toward winning them back, but for that to happen Dorsey and Twitter need developers on their side as much or more than developers need Twitter.

For Twitter to capitalize on iOS 5 integration, it needs to make sure iOS app developers take advantage of that integration by building sharing options into their apps. System-level login will help put Twitter in front of many more users, but the service still depends on active sharing to exist, and third-party apps are the key to providing users with something they want to talk about.

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• Here Come the Social TV Apps

The free API will allow developers to create apps that provide access to Spotify’s more than 15 million tracks, so long as developers have a Spotify Premium account and app users are active subscribers to the service. We’ll likely see some attempts at straightforward third-party clients, including maybe one tailor-made for the iPad, but there are a number of other more interesting possibilities that also come to mind.

Imagine, for example, a game that lets you choose Spotify as the source of the soundtrack while you play. Or a game that actually uses Spotify more directly, like a music trivia app that has you identify tracks from the service’s library. Another interesting possibility that comes to mind is an augmented reality app that can match tracks available in Spotify’s library to real-world landmarks and locations via the iPhone’s camera or geolocation abilities; a real-life soundtrack for your walking tours, or even just a trip to the grocery store.

There’s one big limitation on the API, however: it’s for non-commercial use only. That means developers won’t be able to use it in apps that aren’t free. Spotify does offer to talk about a partnership with for-profit apps that want to use the API however, so it could be a good way for developers to test interest in Spotify integration among its users before entering into a binding business agreement.

Where would you like to see Spotify integrated in your iOS apps? Let us know in the comments.

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News apps racked up the longest average session length (how long a user spends in an app once its open) according to data taken from Localytics’ mobile app analytics platform, with users spending over 250 percent more time engaged with news apps when compared to the average time spent in any app. Close behind the news category in average time spent with an app per session were music (228 percent of average), health and fitness apps (210 percent) and reference apps (162 percent). Music apps tend to be turned on and then run in the background, which might account for their lengthy session times.

Games ranked much farther down the list, with users spending only around 75 percent of the average session length playing, and entertainment apps were last of all categories measured, with around 20 percent.

When measured another way, however, games rank very highly in terms of user engagement. Localytics also checked in to how many sessions per month users had with each type of app. Games accounted for the highest number of sessions per month, with an average of 13 per user. The next closest categories were news and music apps, which were both used an average of five times per month. Apps in the reference category, which showed a high per-session length, appear not to actually be opened all that often. According to both scores, entertainment and sports apps showed very limited engagement.

The results are good news for news app developers and publishers hoping to convert app downloads into lucrative contracts with advertisers and marketers, but I’m thinking it also might indicate areas where consumers have yet to be impressed with any currently available app offerings. I think many entertainment apps are too narrowly focused, and only fit the description in the loosest sense of the word, which is probably bringing down the average when compared to oft-used software like the iPad Netflix app. And many sports apps tend to offer little of value beyond the ability to check scores when your favorite team is playing, which isn’t likely to encourage much engagement.

My iPad usage echoes the Localytics findings: I use my iPad mainly for consuming news (from a variety of sources), and I occasionally open a game to kill a few minutes before dinner or while on hold, but I don’t spend as much time with these as I do with my news reader and periodical apps. Does the study ring true with your experience?

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1. High-end platform. Customers will pay more for apps because the devices they appear on are seen as high-end.
2. Closed environment. Customers are more willing to trust apps (and spend money on and in them) because Apple has vetted them.
3. Possibilities for innovation. Apple’s APIs and the benefits of a phone-based platform have only begun to be fully utilized.
4. Harder than web development. Eidhof’s logic is that because the barrier to entry is higher for iOS development, fewer people will attempt it, so it’s easier to stand out.
5. Great libraries. Apple’s readymade frameworks are great, with Eidhof citing animation as a perfect example.
6. Quality in the DNA. Mac and iOS developers tend to strive to live up to the “culture of quality” that surrounds Apple software and devices, and Apple’s defaults help devs start out at a much higher level to begin with.

Eidhof goes into much greater detail about each individual point, so be sure to check out his post in full. I’d also add that iOS is still way ahead of Android (and therefore all other mobile platforms, too) when it comes to actual money made by developers. Android does appear to be slowly gaining favor, and it seems to hold some appeal for developers who want more flexibility with what their apps can access. But for now iOS is still top dog, and competing market channels that can offer devs a raw deal like Amazon’s Appstore  won’t help Android’s situation. Do you think Eidhof is right about why iOS is winning in terms of attracting high-quality developers, or is there something else behind it?

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1. An ever-growing software library

Apple’s iPhone has been a hit with developers since before official third-party app support even launched. But now that it has the top honor among hardware makers, it’s more or less guaranteed that high-quality iOS software development will be of a level that competitors find even harder to match. Having the widest reach and being the most viable route for making money will do that.

2. Greater component control leads to lower prices

Apple’s ability to command good prices from suppliers grows as its smartphone business expands. It can place even larger orders, more effectively stocking its own coffers and leaving competitors high and dry. This means that the supply-level savings it can command will either trickle down to the consumer or, maybe more likely, that Apple will be able to equip future iPhone models with more-sophisticated technology sooner than its competition, who don’t benefit as much from a high-volume business that can offset per-unit costs.

3. Continuing efforts to stay on top

Apple wasn’t the only star of the show in yesterday’s reports. Samsung’s growth, especially when measured year over year (from 5.0 to 17.5 percent market share), was nothing short of astounding. If it remains on course, it could take away Apple’s newly won crown as the world’s top smartphone maker. But that’s a big if. First, Apple is set to deliver the iPhone 5 within the coming months, which is sure to change the mobile landscape once again. Second, Apple has expressed interest in pursuing lower-cost additions to the iPhone line, which would surely broaden its appeal. Recent rumors suggest such a device may arrive soon, and the timing is right; pre-paid plans are becoming more popular, and a cheap iPhone would likely have a considerable effect on Samsung’s advance.

For Apple, reaching the top spot is a virtue unto itself, in terms of the value to the brand and to stockholders. But it’s also a win for anyone who owns an iPhone now or is planning to own one in the future. For that reason, Apple fans should hope this victory isn’t short-lived.

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• A Media Tablet Forecast, 2011 – 2015
• A Global Mobile Handset Platform Forecast, 2011 – 2015

The recognition tech was presumably acquired through Apple’s 2010 purchase of Polar Rose, a company that specialized in face detection algorithms. 9t05Mac found iOS 5 APIs that use the tech, which means they should provide an easy way for developers to implement facial recognition for various purposes in their own apps, quickly and easily.

The unearthed APIs are described as “highly sophisticated,” and can determine where a user’s mouth, and left and right eyes are located, as well as process images taken by the iPhone for face detection. Aside from providing Apple an easy way to introduce Faces (which recognizes specific people in iPhoto) to both its own Photos app and any third-party apps that access that library, it should also open the door for much more advanced facial recognition applications.

You could create apps that track a user’s eye movement and dynamically change content accordingly, for instance. App developers might even be able to use data gathered from facial recognition APIs to identify so-called “hotspots,” providing insight about where a user is looking most within an app and arranging content accordingly. In time, an iPhone app might even be able to assess the emotional state of the user, based on whether they’re frowning or smiling, and address the user in a manner appropriate to their mood. It might also be able to tell how engaged users are with mobile ads and content, which might be useful for iAd customers, among others.

Apple could also use the tech to implement something many have been asking for on iOS device in a unique way: user account switching. Currently, iOS devices don’t have user accounts the way a Mac does. On the iPad especially, which is a shared device for many, it makes sense to offer multiple accounts that offer different levels of access to different sets of content. Facial recognition could intelligently and automatically switch iOS user profiles, setting restrictions if a child picks up a device, and changing the app load-out and home screen arrangement for different family members.

But before all that, which is admittedly something still likely quite a way off in terms of the development of iOS, we should see implementations that improve Apple’s existing video products. So features like FaceTime, for instance, could get the ability to judge which person deserves focus during a group video chat (which is also likely in the works). A similar system has been described as one of the possible motivations behind Google’s recent acquisition of facial recognition company PittPatt, for use with Google+ Hangouts.

Whatever else it leads to, facial recognition should provide developers with the opportunity to create some impressive new apps, so long as they keep in mind what Facebook learned the hard way: People don’t like it when you implement recognition without asking nicely first.

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The original deadline for Lodsys to respond to Apple’s motion was June 27, or this upcoming Monday. Lodsys has asked for two more months, which FOSS Patents’ Florian Mueller says is an unusually long extension to seek. Still, Apple is apparently fine with the request according to a statement made to the court by Lodsys counsel.

But two months is a long time for developers caught up in this mess to be waiting with bated breath. The developers named in the suit still have to formally respond to Lodsys’ complaint, and while it’s possible that the extension, if granted, will apply to them as well, that is by no means a certainty. Yet obviously, whether or not Apple is included in the proceedings will have a huge influence on how developers proceed in dealing with the allegations of infringement by Lodsys. It’s still not clear what exactly Apple is advising affected developers to do, but based on comments made by some of those involved, Apple does appear to be providing behind-the-scenes guidance. Google, on the other hand, has yet to intervene, and Android developers are starting to become increasingly apprehensive, as more and more are receiving legal threats from Lodsys.

Mueller suggests that this request for a delay by Lodsys, and Apple’s lack of opposition to it, could indicate that the companies are engaged in behind-the-scenes negotiation to resolve this matter without further involving developers or the legal system. Whatever the outcome of this latest move by Lodsys, I think this tweet from Android developer Cory Trese best sums up one of the most important lasting effects this case could have on mobile development:

Samsung doesn’t get a sneak peek

In Apple’s other major ongoing legal kerfuffle, the judge in the pitched intellectual property battle between Samsung and the Mac maker has denied Samsung’s request for early access to the iPhone 5 and iPad 3, hardware that hasn’t even been announced, much less released to the public.

While the judge admitted that Samsung has a right to parity, and had previously granted Apple access to unreleased devices like the Galaxy S II and the Galaxy Tab 10.1, she thought Samsung’s request in this instance went too far. The products Apple sought to see were already circulating to reviewers and developers, after all, not just assumed to be in development like the iPhone and iPad successors.

Still, it isn’t all good news for Apple. Since Cupertino amended its original complaint to place stricter definitions on what products it thinks Samsung infringed upon in order to block the iPad 3 and iPhone 5 requests, the judge hinted that any request from Apple for an injunction of sales in the U.S. on new Samsung devices might not apply. That’s because a big part of a successful injunction request involves proving that consumers will be genuinely confused by the similarities between devices, and the judge suggested that “there is little likelihood” of confusion with new Samsung devices, since the iPad 2 and iPhone 4 may “soon be outmoded and reduced in price,” and “are not being sold (or very soon will not be sold) to the same class of purchasers who are likely to buy new Samsung products.”

Florian Mueller thinks seeking an injunction would be a risky move on Apple’s part, given what the judge has expressed. It stands a fair chance of being turned down, which might be a black eye for Apple for outside observers, Mueller says. Of course, even if an injunction is rejected, it shouldn’t affect Apple’s larger case against Samsung, which is really what Apple is more concerned with here.

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• The rise of tablets in the enterprise
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Truth as used here has an inside technical meaning — the master or “truth” database in a distributed data system is the authoritative record for resolving conflicts. The master store in Apple’s existing Sync Services is the “truth database.” Here’s an image from Apple’s public documentation for Sync Services that illustrates the term.

In the existing Mac-centric sync model, the truth database is stored on the computer. Applications that want to interact with Sync Services don’t talk directly to the underlying database itself, but rather communicate through the Sync Engine, part of Mac OS X, which maintains the integrity, or truth, of the authoritative master data.

The other side to the “truth in the cloud” comment is that iCloud is more than just online document storage. Jobs made reference to this on Monday, saying:

Some people think the cloud is just a hard disk in the sky. We think it’s way more than that. iCloud is integrated with your apps, so everything happens automatically. It just works.

After a demonstration of iWork apps saving documents to the cloud, Jobs quickly added that iCloud Storage APIs would also include key value data. If Apple follows some of the existing conventions of Sync Services, developers would not interact directly with the master store, but would rely on system-level services, the APIs, to maintain the integrity of the cloud data. These system services will remove a tremendous burden from developers, making it much simple to integrate iOS apps with iCloud.

Syncing key-value pairs is also more flexible than syncing documents, and perfectly suited for several common uses. For example, to keep track of which levels are unlocked in a game like Angry Birds, the developer could update the key-value pair for each level independently from the others. In this scenario, the key might be the level id (“world-3-2″), and the value would be “locked” or “unlocked” as appropriate. It is simpler to fast sync just the one key-value pair that has changed instead of updating the entire settings file each time. This key-value pair approach also makes it much easier for developers to avoid situations where updating settings on one device would overwrite or erase all the settings on another device.

Some might be skeptical since Sync Services has suffered from a number of issues like mistaken duplication of contacts and calendar events. Jobs poked fun at Apple’s missteps with their previous cloud efforts when he said joked that users might ask “why should I believe them? They’re the ones that brought me MobileMe,” but he continued finished by admitting that while “it wasn’t [Apple's] finest hour,” the company “learned a lot.” Apple will have to put all of that learning to use to build a rock-solid online key-value store that can deal with billions of transactions coming from hundreds of millions of devices. That learning will be especially important when safe-guarding all that customer data in the key-value store.

Key-value stores have gained a lot of recent attention in web development circles because they offer a flexible, and fast, way to access small bits of data like user preferences. Solutions like MongoDB, Redis, Tokyo Cabinet, Memcache, Hadoop, MapReduce, Cassandra, Google’s BigTable , and Amazon’s Dynamo are all examples of web-friendly datastores that work with key-value pairs. Derrick Harris, over on our Structure channel, broke down how some of these technologies are being used to power the gear in Apple’s new data center, and highlighted a job listing which called for experience with key-value store technologies like Hadoop, Memcache and Cassandra.

iCloud is not just about online document storage, but a whole infrastructure for syncing data and preferences with an online key-value store — a new Sync Services built around the idea of keeping the truth database in the cloud instead of on a computer. The cloud is the new center of the Apple universe, in other words.

A ‘key’ difference (again, so sorry) between iCloud and other key-value stores is that Apple is focused on providing infrastructure for native iOS and Mac apps while others are working on platforms for web apps that run in the browser. Apple wants to make things “just work” for iOS apps without placing unnecessary burdens on developers as they incorporate iCloud services. This tension between open and fragmented and closed and integrated, which we’ve already seen in the Android and iPhone platforms, is being played out again here. But the fight is a good one for consumers, since it should lead to ever-better apps that test the limits of what we thought we could do with mobile devices.

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Mueller believes that even though Lodsys may oppose Apple’s motion to intervene, the Mac maker is likely to be admitted as a defendant, in which case it has already submitted its answer to Lodsys’ complaint of infringement, and its counterclaim. Apple also cites a number of other precedent-setting similar cases where tech companies were allowed to intervene in patent disputes, which back up and strengthen its motion. If Apple joins as a defendant, Mueller thinks it’s very likely it will take on any legal costs incurred by its developer partners.

Apple’s answer to the Lodsys complaint basically echoes what Apple General Counsel Bruce Sewell said in a public letter from the company to Lodsys, claiming Apple is licensed to use the patents, and that the license “expressly permits Apple to offer and otherwise make available to its Developers products and services that embody the inventions contained in the patents in suit.” Apple’s argument rents on the doctrines of patent exhaustion and first sale, which would allow the products and services provided by Apple to developers to be used free of any patent infringement claims. As Mueller has noted before, it isn’t necessarily an airtight defense against the claims made by Lodsys, but Apple appears to be sticking with it, rather than trying to invalidate the four patents held by Lodsys, as analysts firm ForeSee Results Inc. is attempting.

I talked to Mueller about why Apple is sticking so closely to this defense. He said, “Apple does a lot of inbound patent licensing,” and the Lodsys patents are actually part of a batch of “30,000 other patents from Intellectual Ventures” that it also licensed, and Apple also “regularly does license deals with many others.” It’s key that Apple win on these grounds, then, to avoid being made to pay twice for patents already licensed in other cases, too. In fact, as mocoNews points out, Apple states upfront that this case could have tremendous impact on its fortunes, when it says in its filing that “Apple’s interest is direct, very real, and of extraordinary importance to the continued success of Apple’s business.”

When asked how far he thinks this might escalate, Mueller said that while “usually the most probably outcome would be a settlement,” in this case it’s “possible that Apple makes this a matter of principle, with a view to many other cases in which patents that Apple has licensed might be asserted against iOS developers.” Apple would then want to score a precedent-setting win against Lodsys, rather than just agree to pay a settlement to make it quietly go away, in which case others could come calling looking for double-dip license payouts.

Since Lodsys clearly seems to have targeted small developers first in a district court that appears to decide quickly and historically favor patent holders with the aim of overwhelming the developers, it’s great to see Apple support those developers in a way that also offsets their financial burden. Mueller points out that one Android app is included in the current lawsuit, and Google has yet to act. “It’s important that Google make this a matter of principle and defend, alongside Apple, [...] and clarify what it will do if other Android app developers also get sued,” Mueller says.

Any company that depends on the support of third-party developers and makes use of software development toolkits will want to watch this case closely, because the outcome could have a significant impact on development as a whole.

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1. Source code. Great movie, eh? But also, when a developer writes software, source code is the actual program as it is being typed into the computer, written in a programming language. Source code is usually kept secret and closely guarded by companies, although “open source” software bares its code to the world.

2. Regression. A programmer friend once mentioned that a bug was “regressed.” I had vivid images of animals regressing to primordial ooze. Software regression is a bug that makes things stop working correctly after an event that changes the operating environment, like a system update. Not to be confused with regression testing, which in the programming sense, generally means making sure updates to software don’t introduce new bugs to existing, working features, and that previously identified bugs have been fixed. So it actually has nothing to do with science fiction.

3. Deprecated. “Cheer up!” might be your first reaction to your friend who tells you a critical programming library he or she relies on has been deprecated. That actually isn’t a bad instinct, because when something is deprecated it means it’s no longer supported by the manufacturer and may disappear in the future. If your program relies on a feature Apple has deprecated, your program could “break” in new OS versions unless you update it to use newer programming libraries. Generally speaking, if something is deprecated, it means it’s still there, but is no longer supported.

4. Release Candidate. No this isn’t about politics. Many readers probably know that a “test” phase of a program is a Beta. At some point, though, a product moves past the Beta phase (and the even earlier Alpha phase) and becomes a Release Candidate, usually designated RC. It might also be referred to as a Final Candidate or FC by some. Marking a build an RC or FC is the developers’ way of saying “we think this is probably good enough to ship.” Apple often releases several Final Candidate builds, the last of which becomes the…

5. GM. No this isn’t the General Manager (my first thought!), but rather the Gold Master. The code is frozen, and the FC designated the final GM is what ships. There should be no code differences between the last FC and the GM. Having the GM installed is pretty much equivalent to having the product. It’s the master version which is turned into the product: shipped on disk, downloaded or sold via the Mac App Store. You might hear people say software has “gone gold”; this is what they’re talking about.

So to review, when someone says “After we regressed our app in the new Mac OS, we found out that a library we relied on had been deprecated, so we went back to the source code to recompile our program. Now we have a solid FC and hopefully we’ll go GM next week!” you’ll know exactly what you’re talking about.

What other programming terms have slipped you up in casual conversation, and what are some other definitions you think people might appreciate?

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But ForeSee’s clients aren’t small app developers with limited means to defend against patent infringement claims and little choice but to agree to demands for licensing fees; they’re major companies with lots of capital and legal expertise at their disposal, including Adidas, Best Buy and WE Energies, and with this declaratory judgment filing, ForeSee has gone on the offensive against Lodsys on their behalf.

FOSSpatents’ Florian Mueller explains that a declaratory judgment, which doesn’t incur any penalties but is crucial to setting precedent, is a smart way to begin the process of potentially invalidating all of Lodsys’ patents. ForeSee filed suit in Illinois before Lodsys actually filed against any of its clients, too, which means that Lodsys doesn’t get to set the stage in the Eastern District of Texas, where the company has filed against iOS developers, and where the law favors the patent holder. Mueller also notes that McDermott Will & Emery, a “top-notch law firm that does a lot of work for major technologies” will be representing ForeSee. The law firm previously engineered a successful patent settlement for its client Creative Technology against Apple, in fact, resulting in a $100 million payday for Creative.

I asked Chicago tech and intellectual property attorney Evan Brown of Internet Cases what he thought about his filing, and he suggested that it could be a litmus test to see just how far Lodsys is willing to take this thing:

A declaratory judgment action like this gives Lodsys the chance to test its own resolve, whether it wanted to or not. We have to think that it considered the possibility of a declaratory judgment action (any reasonable party that sends a threatening letter should be ready for that risk). But given that Lodsys was generally targeting the smaller fish rather than Apple itself, one is left to think it may not have thought it through as much as it should have. Needless to say, Lodsys probably wishes things were going more smoothly for it, what with Apple’s swift and firm letter talking about patent exhaustion, and now this lawsuit. Maybe Lodsys might realize it’s better to actually use a technology rather than just sue others over it.

Apple’s response to Lodsys’ initial threats only prompted Lodsys to step up its timeframe and sue seven independent app developers ahead of schedule, and we’ve heard nothing from Cupertino on the subject since. But Craig Hockenberry, one of the developers behind Twitterific, tweeted just prior to WWDC that affected devs can’t talk about what’s going on, so presumably Apple is acting behind the scenes.

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• Design. Well-designed apps are delightful, elegant, intuitive, engaging, exciting, compelling, and reliable.
• Innovation. Innovative apps are revolutionary, inspirational, unique, and do things in completely new and exciting ways.
• Technical excellence. Technically advanced apps have excellent performance and make extensive use of the latest Apple technologies to deliver innovative, platform differentiating, and advanced features.

The winners are chosen for Student, iPhone, iPad, and Mac categories from apps available for sale in the iTunes App Store and the Mac App Store (app links below are to the respective App Store). The 2011 ADA winners are:

Student

• Grades 2 by Tapity – a GPA calculator.
• Pennant by Vargatron – an interactive history of baseball.
• Pulse News by Alphonso Labs – an innovative and beautiful news reader.

iPhone

• Cut the Rope by chillingo – a physics-based puzzle game.
• Golfscape GPS Rangefinder by Shotzoom – an augmented reality rangefinder for 35,000+ golf courses.
• Infinity Blade by Chair Entertainment Group – a sword-fighting action game.

iPad

• Osmos for iPad by Hemisphere Games – a physics-based game of survival.
• Our Choice by Push Pop Press – an interactive book platform featuring Al Gore’s latest publication on the environment
• Djay by algoriddim – DJ software for your iPod library.

Mac

• Capo by SuperMegaUltraGroovy – a learning tool for musicians.
• Pixelmator by Pixelmator Team – an outstanding image editor.
• Anomaly Warzone Earth by 11 bit studios – a highly rated game with a “mixture of action and strategy in a tower offense formula.”

Congratulations to the winners! Anyone you think was overlooked this year? Let us know in the comments.

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