Jeff Scott

I think of this every time I hear business plans that say, “With over 30 million iPhones sold, our app is sure to...” - Jeff Scott

Lots of journalism’s resident tech geeks and big thinkers have been talking up the potential of Google Wave to “transform journalism”. I’m not going to go so far as to say that, but it does have a lot of features that make it an ideal candidate for fixing problems a lot of newsrooms face thanks to limitations in current technology. Here are four general ways newsrooms may chose to implement Google Wave. Assuredly, they have countless wavelets. - Jeff Scott

Precipitate lets you search for and launch the information you have stored in the cloud from within Spotlight or Google Desktop for Mac. It currently supports the following services: Google Docs (including Google Apps accounts) Google Bookmarks Picasa Web Albums - Jeff Scott

t was only a week back when we informed that the apps at the App Store had crossed the 100,000 mark. Today however, Apple confirmed the numbers as the official report confirmed reached the milestone. And that is more than impressive in just a little under a year and a half. The chart above shows category wise distribution apps at the app store and the games lead the shares with a 16% share followed by books and entertainment at 13%. So what are the predictions for the coming year? When is it crossing the 200,000 mark? [image with thanks] - Jeff Scott

Two independent sites, AppShopper.com and 148Apps.biz, which track listings in the U.S. App Store, count 97,026 and 96,161, respectively. [UPDATE: A third, apptism.com, lists 100,699.] - Jeff Scott

[Image Credit:148apps.biz] - Jeff Scott

148Apps.biz has broken down the applications in the US App Store by price, category and release date (hat-tip to Phillip Elmer-DeWitt). According to 148App.biz’s charts, Games take up the largest percentage of iPhone apps, with 16% of the total. Entertainment and Books follow with 13% each. - Jeff Scott

The demand for iPhone developers on oDesk has only increased over the past year. If you are currently developing for the iPhone and looking for some more resources to keep your skills sharp, or you’re wanting to get started developing, the links below should be helpful. - Jeff Scott

I’ve been a fan of ngmoco since I played their first game for the iPhone. Great innovators, great polish, good stuff. You’re always guaranteed something well designed and thought out. ngmoco has also always charged a decent premium price for their games. I bought Rolando 2 for $10 and Star Defense for $6. I had no problem paying these prices in an AppStore full of $0.99 games because ngmoco’s polish was through the roof, and with the recent Plus+ integration, I was totally drinking the ngmoco koolaid. Now though, I fear we’ve lost these talented devs to something called greed. Not intent with charging for games traditionally, they’ve opted to release games for free and require you to pay-to-play. Now I’m no stranger to this formula, I’ve played MMOs and the like, but I wasn’t quite expecting it to be so dramatically greedy that it severely effected my willingness to play. - Jeff Scott

Scrivener is a word processor and project management tool created specifically for writers of long texts such as novels and research papers. It won't try to tell you how to write - it just makes all the tools you have scattered around your desk available in one application. - Jeff Scott

// Whether you're a blogger, a poet or a published novelist: Ulysses 2.0 is the *definitive* package for all your creative writing needs. Brainstorm, draft, revise, submit; distraction-free and fully focused. No strings nor styles attached. - Jeff Scott

If you’re an iPhone developer, then surely you’ve given out promo codes for your apps. Most developers usually just send out the promo codes… sometimes with instructions on how to redeem them… sometimes with no details at all. The latter can obviously be confusing to people who aren’t familiar with the process for redeeming them because it’s not completely obvious as to how to do it. - Jeff Scott

Game Developers Conference organizers have announced that the call for submissions is open for the 2010 event’s suite of Summits, which take place on the first two days of GDC in San Francisco, March 9th-10th 2010. This year’s GDC Summit line-up includes two new events in the form of the Social & Online Games Summit and iPhone Games Summit, alongside the GDC Mobile/Handheld, Independent Games, and Serious Games Summits, which are all accepting submissions through November 13th. - Jeff Scott

Zombie Pizza began life as a pizza delivery game, but after initial designs proved too complex, the concept was reimagined as an ingredient-matching game set in a hellish kitchen. The basic mechanics of sorting ingredients from a conveyor belt onto pizzas was thoroughly understood before commencing the visual design. “Chris Ulm and I decided to do the kitchen first,” Farzad says. “We whiteboarded it, and the finished sketch was not dissimilar from the first ideation. Which goes against my credo of iteration, iteration, iteration.” - Jeff Scott

I've recently been talking to CEOs as part of a project I'm working on documenting how people recover from their careers taking unexpected dips. I've met people who've seen their hopes dashed when they were passed over for promotion, others whose vast fortunes were erased by accounting scandals, those who've had their comfortable lives upended when their parents lost their savings, and even people who've simply and terrifyingly slipped and fell, putting them out of work and nearly into paralysis. - Jeff Scott

Annoying hidden achievements, scrooge-like low point awards, and trophies that demand more than a fair share of time make unlocking achievements in some games a laborious prospect. There's a way to incorporate achievements without frustration, while at the same time demanding skill and time. Challenging is the keyword here. Following these five principles ensures challenging achievements without aggravation. - Jeff Scott

So. I’m the guy who directs and edits the video ads that Appy releases whenever they have a new app. A while back Chris (“The Ulm”) asked me to write a blog about the process. Specifically, he was hoping I could explain “What’s it like for a normal person to have to deal with the Appy guys?” - Jeff Scott

89 snapshots taken during the design process for Consume, an iPhone app. The main Photoshop document contains 686 layers. The song playing is Cassette by Duosseudo. - Jeff Scott

iconset:iphonetoolbar - Jeff Scott