AdMob, a company that supplies advertising services for iPhone developers, says that between September 15th and 22nd only 23% of devices were updated to iPhone OS 3.1. This counts only devices that run apps with AdMob ads.
Some more statistics: 51% are still running OS 3.0, and 19% are still running v2.2.1, while 7% are still running v2.0 or earlier.
The reasons, as always, are very different. The update for the iPod Touch costs money, there are problems with internet tethering in 3.1, there is no firmware 3.1 jailbreak tool for Windows and it is impossible to jailbreak iPhone 3GS.
Have you perfomed the upgrade or not? Please, leave a comment why.
Some users have already performed jailbeak for firmware 3.1 and faced problems with several Cydia applications. Some work with no problems, others send the iPhone to Safe Mode. Here is a list of compatible and non-compatible apps.
Applications NOT compatible with Firmware 3.1:
Winterboard
Backgrounder
Mobile Finder
ActivateMMS2G
Cycorder
PasteBoardStacker
Applications partially compatible with Firmware 3.1:
Cydia (apparently does not show the badge icon when there are updates available)
SBSettings (everything works except the button "Restart")
BossPrefs (everything works except the button "Respring")
MonoTouch allows developers to create C# and .NET based applications that run on the iPhone and can take advantage of the iPhone APIs as well as reusing both code and libraries that have been built for .NET as well as existing skills.
Today MonoTouch 1.0 was released. It is avaliable via Novell online shop and costs from $400 for personal edition up to $4000 for enterprise edition.
Something is changing in the AppStore application approval process. Action Babes has just been approved by Apple. It had been rejected previously due to explicit content, but now the developers have obtained approval and the download will be available from 15 September.
Apple releases new iPod Touch / iPhone firmware - 3.1 beta 3, just couple weeks after firmware 3.1 beta 2. As usual it is only for and avaliable via developer.apple.com. iPhone 3.1 Beta 2 expires tomorrow, July 28 at 12am (device local time). The OS weighs is around 307MB.
You can now copy/paste videos into email like pictures. Previously you could only use the share option which would compress the video to a lower resolution. New functionality was tested with a 33 second video clip (14.7MB), sent via gmail. The recieved file was 640×480 / 30fps. Sending the same file via the share function resulted in a size of 3.21MB and 480×320 / 30fps. Here is a video demo:
Apple released new SDK and new firmware and 3.1 beta 2. Unless you have a developer account with Apple, don't plugging your iPhone into iTunes, you're not going to have access to it. However here is an unofficial changelist:
Minor release focused more to fix the bugs.
New APIs for video and images.It appears that there will be many applications in AppStore, suitable to apply effects on a video or create animated slideshow.
Xcode bug-fixes.
More items have been localized, such as "In Play", "Request access WiFi".
Developers will be able to use WiFi for debuging, etc.
Baseband is now version 05:10:01.This means that all those who use unlock - do not update yet.
The iPhone is heated much less.
Old method to turn tethering on does not work anymore.
UPDATE: Here are direct links to download firmware 3.1 b2:
Apple today announced that customers have downloaded more than 1.5 billion applications in just one year. Here's more statistics: there are now 65,000 apps in AppStore and more than 100,000 developers in the iPhone Developer Program. Great news. AppStore is really revolutionary. Here is a comment from Steve Jobs:
“The App Store is like nothing the industry has ever seen before in both scale and quality,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “With 1.5 billion apps downloaded, it is going to be very hard for others to catch up.”
Quantum Collapse is one of the best games RTS (Real Time Strategy) games for iPhone and iPod Touch. The game was released less than a month ago and has already been updated to version 1.1. Regular price is $3.99, but it is on sal enow for $0.99 (AppStore link). There is also a free lite version (AppStore link).
Features:
13 Campaign missions providing more than 8 hours of gameplay
11 Skirmish missions with 3 different AI Types.
Amazing Particle Effects and Explosions
2 Completely different factions with unique designs and powers
Voxel generated terrain (no repetitive tilemaps)
Map Zoom.
Each unit has a unique powerup. Some super units have up to 6 of them.
Spell system enables you to take a huge part in the battle.
In next version developers will implement multiplayer with voice-chat. Note for iPhone 3GS users: the game has graphical glitches on the iPhone 3GS. Developers found the solution and the fix is on it's way.
We continue to get videos on Worms game. It is expected to arrive to AppSore soon, but no exact dates yet.
Here's the latest video:
Worms is a very famous game. This version was designed exclusively for iPhone and iPod Touch and, according to developers, is similar to the PlayStation 3.
id Software's John Carmack today confirmed to Shacknews that the company plans to bring three of its Quake titles to the iPhone platform, though Carmack himself may not be heavily involved in the projects. "We will be trying to put some other developers on the future classic titles," said Carmack. "I don't think I'm going to be doing all of the work on Quake, Quake 2 and Quake Arena on there."
The id Software provides an intense activity for the next year, with new projects every 2-3 months. Staremo a vedere. We shall see.
Hottest Girls, the first porn app in AppStore, was removed. Some say Apple did that, others say that developers did that themselves because of huge traffic overload. Who knows.. but for now no more hootest girls.