developers

EFF publishes mobile user privacy bill of rights

With a mobile privacy scandal coming every few weeks or so it seems, consumers are getting so they don't trust app developers to do the right thing. But what exactly is the right thing?

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has some ideas. The non-profit organization today released a Mobile User Privacy Bill of Rights that offers up suggestions for how data should be treated to protect the privacy of consumers.

"It's time to articulate what the best practices are and what people should reasonably expect," Kurt Opsahl, senior staff attorney at EFF, said in announcing the privacy … Read more

Mozilla wants app submissions for its open-Web plans

Mozilla's Marketplace has begun accepting app submissions, looking toward the ultimate goal of building a standalone operating system for the open Web.

As part of the company's Boot to Gecko project, these apps would allow for cross-device and multi-operating system integration, which means anchoring the apps to the user and not to the device or platform.

"Using HTML, CSS and JavaScript, a developer can build an app using responsive design, and that app can offer the same look and feel as a device-native app, without having to rewrite for every desired target platform," Joe Stagner, Mozilla'… Read more

Why the vaunted spectrum auctions won't cut it

Editors' note: This is a guest column. See Morgan Reed's bio below.

In the Broadway musical "Oliver!," orphaned Oliver Twist famously holds out his empty bowl and asks, "Please sir, may I have some more?" For those of us who make mobile applications, we feel like Oliver, holding out our virtual bowl, begging for more spectrum to fill the hungry bellies of our customers.

App developers cheered when the divided Congress passed legislation providing for incentivized spectrum auctions while freeing up unlicensed spectrum. This is a step in the right direction, but it didn't … Read more

AT&T to have app developers pick up bandwidth tab?

AT&T is considering a new system in which mobile app developers and publishers would pay for the wireless bandwidth associated with using the apps and downloading content.

"A feature that we're hoping to have out sometime next year is the equivalent of 800 numbers that would say, if you take this app, this app will come without any network usage," AT&T executive John Donovan told The Wall Street Journal in an interview at the Mobile World Conference 2012, currently under way in Barcelona, Spain.

AT&T and rival Verizon Wireless have discontinued … Read more

Mac App Store sandboxing deadline moved to June 1

Last November Apple announced to its developer community that all applications distributed through its Mac App Store would require sandboxing. Apple initially set the deadline for this requirement to March 1, but recently moved this deadline back a few months to June 1.

Sandboxing is a method of isolating an application's tasks from those of other applications and the system, by allowing it access to only the resources it is intended to access.

This setup prevents any errors in the program from interfering with resources it was not intended to access. For instance, if a program is built to … Read more

Windows 8 set for 4th quarter? Fujitsu thinks so

Windows 8 will hit the market in the fourth quarter, according to a Fujitsu product road map.

Touting its upcoming notebooks and tablets in a press conference yesterday, the company displayed one slide that showed a Win8 launch destined for "Q4 2012." Revealed by Italian blogging site NetbookItalia (English translation), the slide also showed a tablet with a Metro user interface, suggesting that Fujitsu is prepping a Windows 8 tablet for the same time frame.

In fact, as some reports have pointed out, the slide may actually be referring specifically to the debut of the Fujitsu tablet, meaning … Read more

Apple iOS developers: We'll adjust to privacy change

iPhone apps that access address book data will need to be updated but not overhauled to comply with a new policy from Apple that mandates prior user permission, developers say.

In response to complaints that some iPhone apps were downloading the entire contents of users' address books without asking users first, Apple announced a change earlier today in its developer guidelines. Now, iOS apps will have to get explicit user permission before collecting contacts data from their phones.

The change was prompted after a blogger last week discovered that photo sharing service Path was collecting address book data unbeknownst to … Read more

Windows 8 bundled Metro apps revealed

The next beta of Windows 8 will apparently give us a healthy dose of Metro apps, whether we want them or not.

Microsoft plans to release the Windows 8 Consumer Preview--basically, a pre-release version of the new OS available to anyone who wants to download it--on February 29. Microsoft is reportedly finalizing the Metro apps that will be bundled with the new OS. Citing "sources familiar with Microsoft's plans," the Verge revealed the current list as:

Calendar Camera Mail Messaging Music People Photos SkyDrive Video

These are just the apps known so far, so there could … Read more

Apple to iPhone developers: No more low-res screenshots

The screen resolution shared by the first three iPhones and iPod Touches is expected to be phased out eventually, but in a new note to developers, the company appears to want to move that process along--at least on its digital storefront.

In an e-mail to developers today, republished by The Next Web, Apple notes that it now requires developers to include high-resolution screenshots of their applications when submitting them for approval, something that was previously optional:

When you create or update your apps in iTunes Connect, you must upload screenshots that are high-resolution. We require your screenshots as high-resolution images … Read more