Microsoft today unveiled the pricing structure for its new Windows Mobile Marketplace.
Just like Apple, Microsoft have decided that it will be in their best interest to introduce an application store for their Mobile OS platform.
Also, just like Apple, developers can choose to distribute their applications at no cost but have the option to set a price.
Some are saying that Microsoft could be taking a leaf out of Apple’s book with the price to get into development being $99USD.
There are some negative and positive things about the deal with one of the positives being that the registration fee is going to be waived for student developers.
Some other interesting facts include developers receiving 70 percent of the revenue from each sale of their application, also just like Apple.
An interesting twist though, (perhaps a negative) after a developer has reached submitting 5 applications a fee of $99USD for each additional application will need to be paid.
Microsoft defended its $99USD fee for submitting extra applications by saying in a statement:
“Microsoft will run a rigorous certification process to ensure that the end user’s experience is optimal, and that the device and network resources aren’t used in a malicious way,”
“This process has a significant cost and Microsoft believes $99 is an acceptable cost of doing business for (software developers) looking to get in front of millions of customers.”
Perhaps the $99USD fee for submitting extra applications will make the process of getting into the Windows Mobile Marketplace faster than what Apple could handle with some iPhone applications taking up to 6 months to get into the store last year.
Apple today released the world’s smallest music player weighing in at only 10.7 grams. The only issue… you have to use Apple’s proprietary headphones. Why? Because Apple compensated the space by not having buttons on the device.
Yes, that’s right, the buttons are now located on the headphones, just like the iPhone. Some may find this convenient whilst others will find it frustrating to fork out $48AUD! each time they lose their headphones (which I quite often do).
It’s now also including a new VoiceOver feature that enables the iPod shuffle to speak your song titles, artists and playlist names. I’m thinking we’ll probably see this feature roll-out in the next firmware upgrade on the current iPods and iPhone.
Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of iPod and iPhone Product Marketing said
“The amazingly small new iPod shuffle takes a revolutionary approach to how you listen to your music by talking to you, also making it the first iPod shuffle with playlists.”
So if you’re up for buying the new iPod shuffle you can get it for $129 @ Apple.com.au
IT SEEMS at the moment that all the major lawsuits are happening in the US of A (naturally), but we should feel free to mention the two cases: Read more
ON the 24th of October my Time Machine hard drive stopped backing up.
I didn’t realise for over a week because I assumed it was all fine. The gear was spinning every hour, but I didn’t notice that for the whole spinning period, it was ‘preparing’ and not backing anything up.
Read more
APPLE today announced it’s annual film festival which will commence on the 15th of November.
The Insomnia Film Festival is a 24 hour event where certain elements are given such as location, props, character names and style.
Read more
APPLE fans (and curious PC users) have been waiting for the time to come, and it did. Yesterday at around 4am AEDST Apple announced a new rejuvenated line of it’s notebooks.
Read more
Customers Worldwide are starting to speak up about slow speeds and reception issues related to their iPhone 3G.
The Australian MacTalk Forum is starting to fill up with forum members complaining about reception issues, with over 400 posts from disgruntled users, with members trying to be of assistance.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Telco Optus are given out “goodwill credits” to unsatisfied customers.
Mr Wells, an Optus customer told the Sydney Morning Herald:
“After an hour of being on hold and extraordinary delays and being passed from left to right” he was able to speak to a team leader, who credited him $49, the cost of one month’s phone payment.
It is not know yet whether the issue is in fact hardware or software related or even an issue at all, with Apple refusing to comment.
Sources:
Sydney Morning Herald
MacTalk.com.au Australia
As rumors suggested, the much anticipated 3G iPhone has been released at Apple’s World Wide Developers conference.
As rumors suggested it is everything that has been speculated about.
It is available in Australia on the following two networks:
All of today’s Apple announcements can be pretty much summarised quickly by browsing over there press release titles for today.
New 3G iPhone released – $199USD for 8GB – $299USD for 16GB – Available July 11 in 22 countries (INCLUDING AUSTRALIA!) – On the Vodafone & Optus networks in Australia.
Vodafone says that the 3G iPhone will be available on both prepay and contract price plans.
OS X 10.6 will be named Snow Leopard
Game Apps have been introduced for the iPhone
iPhone firmware 2.0 will be released in July and will be free for iPhone users and $10 for iPod Touch users
.Mac gets replaced by Mobile Me – Free upgrade for .Mac users
So Apple store’s across the world are beginning to go down.
What could this mean…. well something big, and by big I mean BIG! 
iPhone?
iTablet?
i…i… I don’t know?
