Tomorrow begins WWDC 2011, the annual Worldwide Developer Conference for iOS developers and Mac OS developers. ArcTouch’s San Francisco based app development team will be there for the entire 5 days. There’s been alot of speculation about what is going to be announced at the WWDC keynote address, but here’s two things that ArcTouch would like to see.

AppleTV Apps

AppleTV makes it simple to enjoy your music, photos, and video through your TV/home theater system in the comfort of your living room. ArcTouch believes that what’s coming next is AppleTV apps. Imagine the possibilities if you could install any of the hundreds of thousand of iOS games on your AppleTV? It would put Apple on equal footing in the living room with Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft, and open up a whole new world of possibilities for iOS app development companies like ArcTouch.

We hope that at WWDC Apple opens up the AppleTV platform, much like they opened up the iPhone platform 3 years ago, and allow 3rd party developers to create apps for the AppleTV. We would be excited to see an updated version of Xcode and iOS software development tools that help you reformat your apps to take advantage of the AppleTV UI with minimal effort. We would also expect that AppleTV apps could be developed that allow the AppleTV and other iDevices (iPhone/iPod touch/iPad) to work together. We believe you’ll use your iPhone/iPod/iPad devices as external controls to your AppleTV – like game controllers. The screen on your iDevice will be a companion display to the app running on the AppleTV, and your touch gestures or shake/tilt movement on the iDevice will control the app on the AppleTV (think like a Wii controller). Imagine of a sporting game app, such as multi-player football, where each player controls their team and can set their plays on their own iDevice, but the rest of the game runs on the AppleTV. Now THAT would be fun!

iCloud For App Developers

Apple announced they will be unveiling something called iCloud at WWDC. There is wide speculation that iCloud is a cloud service offering for streaming music to consumers’ iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, Mac/PC and AppleTV. Although this is a likely component of it, ArcTouch feels that there must be more to the iCloud announcement, since the unveiling is during WWDC – a developer-oriented event and not a consumer-oriented event.

We’re hoping that iCloud is also for app developers, and provides a suite of cloud-based services that helps iOS developers create better apps in a shorter amount of time. We can imagine something very similar to the cloud services provided by Amazon’s Web Services or Google’s App Engine. Xcode and the iOS SDK can be updated to provide developers with the building blocks that allow their apps to easily connect to and use cloud services for user storage, synchronization and playback. Cloud services would allow developers to minimize much of the heavy lifting of setting up and managing IT infrastructure. They are cost-effective, reliable, scalable, and secure. This would fit nicely with AppleTV apps, since the AppleTV is more of a streaming device and has little local storage, so it could rely on the iCloud services for access to app specific content.

We’re sure that it’s going to be an exciting week at WWDC and we look forward to whatever is announced, but AppleTV apps and iCloud services for app developers would cross off two items on our wish list. We’ll be waiting on line for the keynote at 7:30 AM tomorrow at the Moscone Center with our fingers crossed!

The keynote address was full of exciting news:

• iPhone 4 with a high resolution screen and video conferencing
• iAds interactive app-based advertisements
• iPhone OS 4, now known as iOS 4

The last item is perhaps the most significant in our mind, since it always seemed clear to ArcTouch that the future of Apple is devices based on the iPhone/iPod/iPad platform and not the Mac OS X platform. This simple name change, combined with no mention of Mac OS X in the keynote address, now publicly suggests the phase out of the Mac OS, and a rise of touch-based devices that look and function more similar to the iPad in the future.

For most people, this may be a welcome direction. The iPad has proven to be simpler device for most people to use than their traditional desktop and notebook computers. The instant-on behavior and the instant-access to a wealth of music, video, books and app content has changed the consumption model and usage of these devices. We see this as a tremendous opportunity. The app ecosystem will continue to grow and we are excited to help our customers be part of it.

Yes, there will be a Mac OS 10.7 some day, but we say that will likely be the very last in the long proud line of Mac OS X.

Thanks Mac OS X!

You set the bar for a modern gorgeous operating system, and made it possible for the iOS to exist. Now go and enjoy your retirement.

New “Beam It!” App Sends Contact Information Wirelessly Between iPhones

San Francisco, California (June 4, 2009) — ArcTouch, developers of custom software applications for the iPhone, today released Beam It! This is the first generally available application that uses the new spontaneous peer to peer connectivity features of the iPhone OS 3.0.

Beam It! allows you to wirelessly “beam” your contact information to another iPhone or iPod Touch, and features automatic discovery of other handheld devices near you running Beam It!

“The original Apple Newton and the Palm Pilot had the ability to beam contacts between devices. Now, with Apple’s new iPhone OS 3.0 and Beam It!, we have brought back this fun and useful feature,” said Adam Fingerman, ArcTouch’s VP of Products and Solutions. “This is simply the fastest and easiest way of sharing your contact info with friends or new business associates.”

Truly Wireless with Zero Configuration

Beam It! automatically discovers other nearby iPhone and iPod Touch devices running Beam It!, and then uses Bluetooth to spontaneously create an ad-hoc peer to peer network to share contact information. The automatic discovery and connection is handled seamlessly by Bonjour, without any need to manually set configurations or pair devices.

Free to iPhone Developers

Beam It! is immediately available to iPhone developers at http://arctouch.com/beamit. With over 5000 developers expected at Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) next week, these developers will be able to easily exchange their business card contact info wirelessly – without the need to retype names into their iPhones.

“If you’re a developer and planning to attend WWDC, you should download and install Beam It! before you go. At the conference, with everyone running Beam It!, you won’t want to be the only person left out carrying a bunch of business cards,” said ArcTouch’s CEO, Eric N. Shapiro. “We’re excited about the peer to peer connectivity and other new features in iPhone OS 3.0. We’re glad to offer Beam It! free to developers in advance of WWDC so they can use it to easily share their contact information.”

ArcTouch is also providing the full source code with free usage rights to members of the iPhone Developer Program so they can see how to use the new peer to peer APIs in the Game Kit framework. Visit http://arctouch.com/beamit for more information and download instructions.

Availability

The Beam It! source code and Xcode project are available now to iPhone developers at http://arctouch.com/beamit. Consumers will be able to get Beam It! for the iPhone and iPod Touch directly from the App Store soon after iPhone OS 3.0 is released by Apple.

About ArcTouch

ArcTouch, Inc. develops custom applications for the Apple iPhone, RIM BlackBerry, Google Android and Palm Pre. The company was founded by ex-Apple employees and is located in San Francisco.

Android Application Development

There’s alot of momentum around the Android platform and we’re thrilled to be an Android application developer. Most of the Android sessions we attended were standing room only, and the Android development team fireside chat proved to be one of the best sessions.

Over 20 New Android Handsets

Google announced that there’s over 20 new touch-based Android handsets expected to ship in the next year across all major carriers at many different price points. That’s a huge number and means that if you’re considering writing a custom application for your business you should make sure that Android falls into your top 2 or 3 platforms to deploy for after the iPhone.

We got our first taste of one of these new handsets from the HTC that Google gave to each attendee. It’s a great phone and the Android apps that ArcTouch has developed look and work great on it. We’ll have a full review of the phone in an upcoming blog post, but if the other new Android phones coming this year look and work the HTC then Google has a winner.

Google Wave

One of the most interesting sessions was the unveiling and live demonstration of Google Wave, a three year old research project that blends various forms of online communication and information into a unified form. Think of it as a stream of email, instant messenger, Twitter style posts and more for real-time communication and group collaboration. It’s first available as a series of developer tools and APIs and consumer oriented applications should follow later.

We imagine various ways we can leverage Google Wave in custom mobile software applications for our customers. The best part is that Google Wave isn’t limited to our Android development, but we can also leverage it in the software apps we develop for the iPhone, BlackBerry, Palm and other phones.

Overall a great conference with an abundance of smart people and great food and drink (and robots!). Next up on the mobile developer events calendar is Apple’s WWDC!

Google IO Developer Conference
May 27 – 28 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco

At Google IO, developers come together to learn how to develop applications with Google technologies, such as the Android phone platform, App Engine, Chrome, Google Web Toolkit, AJAX APIs and more. We’re particularly looking forward to the Android Fireside Chat, where members of the Core Technical Team will be available for a candid discussion about Android app development, including the brand new Android OS 1.5 (based on the Cupcake development track) and perhaps a sneak peak at the Android OS 2.0 release.

Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC)
June 8 – 12 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco

WWDC is THE event to learn every aspect of iPhone development, and this year’s WWDC will have extensive coverage of the new iPhone OS 3.0 and how to create innovative mobile apps that take advantage of new features such as in-app purchases, peer to peer connection via Bluetooth, communication with hardware accessories, and alerts using Apple Push Notification service.

Palm Pre Availability
June 6

Just two days before WWDC starts, Palm is set to introduce the Pre – one of the most anticipated new touch-based smart phones. The Pre’s webOS allows multiple apps to run at the same time, which provides a distinct advantage over the iPhone, and we’re excited to develop for it.

ArcTouch’s developers will be attending Google IO and WWDC and we’ll have reports on our blog. We’ve also started an events calendar for mobile phone software developers, such trade shows, development conferences, industry announcements. It’s where we’ll track events like the ones mentioned in this blog post.

So, like we said, it’s a great time to be a mobile phone software developer! There’s so many exciting things going on. It’s also a great time for our customers, who now have even more choice and opportunities to reach out to their customers through apps that complement their existing business’ products and services.