Official iCreate Blog > Jimmy Hayes

It didn’t take long but the App Store has got very nearly 10,000 Apps available to download. There are just 300 or so to go before it reaches the landmark.

The App store was launched in July with 500 apps on it. At the time this sounded like more then enough for us all but the number has gotten bigger and bigger at an incredible rate.

Games are the most common apps on the store at the moment, they occupy nearly a quarter of the whole amount.

There can be absolutely no doubt that the venture has been a success and even though we never doubted it, we never thought it would go this wild or spawn the kind of awesome applications that it has.

Our absolute favourites so far are:

Ben (Editor)

Fieldrunners

Remote

Facebook

Helen (Senior Designer)

Wurdle

Truphone

Vault

and I’m going to go with

reMovem free

Face Melter

Ocarina

Let us know your favs in the comments…

Maybe it was the rumours about a MacBook nano, maybe its just a lifestyle thing but we’ve heard talk that the MacBook Air (the worlds thinnest notebook) is looking to shed a bit of weight. Could it be that its in-laws are coming in for the holiday season and it wants to look its best or maybe its getting nervous now the other laptops are all made from Aluminium, who knows.

In all seriousness, it looks as though Apple are going to try and reduce the weight of the MacBook Air by introducing some Carbon Fiber into the casing. The story has appeared on AppleInsider and Macrumors both of whom have decent reputations in the rumour stakes.

For us, this is an interesting twist, we’d have thought that the number one priority for Apple would be to drive those prices down and get more people buying the MBA. Now that the other MacBooks are all aluminium, have better specs and are comparable in price, we’d have though that the best thing to do would be to make the MacBook Air the netbook of the family.

Instead, Apple are going to try and shave a bit of weight off of it so that it sits in the sub 3pound category. Brilliant.

For anyone who was thinking about getting a Mac this Christmas who had some reservations as to whether Apple would pull their usual trick and release an update just moments after you’ve left the Apple Store - you can rest easy. The line up is set.

A post on MacRumors confirms that:

Apple has issued a statement to Macworld clarifying that there are no plans for any new products before the holiday season.

“Our holiday line-up is set,” Apple spokesman Bill Evans told Macworld.

This announcement squashes circulating rumors that the iMac and Mac mini are scheduled for imminent updates.

Although we’re a tiny bit disappointed that we wont get to play with anything new this Christmas, it does mean Mac shoppers can breath a sigh of relief.

Does this mean we’ll see something brand new at MacWorld Expo? We hope so…

Apple has finally decided to drop the NDA.

The NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) was set up by Apple when the SDK (software Development kit) was released. The idea being that stopping developers talking about the iPhone code would prevent malicious Apps from appearing, making Apple’s vetting of the apps a little easier.

The NDA seemingly caused more problems than it solved. It prevented legitimate developers from conversing and learning from each other about the iPhone software - the result of which, according to developers, is a lot of applictions that aren’t as good as they could have been had discussions about coding been allowed.

The NDA also restricted the sale of books on developing for the iPhone that would not just have been lucrative to the writers, but also instrumental in creating better functioning apps and increasing interest in the platform.

So, the big question. Why has Apple decided to do this now?

In terms of timing it could quite easily be argued that Apple is a tiny bit worried about the new Android development market which is completley open and has just been released into the wild in the form of a new Android based phone.

Although the market place has not been tested thoroughly and Apps are only just starting to trickle onto the platform, the fact that Android completely open could have big reprecussions on the iPhone developemnt community which is being continually hushed by the NDA.

Why would developers put up with being silenced when they could make better apps in a more open environment?

If this is the case, then Apple is at least willing to concede that the new market in mobile applictions isn’t sewn up by the iPhone and that they are going to have to make changes to keep the development community interested in the platform.

The upshot for the rest of us is that, no matter what the reason, the fall of the NDA should result in much better Apps appearing on the App Store and the iPhone becoming an even more useful/fun device to use.

Again, this signals exciting times for iPhone owners and it ups the ante in the mobile platform wars…

Alongside the new hardware released last night, we also got a new version of iTunes. We’re now up to version 8. Its available now, so do a Software Update to download it.

The new features, in a nutshell, are a new interface for vewing album artwork. This time around its much more lik iPhoto. It actually feels akin to browsing through a record collection, which is what we’re after really. Coverflow is good but this just feels better. You can now also group albums in this view by Artist, Genre and Composer. When you do this you can, like in iPhoto events, run your mouse over the image and the songs and albums within the grouping will flick up at you. This is a great addition and we love it.

The other big update is the addition of Genius playlist. This clever system analyses what you are listening to and what you have in your library and brings up tracks it thinks will go with that tune. It also throws up songs and albums on the iTunes store that could be of interest.

Again, this is a great addition from Apple that will have you thinking much more about playlists and the range of music you listen to. The Genius feature is also now built in to the new Nano and iPod touch so you can use it directly from the player.

We will be reviewing all of the new releases in iCreate magazine very soon, so don’t forget to pick up your copy at the local newsagent. Alternatively you can visit www.icreatemagazine.com and get a subscription.

Here is a video of the touch, its short and sweet but gives you an idea of how thin this device is.

Again, you can order these today and here are the prices:

8GB  - £169.00

16GB - £219.00

32GB - £289.00

Well worth a buy if you fancy some touch screen action but aren’t interested in the iPhone.

While we were at the event yesterday we thought we might take a butchers at the all new iPod touch as well…

Its hard to get a real idea of just how thin the touch is in these pictures so hold on for the video and then you’ll get a better grasp of it… Its incredibly thin…

We managed to get a quick video of the new nano so its only right that we share it:

Thats right, we got our grubby mits on the new iPod Nano and we have to say that we were very impressed.

We were able to see all the colours in the line up and grab some snaps and video as well. Below is a collage of pictures from the hands-on and we’ll get the video up in the next post.

The new Nano is available to order on the Apple store and will set you back £109 for the 8GB version and £149 for the 16GB version.

New features include a curved glass finish, accellerometer for viewing Coverflow and movies as well as the awesomely cool ‘Shake to Shuffle’ feature. You also get the Genius feature built in, more on that later when we look at iTunes 8.

Guest. Performance. Jack Johnson.