Cody Taylor

David Gerard writes “iPhone development sounds closed-shop but simple — apply to be a developer, put application on the App Store, you and Apple make money. Except Apple can’t keep up with the request load — whereas getting a developer contract used to take a couple of days, it’s now taking months. Some early developers’ contracts are expiring with no notice of renewal options. And Apple has no idea what’s going on or the state of things. If you want to maintain a completely closed system, it helps if you can actually keep up with it.” Reader h11:6 points out news of a recent study which suggests that “Android’s open source nature will give it a boost over Apple’s iPhone,” and thus take the lead in sales as soon as three years from now. It will be interesting to see how they deal with the flood of proposed apps as their popularity rises.

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If you want to install cool apps on your iPhone or iPod Touch for free, easily, breaking Apple-imposed limitations without breaking your warranty or Applethingie, here is the how-to guide for Mac and Windows users.

arcticstoat writes with a snippet from bit-tech.com; musician Matthew Applegate “plans on assembling a virtual orchestra of 20 retired relics of computing at the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park. The choice of venue will even allow Applegate to feature the infamous Colossus Mark 2 computer in the event, which was used for code-breaking in World War II and was recently reconstructed at Bletchley Park in 2007. … A wide selection of computing fossils be used in Applegate’s final musical presentation, which is called ‘Obsolete?’ This includes the Elliot 803 (a 1960s machine with 4KB of memory), the aforementioned Colossus Mark 2, a Bunsviga adding machine (pictured) and a punch card machine. As well as this, there are also some machines that will look nostalgically familiar to kids who grew up with the home computer generation, including a BBC Micro, an Atari 800XL, a Dragon 32 and an Amstrad CPC464.” The article’s list of the members of this “orchestra” makes an interesting checklist of computer hardware history.

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Users still facing software issues while running the most current version of Mac OS X Leopard may take kindly to word that Mac OS X 10.5.7 is moving swiftly through its development cycle. Apple as early as this weekend is expected to equip its vast developer community with a new build of the maintenance and security release.

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, expected this summer, will deliver a variety of advanced text related features across all applications that use Core Text, according to people familiar with Apple’s plans.

The release of the new Mac Pro on Tuesday marked the first use of Intel’s Nehalem processor in Apple’s products. As in the past, Intel has allowed Apple to get early access to their newest processors ahead of the competition. These Nehalem Xeon processors used in the high end Mac Pros have not even been officially announced by Intel yet.

Renegade stores are popping up online selling unauthorized software for the iPhone, threatening Apple’s lucrative App Store. The developer behind some popular iPhone software on Friday plans to open a service called Cydia Store that could potentially sell hundreds of iPhone applications that are not available through Apple’s official store.

The news vacuum that’s followed Apple’s Mac desktop refresh offers space for some updates on the company’s software-related efforts, which should soon produce new builds of Snow Leopard. Meanwhile, minor updates to iWeb, Remote Desktop, and other OS X components are also reportedly in the works.

mikesd81 writes “ZDNet Australia writes that NSW state corporation RailCorp has threatened a Sydney software developer with legal action if he fails to withdraw a train timetable application that is currently the second-most-popular application in its category in Apple’s App Store. Alvin Singh created Transit Sydney after he began teaching himself how to program in Cocoa Mobile. Within days of its Feb 18 release, Singh received a cease and desist notice from Rail Corporation NSW, the government body that administers Sydney’s CityRail network. The email states: ‘I advise that copyright in all CityRail timetables is owned by RailCorp. … Any use of these timetables in a manner which breaches copyright by a third party can only occur through the grant of a suitable licence by RailCorp.'”

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You know that Apple computers are overpriced, don’t you? The latest Mac desktop refresh brought the hardware inside new Mac desktops in line with the rest of the industry but the same cannot be said for their price points. While iMac can compete with Dell and HP all-in-ones on both specs and price, Mac mini and Mac Pro carry a hefty 40% premium.