Just in time for the Royal Wedding, check out our latest iPad app, Kings and Queens, currently featured by Apple as the iPad App of the Week.

The app features interactive timelines of the history of the British monarchy, family trees, maps and video commentary by David Starkey to guide you through the app.

Interactive Art & Computational Design / Spring 2011 » Chong Han Chua | App Store Visualization | 31 January 2011

Some interesting work done by Chong Han Chua where he used a node.js script to scrape the entire appstore, saved the results in an sqlite db and wrote a Java visualisation program that groups the average colours of icons into an interactive spectrum display.  Includes full source and a video of the visualisation running.

App Store Visuaization from johncch on Vimeo.

Recommended reading

• TechCrunch Review: The Name’s iPhone. Verizon iPhone. – Very interesting overview of the differences between using your iPhone on at&t versus verizon. Also it seems Apple did a sleuth fix of the attenna problem with the latest verizon phone release.
• Red Sweater Blog – The Mac App Store Debug Menu –

Check out Mactracker on the App Store.  This free app will help you find the exact model and spec of your Mac (or iPad, iPhone, Apple TV, etc) which will make it a lot easier to figure out things like:

• how many watts power supply you need
• max RAM capacity
• graphics card capability
• speed of USB port

It turns out my mbp is “late 2008″ or MacBookPro5,1, and contrary to what the Apple site and Crucial say, it has a capacity for 8GB RAM, which I think it needs.

Recommended reading

• Yahoo! ‘Delivers’ Mail Optimized for iPad | Y! Mobile Blog – One of the better html5 iPad apps I’ve seen to date, even works pretty well offline.
• Price of porting iPhone applications to Android and its adaptation for iPad | The VIactivity Team(Danex Solutions Inc). Iphone, iPad, Android software solutions – Quite a good overview of the cost of porting iPhone apps to Android and iPad
• Apple rejecting apps that require user registration first? – Let’s hope this isn’t a sign of things to come

Recommended reading

• Kindle and iPad Displays: Up close and personal. | BIT-101 – I didn’t think to take such a close look at a Kindle
• Macsimum News – Greg’s bite: How to publish an Apple iBook – How to publish your own book onto iBooks
• How Oracle might kill Google’s Android and software patents all at once — RoughlyDrafted Magazine – You want a conspiracy theory about how Oracle is planning a death wish for Google – here it is
• Straight Dope on the IPod’s Birth – Fascinating article detailing the conception and birth of the iPod
• Snow Leopard: This Cat Has Fleas – An interesting discussion of some serious bugs that still exist in OS X 10.6 or Snow Leopard
• Mail.app: Showing my sent messages in thread view – Super User – Jeez that’s a useful tip!

Recommended reading

• Ten One Designer’s Blog – This will open up some really interesting possibilities for the iPad
• Communities Dominate Brands: Full Analysis of iPhone Economics – it is bad news. And then it gets worse – A brave look at the real economics behind the AppStore

Here are some very handy guidelines for avoiding rejection in the Appstore:

• Must have more than “minimal user functionality”
• Cannot transfer excessive data volumes over cellular network
• Cannot simulate failures or errors
• Cannot use PhoneGap
• Cannot duplicate the functionality of a built-in app
• Cannot collect personal data without permission
• Must notify the user on internet connection failures
• Cannot facilitate a checkout, transaction, or purchase
• Unfiltered internet access must be rated 17+
• Avoid public figures, celebrities, and Apple
• Free/Lite version can’t up-sell (tricky)
• Cannot go anywhere near Apple’s trademarks
• Cannot mention prices in Description or app
• No contests, giveaways, or charity donations

Here’s a great article by markj that explains how the top 100 ranking works at the AppStore.