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Apple Now Accepting iPad Apps, Planning “Grand Opening” of iPad App Store

Apple is now accepting iPad apps for a “grand opening” of the iPad App Store, according to an email just sent to registered developers.
“iPad will begin shipping soon and your opportunity to be part of the grand opening of the iPad App Store starts today,” the email says.
There’s no details about when the store’s grand [...]

Security Expert: “Mac OS X Is Safer, But Less Secure”

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Tech site H-Online has an interesting story today, quoting security expert Charlie Miller about his forthcoming talk at the CanSecWest conference next week.
He says OS X is full of security holes. There are lots more than in Windows, he claims.
And yet: OS X is a safer system to use. Why? Because, in the words [...]

Apple Devotes Entire Home Page To Jerome York Obituary

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If ever you needed a sign that Apple was a different kind of technology company, this is it.
What other computer manufacturer would remove its top-selling, hype-inducing, industry-altering new product from the prime spot on its website home page, and replace it with an obituary to an investor?
This is one of those “Here’s to the [...]

Coming Soon: Steve Jobs, the Sitcom

Fake Steve creator Dan Lyons just signed a deal to bring Steve Jobs to another small screen near you.
The half-hour series called “iCon” is billed by the presser as “a savage satire centering on a fictional Silicon Valley CEO whose ego is a study in power and greed.”
Making sure the barbs prick will be the [...]

Shocking futures—early Alan ‘Watchmen’ Moore work reaches iPhone

Along with being a surprisingly versatile device for gaming, reading eBooks and surfing the web, iPhone is becoming an increasingly useful source of distribution for comics publishers. Late last month, ClickWheel, who’ve been in the comics-on-iPods game for a while, released Future Shocks: Part 1, a 99-cent collection of early Alan Moore stories, which was subsequently followed by part two. We caught up with ClickWheel Editor in Chief Tim Demeter for his thoughts on these apps and the market in general.

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Cult of Mac: What are the Future Shocks apps and how do they work?
Tim Demeter: The Future Shocks apps are collections of early work from Alan Moore, digitally restored and formatted specifically for iPhone and iPod touch. The apps are entirely self-contained and once downloaded require no cell or Wi-Fi collection to read—you can access them anytime.

How do these apps sit alongside your ClickWheel app?
These are completely separate from our other app. The ClickWheel app is a reader for a multitude of streaming comics, some of which need to to be purchased from the ClickWheel site first. Each Future Shocks app is a one-time purchase. Once it’s downloaded you can start reading right away. Look for a change in how we handle downloading comics to iPhone once the 3.0 software is out there though.

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What do you think of iPod touch/iPhone as a comics-reading platform?
We love it. ClickWheel began putting comics on iPods with the launch of the iPod video, so to say that these new devices have enabled us to take our vision of mobile comics to new levels would certainly be understatement. The nice thing about mobile comics is they provide the convenience and immediacy of web-comics while retaining the portability of printed comics. I don’t think printed comics will ever go away and I certainly don’t want them too but I wouldn’t be surprised if many monthlies go digital while the collections remain in print.

What advantages does the App Store bring a company like yours?
People know and trust the iTunes store and many people have a credit card stored in their account which makes impulse purchasing very much a reality. It also seems to be going through the same kind of growth that Amazon did. Back in the day, Amazon was just books. Now it’s just about everything. The iTunes store started as just audio but now it’s TV, movies and apps of all kinds. It’s quickly becoming a one-stop-shop for anything and everything digital and there’s a lot of value in that.

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About the author

Craig Grannell

Craig Grannell is Cult of Mac's designer and an occasional contributor. He also runs iPhoneTiny.com, a Twitter-driven reviews site for iPhone apps and games. Follow Craig on Twitter @CraigGrannell and visit his website, Snub Communications.

Email the author | Read more posts by Craig Grannell.

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