The announcement of the Mac App Store has been greeted with some mixed feelings. Because of the closed nature of the App Store for iOS devices, there has been some worry about whether the Mac App Store will continue that legacy of tight control – with Apple dictating which apps can appear based on seemingly arbitrary criteria, or whether or not they compete with Apple’s own business model. More generally, people are wondering whether the somewhat constrained, simplified version of the operating system was heading to the computer – and the ‘install whatever you want’ approach that stands now would…

I had to poke around for more info on this for a minute, because I honestly didn’t believe it out of hand – Apple, unprecedentedly, is relaxing its application rules for App Store developers. Famously, developers from hither and yon have found themselves frustrated as their apps have been flippantly turned away from the App Store with little or no explanation. But apparently, Apple’s having no more of its own shenanigans. “For the first time we are publishing the App Store Review Guidelines to help developers understand how we review submitted apps,” explains Apple in the statement. “We hope…

Say what you will about Apple and its ‘walled garden’ – because even if it’s true, it must be a really damn pretty garden. We seem to be liking it just fine. According to Asymco, a Helsinki-based industry analysis advisory firm, both total song and app downloads are on the rise. But the latter especially. Like… really especially. We’re talking more than twice as fast. While it took the iTunes store 5 years to push 6.3 billion songs, the App Store has done it in half the time and, assuming Asymco is on the money and the trend continues, it’ll have the former beat before the year’s end. That’s some kind…

The great thing about Apple’s portable devices for fans of simulation games is that you can actually live more of a life while spending almost every waking moment tweaking some setting or researching new technology, or exploring a series of bad decisions as you go to war with your neighbor. This is a good thing. What follows are six of the most engaging simulation type games I’ve come across this week, with many of them available in the HD format for the iPad. Of course, these all work just as well with any of Apple’s smaller-screened iOS-powered devices. And they’re all great fun, enjoy. Civilization…

It’s a lazy Saturday, like any other. Actually, maybe some of you have busy Saturdays. Whatever. It’s lazy on this end. As such, I’m about to showcase an iPhone app. No, really, you’ll love this. We’re all at this point well familiar with the App Store’s unfathomably arbitrary approval process, but this app dares to posit the dawning of a new echelon for iPhone shovelware. What does it do? It cures erectile dysfunction, of course. ‘Fire Up Your Sex Drive’ is amazing, and I mean that in the ironic hipster way. ‘Just For Male!’ the app pitches with a clear disregard for English grammar, ‘This application…

We’ve been casting our eyes around for cool iPhone apps this week, and have come up with some stunning apps, including some which vastly improve iPhone photography and a few others which just couldn’t help but catch our eye — including one superb music-creation solution. 1. Twitter for iPhone Free Formerly Tweetie 2 and now produced by Twitter itself, the official Twitter client is an essential tool for anyone who is into the 140-character idea sharing service. Twitter for iPhone will let you browse users, check trends and write tweets. You can download it here. This version (released last…

Apple is finally releasing the iPad App Store to the international market. Until now, opening the App Store using an account anywhere outside the US resulted in a message stating that the App Store is not available in your region yet. Still missing from the store are Apple iWork apps Pages, Keynote and Numbers. Users were easily able to circumvent the problem by creating a US account, but no word yet on how easy it is or if it is even possible to transfer apps purchased with a US account to your own native country account. Apple is about to begin shipping iPads to nine additional countries on May 28, including…

Palm yesterday acknowledged that a recent bug in it’s App Catalog which caused downloads of free and paid apps to fail. Palm product manager Joe Hayashi said yesterday that a patch will be available soon, and that there are workarounds in the meantime. “If you’ve experienced any issues downloading or updating apps from the Palm App Catalog recently, rest assured that Palm is actively working to remedy the situation. If you’ve purchased an app, the transaction has been properly recorded and as soon as this issue is resolved, you’ll be able to access all apps you’ve purchased (or, in the…

The rumors are beginning to circulate about Mac OS X 10.7, Apple’s next major update to its Mac operating system. Software company Rixstep says developers should be prepared for a Mac experience similar to the iPhone and now iPad method of developing and distributing apps. With the full designation as yet unknown (Lion? Bobcat? Tabby?), 10.7 is expected to bring a face lift to Apple’s ex-flagship OS, but other details remain unknown. Rixstep says that “10.7 will have kernel support for (‘insistence on’) binaries signed with Apple’s root certificate”. Roughly translated, this means that…

He may have predicted that Apple’s iPad would ‘rule the world’, but the man who invented the notebook concept isn’t happy with Steve Jobs at the moment. Alan Kay is one of the great heroes of the technological revolution we’re still experiencing today. So much so that when Apple introduced the iPad, Jobs took pains to send Kay one as a personal gift. But it isn’t the product that Kay has a problem with – it’s Apple’s determination to control what developers do with it. Apple last week changed the terms of its deal with developers, introducing new clauses which forbid iPhone apps from…