Apple Patents A Tool Allowing Non-Developers To Build Apps

If you think the iOS app ecosystem is big now, as it pushes some 600,000 apps available for iPhone and iPad, just imagine how big it could become if Apple made good on this newly filed patent application titled “Content Configuration for Device Platforms.” The application describes a way for non-developers to create iOS apps using a simple, graphical interface.

Whoa.

Of course, it’s just a patent application, and Apple files tons of these things. So you can’t point to it and call out what it describes as a confirmed, forthcoming feature for the iOS platform.

But an Apple-provided DIY app building tool does makes some sense in terms of a way to envision the future of mobile computing. Remember, there was once a day when only “webmasters” could set up and maintain webpages. Now everyone just starts a Tumblr to share their thoughts with the world. Why shouldn’t everyone have the opportunity to try their hand at app creation, too?

Obviously, non-programmers today can build apps through the use of third-party app building services, but most mainstream users don’t know about those. Apple introducing a basic app builder of its own would serve to raise awareness about the existence of these kinds of tools.

Specifically, the patent app (unearthed by Appleinsider this week) describes something of a “WYSIWYG” (What you see is what you get) system for app building, stating the need to make app building more broadly accessible.

Reads the application:

In many instances, computer-programming languages are a hindrance to electronic content creation and, ultimately, delivery to content consumers. Often content creators and designers simply lack the skill and the knowledge to publish their mental creations to share with the world. To begin to bridge this gap, content creators can use some electronic-content-development tools which allow content creators to interact with a graphical user interface to design the content while an electronic-content-development tool puts the computer-programming code in place to represent the electronic content on a user’s computer.

Apple’s proposed authoring tool would provide a series of templates, allowing users to insert various actions and animations, like a “pan to view” function or purchase function for a checkout screen, for example.

Notably, the application describes the apps it would create as able to work on various screen sizes. Although the patent app doesn’t quite confirm the existence of an Apple television, it does say that there have historically been challenges in developing apps for different screens:

Even if a content creator successfully creates his electronic content, it is unlikely that the content is optimally configured for each device on which the user will view the content. Originally, digital content was created without having to account for device capabilities. The digital content was going to be viewed on a computer or television having a display of at least a certain size, with at least a certain resolution, if not multiple resolutions. Accordingly, it was possible to generate only one version of the electronic content and that version could be expected to be presented properly by the user’s device.

It goes without saying that there would be some issues to overcome in implementing a system like this – after all, the App Store has rules about the apps it approves and Apple’s staff curates submissions to keep out the spam. But who’s to say that in some far-flung distant (or not so distant) future, there won’t be a way for users to exchange self-built apps amongst each other, sans App Store intervention?

That would be an ideal way for people to build and share apps serving a temporary need, for example, like one created for a hastily thrown together meetup or event. It could also allow people to create their own personal apps which they would only share with a small circle of friends – think baby announcements, wedding apps, vacations photos, etc. Publishing these non-professional apps to the greater App Store could be an optional final step in the creation process, perhaps.

As for the DIY app makers already out there, while such a system would compete with their offerings to an extent, Apple’s validation of the space would mainly serve to help their businesses grow by essentially providing free marketing about the possibilities.

Now all we need is a whole new user interface for our iOS devices themselves. Given that Apple has sold 316 million cumulative units of of year-end 2011, these sad, little app folders won’t be able to keep up with all the apps created by this possible DIY app explosion.

What’s In A Name? Australia Wants Apple To ‘Change The Name’ Of The iPad Over 4G Incompatibility

Looks like we may see another development today in Apple’s ongoing iPad/4G controversy in Australia. The country’s Competition and Consumer Commission is meeting with Apple in court again today to try to get Apple to officially change the name of the device when it is sold in Australia.

Although many people know the tablet as “the new iPad” since launching the product in March, Apple has also been marketing the product as the new iPad with ‘Wi-Fi +4G’ in Australia and elsewhere. Apple quickly ran into trouble in Australia when the ACCC said Apple was misleading consumers: in fact, the tablet is not actually compatible with the country’s 4G networks.

Since then, Apple has agreed to refund consumers who bought the device thinking they were getting 4G; and the company has also been putting up notices wherever the iPad is sold warning them that it didn’t work with Australia’s 4G. But the ACCC, it seems, does not think this goes far enough.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Apple and the ACCC met today at a mediation hearing “without a resolution” over whether Apple would change the name of the device. The two are due to meet again later today in a “directions hearing” in Melbourne to decide the next course of action.

The case has two levels of significance for Apple: on one hand, it’s an embarrassing admission of one of its products falling short of what Apple claims it can do. That’s bad news for any company, but, as with “antenna-gate” and “heat-gate” these knocks always seem to attract disproportionate attention, partly because Apple has played everything so well up to now with its wireless devices.

The other issue for Apple is that similar questions are getting raised in other markets, like the UK. If this case in Australia progresses, then it could act as a precedent for how Apple has to market its products (and offer refunds) in other parts of the world.

One country where the consumer watchdog is looking at Apple is the UK, where the advertising standards watchdog, the ASA, is apparently deciding whether to formally probe Apple over how it markets its new iPad in the UK.

Currently, the only commercial LTE network in Australia  is run by incumbent carrier Telstra but it works on a different radio frequency from the one in the iPad. The device does work with Australia’s 3G and accelerated 3G services, eg HSPA.

There are reports that Telstra is working on changing the frequency of its 4G LTE in the country by the end of this year, which would throw the 4G iPad back into play: that could be something that Apple is using in its arguments in making any more concessions to the ACCC on this matter.

At the moment, Apple’s language around 4G in Australia is mixed. It may be making the lack of 4G clear in stores, but when you buy the product online, two different messages appear. In search results (top right) you can see that the product is still being called the “iPad Wi-Fi + 4G”, but when you actually click on the product to proceed with the purchase (below right), you then get the message that the device is actually “not compatible with current Australian 4G LTE and WiMAX networks.”

At the very least the case today may see Apple clear up some of that kind of wording on its site.