Apple is loosening its grip on its app development for its mobile devices, announcing Thursday that it will drop restrictions on what programming tools developers can use to create iOS apps.

The company also dropped a ban on certain in-application ad serving tools that had effectively cut off Google’s AdMob service.

The unexpected move means Apple is standing down in what had become an increasingly heated battle between the company and the developers who have created the more than 250,000 apps that stock Apple’s App Store.

“We have listened to our developers and taken much of their feedback to heart,” Apple said. “This should give developers the flexibility they want, while preserving the security we need.”

Apple’s rule changes are quite technical, and developers raced to pore over the fine print and figure out exactly what they mean.

But the practical upshot is that programmers will be able to use tools from Apple’s rivals — most notably Adobe — to build software for Apple’s iPhones, iPads and iPods.

Adobe’s current Flash development suite includes a tool for converting apps to run on Apple’s platform, but the company said in April that it would stop further development on that tool because of Apple’s restrictions and focus more on Google’s Android operating system.

Adobe on Thursday praised Apple’s change of heart. “We are encouraged to see Apple lifting its restrictions on its licensing terms, giving developers the freedom to choose what tools they use to develop applications for Apple devices,” the company said in a written statement.

A company representative declined to comment on the fate of Adobe’s stalled Packager for iPhone tool.

But Flash programmers were quick to chime in: “We’re back in the game,” one posted in Adobe’s forum right after Apple’s announcement.

Developer Brad Manderscheid expects the new rules to be a big boost for his Milwaukee-based application development company, ActionMouse.

Most of his work is done with Adobe’s Flash, and Apple’s move to block Flash-to-iPhone conversion tools meant some of his planned projects for clients had to be scrapped.

“A lot of work that we had pending went away,” he said. “I was more mad than anybody I know — Adobe built all these tools for us to do all these cool things, we had all these beta programs ready to go, and Apple comes out and says ‘stop.’”

Now, he’ll be able to use Adobe tools to “write once, run anywhere,” and convert his applications to run on iOS as well as platforms like Android.

“I don’t have to be just in one team or another,” he said. “It opens everything up, the way it should be.”

Veteran Apple developer Greg Slepak was so incensed in April by Apple’s new restrictions that he e-mailed his objections to Steve Jobs — who responded. Slepak reprinted the exchange on his blog, where it drew hundreds of replies.

Slepak, who let his iOS Developer Program account expire in the wake of the clampdown, said he’s now considering renewing it. Apple’s policy changes seem to effectively address developers’ concerns, he said.

“This isn’t just about Adobe,” he said. “I don’t much care for Flash apps on the iPhone, but I do care about some of the third-party frameworks that would have been restricted by this. Some entire companies, their livelihood was put into question.”

Apple’s previous policy of banning unapproved development tools had drawn notice from federal regulators, who have reportedly considered launching an antitrust investigation of Apple’s software development rules.

Google  applauded the fact that developers will now be able to use AdMob to sell and serve ads in their iPhone applications.

“This is great news for everyone in the mobile community, as we believe that a competitive environment is the best way to drive innovation and growth in mobile advertising,” the company said in a blog post.

Apple also said it will for the first time publish review guidelines to help developers understand how it vets the applications submitted to its App Store. Developers have frequently griped about Apple’s opaque and occasionally drawn-out review process.

“We hope it will make us more transparent and help our developers create even more successful apps for the App Store,” Apple said of its decision to release the guidelines.

Apple will release iOS 4.2 firmware free of charge to iPad owners in November, adding many new features and improved functionality to the touch screen tablet. The iPad is slated to receive multitasking, folders for grouping apps, and many other features found in iOS 4. The multitasking dock includes brightness controls, music controls, recently used apps and a rotation lock button.

Steve Jobs demoed some of the new features at the Apple media event this week. One of the highlights included wireless printing, which allows apps on the iPad to print from anywhere on a Wi-Fi networked printer. TV show rentals and Game Center will also come to the iPad.

Game Center features multi-player gaming along with social networking features for iOS devices. Other players can be challenged, players will be automatically matched up, scores and games can be shared.

AirPlay is another new iOS 4.2 app coming to the iPad. With AirPlay, video, audio and photos can be streamed over your Wi-Fi network to the iPad from a computer. The AirTunes functionality that may be familiar to iTunes users has been renamed to AirPlay.

Jobs also announced there are now 25,000 iPad apps in the Apple App Store, ready to be downloaded by iPad users worldwide.

Apple iPad 2.0 is in the Works and it Might Have a New Screen.   Word on the geek street is that the Apple iPad 2.0 is already in the works. What’s the rush, Apple? Most people haven’t even had a chance to dirty the first iPad with their finger prints—Brits, for example, as Tech Digest is quick to point out.

According to Tech Digest, the Apple iPad 2.0 is being developed right now and it will most likely “get an OLED overhaul.” This means, the 2.0 version of the Apple iPad will have a brighter screen than the current iPad, which uses LCD panels for its screen.

Despite a much-publicized media leak of its next-generation iPhone, Apple CEO Steve Jobs still managed to rev up fans and developers Monday as he unveiled iPhone 4, a powerful successor in its smart phone line.

“Stop me if you’ve already seen this,” Jobs quipped as he introduced the iPhone 4 to a packed audience at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.

From his customary spot on the stage, Jobs previewed the new, slimmer hardware, which comes equipped with a much improved screen, two cameras including one facing the user for video conferencing, a faster processor, a gyroscope and a mobile version of Apple’s video editing program, iMovie.

“That is the iPhone 4,” Jobs said. “We think it’s the biggest leap we’ve taken since the original iPhone.”

The phone, which will go on sale June 24 for $199 (16 gigabytes) and $299 (32 gigabytes), will also ship with the latest version of the iPhone operating system, now dubbed iOS 4. The new operating system includes multi-tasking, application folders, the iBooks e-reader app and a new mobile advertising platform.

IPhone 4 should provide a boost for Apple as it seeks to fend off rising competition from smart phone competitors, most notably Google, whose Android operating system is powering a slew of iPhone rivals. There are three times as many iPhones in the market compared to Android devices, but recent quarterly Android sales are now similar to the iPhone.

Many of the iPhone 4′s larger hardware developments were predicted after gadget blog Gizmodo purchased a lost iPhone prototype in April for $5,000 and ran an exclusive story on the components of the new device. The story shed light on many of the new features, including the two cameras and a bigger battery, as well as the boxier look of the device.

But Jobs summoned his ring-leading skills to highlight the specific advancements of the iPhone 4, saving until the end a new video chat feature called FaceTime, which will enable iPhone 4 users to easily conduct video calls at the push of a button. The service will only work over Wi-Fi between iPhone 4 devices in 2010.

“I grew up dreaming of video calling and now it’s real,” Jobs said.

Jobs also spent a considerable amount of time showing off the iPhone 4′s new display, which doubles the pixel density of the iPhone screen and eliminates the perception of pixels. At one point, however, Jobs ran into trouble during the demo when his device couldn’t access Apple’s private Wi-Fi network because of all the mobile Wi-Fi routers in use at the keynote. He actually paused and asked the bloggers in the audience to turn off their Wi-Fi to allow him to proceed with the demonstration.

The new device will feature the same 1 GHz A4 processor powering the iPad as well as a new gyroscope that, when combined with the iPhone’s accelerometer, allows the iPhone to work as a six-axis motion sensor. Developers believe the added sensor can bring about new applications in gaming.

The iPhone 4′s camera has been upgraded to 5 megapixels and includes digital zoom, an LED flash and advanced light-sensing technology that mimics the performance of dedicated cameras. The video camera can also shoot in 720p high-definition.

Users will be to stitch their pictures and videos into polished movies using a new $4.99 iMovie app for the iPhone.

Much to the chagrin of some consumers, Jobs made no mention of a second iPhone running on Verizon Wireless, a popular rumor among Verizon users. The iPhone 4 will stay an exclusive of AT&T, which also replaced its unlimited smart phone data plans Monday with cheaper but limited data tiers of $15 (200 megabytes) and $25 (2 gigabytes) a month.

Avi Greengart, an analyst with Current Analysis, said the Gizmodo leak may have taken some of the surprise out of Jobs’ keynote. But he said the details and execution in the iPhone 4 ensure the device is still the smart phone to beat.

“Just because a publication got some of the features doesn’t mean it’s not impressive,” said Greengart. “I am very impressed. Apple was ahead to begin with and this just puts them further ahead.”

Charles Golvin, an analyst with Forrester Research, said the new iPhone may sell more to existing iPhone users, rather than expand Apple’s reach. But he said he was most impressed by the display and the FaceTime video technology, which Jobs said Apple was releasing as an open standard.

“If they can drive the adoption of video calling, we might finally see the realization of video telephony,” he said.

For developers such as Ge Wang, founder of musical app maker Smule, the inclusion of the gyroscope meant yet another tool for application programmers.

“This is definitely a step forward for Apple,” he said of the iPhone 4. “It’s not only the technology but Apple’s vision for the future. Clearly, Apple isn’t standing still.

 

The iPad was supposed to change the face of computing, to be a completely new form of digital experience. But what Steve Jobs showed us yesterday was in fact little more than a giant iPhone. A giant iPhone that doesn’t even make calls. Many were expecting cameras, kickstands and some crazy new form of text input. The iPad, though, is better defined by what isn’t there.

Flash

Many people will bemoan the lack of support for Adobe’s interactive software, Flash. It wasn’t mentioned, but eagle-eyed viewers would have seen the missing plugin icon on the New York Times site during yesterday’s demo, and given that Apple clearly hates Flash as both a non-open web “standard” and as a buggy, CPU-hungry piece of code, it’s unlikely it will ever be added, unless Apple decides it wants to cut the battery life down to two hours.

Who needs Flash, anyway? YouTube and Vimeo have both switched to H.264 for video streaming (in Chrome and Safari, at least — Firefox doesn’t support it), and the rest of the world of Flash is painful to use.

In fact, we think the lack of Flash in the iPad will be the thing that finally kills Flash itself. If the iPad is as popular as the iPhone and iPod Touch, Flash-capable browsers will eventually be in the minority.

OLED

One of the biggest rumors said that there would be two iPads, one with an OLED screen and one without. But as our own Apple-master Brian X Chen pointed out, an OLED panel of this size runs to around $400. Add in the rest of the hardware and even the top-end $830 model wouldn’t be making Apple much money.

OLED also has some dirty secrets. It may be more colorful, but it uses more power than an LED backlit screen when all the diodes are lit up (white on black text is where OLED energy savings shine). It is also rather dim in comparison, and making an e-reader that you can’t use outdoors would be a stupid move from Apple.

USB

The iPad is meant to be an easy-to-use appliance, not an all-purpose computer. A USB port would mean installing drivers for printers, scanners and anything else you might hook up. But there is a workaround: the dock connector. Apple has already announced a camera connection kit, a $30 pair of adapters which will let you either plug the camera in direct or plug in an SD card to pull off the photos.

The subtle message here is that it’s not a feature for the pros: the lack of a Compact Flash slot in that adapter says “amateur photographers only.”

Expect a lot more of these kinds of accessories, most likely combined with software. How long can it be before, say, EyeTV makes an iPad-compatible TV tuner?

GPS

Apple put a compass inside every iPad, so you’d think that there would be a GPS unit in there, too. The Wi-Fi-only models get nothing, just like the iPod Touch, but more surprising is that the 3G iPads come with Assisted GPS.

Assisted GPS can be one of two things, both of which which offload some work to internet servers and use cell-tower triangulation. The difference is that some AGPS units have real GPS too, and some don’t. We’ll know which the iPad has as soon as we get our hands on one.

Multitasking

From the demonstrations at the Jobsnote it appears that, like the iPhone, we can’t run applications in the background. This will annoy many people, but it will not matter at all to the target user, who will be using the iPad to browse and consume media. In fact, this user will benefit, as the lack of CPU-cycle-sucking background processes is likely a large part of that ten-hour battery life.

If you are authoring content, like this post, then multiple browser windows, a text editor, a mail client and a photo editor all make sense. If you’re reading an e-book, not so much.

Keyboard

Nobody really thought the iPad would have a physical keyboard. That won’t stop the whining, though. The difference, again, between the iPad and a MacBook is that one is a multi-purpose device and the other is a media player.

The fact that Apple actually has made an optional keyboard for it is the biggest surprise (apart from the iPad’s base $500 price). In fact, this little $70 keyboard will mean that, despite its simplified nature, the iPad is enough laptop for many people. Why bother with a $400 netbook when you can have this instead?

Camera

No video camera, no stills camera, and no webcam. The first two will likely never make it into a future iPad, as we all have our iPhones or actual cameras with us, too. But the lack of a webcam is odd, as it closes off the possibility of using the iPad as a videophone.

I figure this is a cost-saving measure on Apple’s part. Too bad, though, as it is the only thing that stops me buying an iPad for my parents, whom I talk to on Skype. There seems to be no other reason not to have a webcam in the bezel other than price. We expect to see one in v2.0.

Verizon

iPhone users hate AT&T, but the only alternative is T-Mobile, whose coverage isn’t as good. Until Verizon switches to the world-standard GSM SIM card, don’t expect to see an Apple product on its network. You can forget all those Verizon iPhone rumors right now.

16:9

The iPad screen is a relatively square, by today’s standards, with an old-school 4:3 screen aspect ratio. This is not ideal for watching widescreen movies: you get a thick black “letterbox” bar top and bottom. But take another look at the hardware: the Apple on the back, and the position of the home button both tell us that the iPad is meant to be used in portrait mode, at least most of the time. And a 16:9 aspect ratio in this orientation would look oddly tall and skinny, like an electronic Marilyn Manson.

It’s a compromise, and a good one. If you really do spend most of your time watching movies on the iPad, maybe you should think about buying, you know, a big TV.

HDMI

There will be video out, likely through the dock connector, as Jobs said during his presentation that you’ll be able to hook the iPad up to a projector. But no HDMI out? How do you hook it up to your HD monitor?

The short answer is that you don’t. The maximum audience for an iPad screening is two. You want more? Use your laptop and hook that up, or your desktop machine. Remember, there are two kinds of people who will buy the iPad. One, nerds like you and me, who care about things like HDMI and also already own a computer that can do that.

And two, people who are buying this instead of a computer. Those people will probably still have DVD collections, or even VCRs. They don’t even know what HDMI is. I think I can guess what Apple thought about putting another expensive connector into the machine just to please a few geeks.

It is reported that Apple does not own iPad domain name.  So strange, and interesting!

Perhaps Apple was just being extremely careful not to draw any attention to the widely speculated name of its  new multimedia device prior to this morning’s announcement, but one simply cannot overlook the fact that the company doesn’t have ownership over any domain names related to ‘iPad’.

For now, that is.

Apple does not own iPad.com, as you may have noticed. Others have, in any case, and some even suggest that the person who registered the domain name (one Martine Bejasa) sell it to the Cupertino company to become an instant millionaire. Unlikely to happen, IMHO.

But what else doesn’t Apple own? Well, they don’t have control over even a single domain name that has iPad followed by a country or generic TLD. Out of Cupertino’s hands, at least for the time being: iPad.net, iPad.biz, iPad.info, iPad.fr, iPad.de, iPad.es, iPad.eu, iPad.se, iPad.cn, iPad.be and iPad.jp. To name but a few.

They also don’t own iBook.com, iBooks.com or iBookstore.com or anything like that, in case you were wondering.

It’s not that Apple doesn’t care about domain names. It paid heavily for iPhone.com back in 2007, and it owns iPod.com, iMac.com, iWork.com, iTunes.com etc. (but not MacBook.com, curiously). Run a search on UDRPsearch and you will find that Apple regularly fights to (re)gain control over relevant domain names that carry one of their trademarks which it doesn’t have for ‘iPad’ (yet), just to be clear.

Apple Inc. today unveiled its long-rumored tablet, the iPad, not the name gussed by many bloggers such as iTablet or iSlate.

Chief executive Steve Jobs, addressing a packed crowd of technology journalists and bloggers. referred to the device as something in the “middle” — residing in a “third category,” between high-powered personal computers and smart phones.

The iPad has a 9.7-inch multitouch display (measured diagonally; a page of InvestmentNews measures 18 inches for comparison), weighs just a pound and a half, and is pretty thin at just half an inch. That’s lighter than any netbook I can think of and certainly any full-fledged tablet PC.

A 1-gigahertz Apple A4 processor will power the iPad. It will come in 16- gigabyte, 32-GB and 64-GB models. The table will have several means of connectivity, including built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1 in both the base model and the high-end model. The iPad’s average battery life is expected to be 10 hours.

Oh, and like the iPhone, it will also have a built-in accelerometer, as well as a speaker and microphone.

Mr. Jobs said during the announcement that he could take a flight from San Francisco to Tokyo and watch video the whole time (side note: He must fly private jets, otherwise you’d think we would have seen some mobile phone images or video of the iPad before today).

As for cost: The low-end 16-GB model will go for $499. The high-end 64-GB model, which also boasts 3G technology, will sell for $829. There is both a touchpad keyboard that will take up half the screen when used, as well as a separate external keyboard (it is unclear what external accessories will be coming with which models in the box at purchase).

During the announcement, an Apple software representative said that iPhone and iTouch users will be able to synch their already purchased App Store applications with the iPad, meaning they won’t have to pay for them twice and that the applications themselves will all natively run on the iPad as well.

It was also announced during the presentation that these applications have already been optimized for the new device.

This means that advisers already enjoying the many financial-services-oriented applications available for the iPhone will be able to run them on the iPad as well. The device should make for lightweight travel and easy web-based presentations with clients or others.

History always seems to get lost with these grand announcements, especially when they seem to be in an-as-yet undiscovered category of computing. That probably has a lot to do with Apple’s naming this the iPad instead of the iTablet. Consumer tablet computers have been around for almost 20 years now.

Former editor-in-chief of PC Magazine Michael J. Miller wrote a great little piece documenting all the niftiest tablets that predate Apple’s announcement. Mr. Miller, who also happens to be a mentor of mine and my former boss, used to show off what these devices could do as they made their way in for review. Over the course of my eight years at the magazine, I saw dozens of them come and go. Thus it’s clear to me that Apple has built this shiny new device after long study of what has and hasn’t worked among its many predecessors.

Microsoft and Apple are reportedly discussing the possibility of changing the iPhone’s default search engine from Google to Bing, which experts say could be a significant change in the fast-growing mobile search marketplace.

BusinessWeek quotes anonymous sources as saying that “talks have been under way for weeks,” and that Microsoft was a “pawn” in the deepening feud between Apple and Google. The competition has been growing fiercer since Google began competing with Apple in the mobile market with its Android OS and Nexus One smartphone.

Additionally, BusinessWeek says that Google is in danger of suffering financial losses if the rumored move to Bing is made, since AdMob reports that most mobile advertising in the U.S. is viewed on iPhones and iPod Touches. The iPhone is the most popular smartphone in the U.S., so any changes to its default programming are likely to produce measurable shifts in mobile search figures, according to analysts.

So, is there any new opportunities for mobile search engine optimization (SEO)?  I think search engine optimizer and SEO company should think about this especially if their clients want to get exposure in mobile phones.