Apple App Store Price Rises for Australia October 2015

Along with the rest of the developer community, we have been notified this morning of price rises happening to apps and subscriptions in the Australian Apple App Store (as well as Indonesia and Sweden).

These price rises take effect in the next 36 hours and are due to exchange rates and actually offer a good opportunity for Australian developers to earn higher royalties than before, particularly if their main income base is in Australia (the current exchange rate takes care of the rest of the world for us).

For example, Australian Developers will now receive $0.95 for a Tier 1 app which is charged at $1.49 (Aussie Dollars). The below table shows this (remember, Aussie devs pay GST so Apple's actual commission is still 30% but the remainder - the developer's royalty - then has GST taken out before Apple transfers to our banks in Australia).

Updated Apple App Store Pricing for Australia, commencing Mid October 2015

We are Australian Made and Owned

We are extremely happy to announce that our home-grown Content Management System (CMS), ciSUITE:, has been approved to carry the prestigious Australian Made and Owned logo.

Our development team has worked on this product (and many others) over the years from our office in Brisbane, and ciSUITE: has powered a huge number of websites since 2003 when it was in its infancy.

ciSUITE: by Creative Intersection ... Australian Made and Owned

Unlike many open-source CMS platforms (such as Joomla!, Drupal, and WordPress), ciSUITE: is inherently safer because we protect our source code from the prying eyes of nasty hackers. In fact, we are often asked to migrate open-source CMS sites that keep being constantly hacked into our more secure ciSUITE: platform.

Whilst ciSUITE: is currently the only one of our products formally licensed to carry the Australian Made and Owned logo, all of our other services such as Mobile App Development and ongoing support are also performed by our own in-house designers, developers, analysts, and testers - all of whom are onshore. We don't offshore work. Ever.

Financing Your App Idea

Do you have an app idea that's burning a hole in your brain but can't afford to pay to develop it straight away ?

We are currently working on an app financing option that could see your idea start coming to life straight away, while giving you 12, 18, or 24 months to pay it off.

Finance will be provided by a professional, national funding firm backed by one of Australia's largest financial institutions.

App development often takes 3-6 months, by the end of which you will usually have paid for our entire development effort (and commenced our 90-day support period). By using Creative Intersection's App Development Financing, payments can be spread out across a longer period of time, freeing up capital while you promote and market your app.

Talk to Creative Intersection about financing your app idea

A monthly amount is then deducted (via Direct Debit) from your own bank account until the development costs have been paid off.

Terms and conditions will, of course, apply - but if you are interested in having a chat with us about financing your app development, just give us a shout via our Contact Us page.

If you do not need financing, but still want to smooth out your cashflow, remember that we also offer Credit Card payment options at 0% fees (Visa, Mastercard, American Express - via Paypal).

Our Pal Steve Wozniak on Apple Watch and Lots More

Our favourite geek Steve "Woz" Wozniak was recently interviewed by The Australian Financial Review on a bunch of topics including why he doesn't have an Apple Watch (yet).

As usual, it shows a warm and generous side to the Uber-geek who a while back was our inaugural recipient of the Creative Intersection "Certificate of Awesomeness".

Woz receives our Certificate of Awesomeness

Woz - you can borrow one of our loaner Apple Watches (usually reserved for clients to test apps) for a month and see if you like it! :-)

For the full interview in AFR, click here.

 

iOS 8.0.1 Update is Breaking Phones and Hearts

The latest update to Apple's mobile Operating System (iOS 8.0.1) seems to have been a bit of a disaster for the Cupertino-based fruit vendor.

In fairness, all software (and an Operating System is just very complicated software after all) can have unpredicted bugs and unwanted behaviour, and therefore all updates can suffer the same likelihood of things going a bit awry.

On rare occasions and for some users, the cure for fixing a number of issues with the original iOS 8 version was worse than the disease itself.

Within a few hours, Apple pulled the update from their servers due to "an issue" and said that they were "actively investigating" reports of users having problems.

Some of the problems include network issues whereby the iPhone ceases to be able to access the mobile carrier - effectively turning their phone into an expensive iPod. Not cool!

We're sure Apple will work this out and have an iOS 8.0.2 update ready to roll out in the coming days.

If you were one of the poor unfortunate souls who immediately updated from iOS 8.0.0 to 8.0.1 (the "more broken" version), here's a guide from our friends at iMore to help you revert back to 8.0.0.

Some iOS users are unhappy with the latest update (iOS 8.0.1) - pic courtesy of mactrast.com

New iPhones Delivering to Brisbane Customers Today

As always happens when new major mobile devices are released, we're keenly awaiting the delivery of ours to add to our testing pool.

For anyone who has been living under a rock, Apple have today started shipping their latest iPhone handsets (iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus). Some 4 million units were pre-sold in the first 24 hours of the release last Friday, so there's clearly a massive appetite out there for these new toys.

Everybody is getting in on the act, including - of all places - Qantas who will let you buy an iPhone 6 (16GB) for 132,000 Frequent Flyer points.

Qantas Frequent Flyer Selling iPhones ?  Yup!

Yesterday, iOS 8 was released as an update to some existing users (iPhone 5 and 5S owners, for example) and aside from some lengthy installation times our clients have reported that they are impressed by the new features available in this latest update.

The shift from iOS 7 to iOS 8 isn't as massive as iOS 6 to iOS 7 last year, so far fewer broken apps are emerging than did a year ago at the last major release.

Some challenges will be had by existing app publishers (our clients) with the new devices because their screen sizes are new. We have yet to see how old apps perform on the new hardware, but our simulators show that older apps should be just fine for the most part.

Apple have a new suggested development method, which we have started implementing already. This new method allows for better scalability of the types of deliberately-designed apps in which Creative Intersection specialises.

If you are an app publisher with an existing app that needs updating to be compatible with iOS 8 or the new iPhone 6/6+ devices, give us a shout to set up an obligation-free appointment to discuss your needs.

(Update 9:58am - first iPhone 6 received by our office via TNT courier)
(Update 2: 22/9/14 9:20am - first iPhone 6 Plus received by our office ... 7 days ahead of estimate)

Apple Getting Fired up for iOS 8 and iPhone 6 Releases

All signs are pointing towards as big a launch of iOS 8 as had been predicted when we attended the World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) back in June.

Earlier today, a number of changes were rolled out to the layout and some of the features of the iTunes Connect system (the online service developers and publishers use to submit and manage apps in the App Store). These were mentioned during WWDC and have finally arrived.

It's the first time in a couple of years that the iTunes Connect system has had any significant change made to it. Apple don't do such things lightly, and generally do so alongside of other functional changes.

For example, we can expect the new TestFlight Beta Testing Service to be managed through iTunes Connect.

This is the stuff that we nerds get excited about, but some consumers are already starting to queue up for the iPhone 6 even though the launch event isn't until 9th September and the likely release date of the device to Apple Stores is 18th September. You can watch the live stream of the launch event if you have nothing better to do at 3am (Brisbane time).

Here's what the interface looks like today:

Main Page of the New iTunes Connect (as at 5th September 2014)

An Example of an App Listing in the New iTunes Connect (as at 5th September 2014)

Creative Intersection develops apps for Android and iOS, with equal fervour and zeal. Give us a shout if you'd like us to apply our expertise to your idea.