Paramount Pictures using apps to promote new films; Super 8 movie in theaters today, iPhone app in May

As the week winds down I'm torn between looking at a new German tablet edition for a daily newspaper, or a promotional iPhone app for a movie that has gotten mixed reviews – the movie wins!

Paramount Pictures is releasing a new film today, Super 8, which is directed by J.J. Abrams, and produced by Steven Spielberg – in others words, it has plenty of box office potential.

So, this being the era of smartphones and mobile apps, why not release an app to go along with the new film? And that is what Paramount did back in May. Super 8, the app, was initially a free download but will now cost downloaders 99 cents.

While the app is being distributed by Paramount Digital Entertainment, it was created by QMx Interactive and Bad Robot Interactive, though my guess is that QMx Interactive, headquartered in Canoga Park, California, is the actual developer, as Bad Robot is actually a company owned by the director J.J. Abrams.

The app has gotten great reviews, while the film is a more mixed affair (here is the A.O. Scott review from the NYT).

The app, like several other photography apps, is a filter-based app that adds effects to the video shot shot using your iPhone such as scratches, color variation, X-Ray and negative, etc. As someone who used to actually shoot Super 8 film (though I generally shot 16mm) it is funny that there would be an app that would add defeats to the results in order to duplicate the Super 8 experience when we used to work pretty hard to make sure these same defects wouldn't appear in our shot film.

Paramount is now using app development as a regular part of its movie marketing efforts. In addition to the app for Super 8, Paramount has launched an iPhone app for Thor, a universal app for The LXD, and an iPad app for the Coen Brothers film True Grit.

The Guardian says its new iPhone app has been downloaded over 400K times; no word on tablet edition

The Guardian today bragged that its newest version of its iPhone app, launched in January has been downloaded over 400,000 times – its first generation iPhone app was downloaded over 200,000 times after its debut in December of 2009.

Despite this, the paper seems to remain of two minds concerning app development: admitting that its mobile app now accounts for more than 10 percent of its traffic, yet still with only its The Guardian Eyewitness app available for the iPad, an app released very early on – and there is still no word of an Android app which has encouraged the creation of a couple knockoff apps.

The iPhone app released earlier this year comes in two flavors: while the US app is free and is supported solely by advertising, the other app only offers limited content for free, but then requires a modestly priced subscription to access the complete content – £2.99 for six months or £3.99 for a full year.

The Guardian announcement gave no clue to its future tablet plans. Back in January The Guardian's editor Janine Gibson said an iPad app was in development and that whatever would emerge would not be a replica edition. "You want to do something that feels appropriate to the device… we’re not a fan of PDFs with the sound of a page turning," Gibson told its affiliated website paidContent.org.

Lodsys patent lawsuits get attacked on two fronts: Apple files motions in case, while Michigan company files new suit in Illinois court seeking declaratory judgement

Florian Mueller, on his Foss Patents website, reported early this morning that Apple has filed a motion to intervene in the Lodsys patent lawsuit case.

According to Mueller, the developers involved in the patent case are bound by a non-disclosure agreement, preventing them from speaking on matters involving Apple. Assuming the Eastern District of Texas court allows Apple into the case, their position appears to be the same as expressed in its letter to Lodsys from two weeks ago, that developers, and Apple, are protected by the existing license agreement.

So far only Apple has asked to intervene in the case. One of the developers involved in the patent lawsuit is the developer of an Android app and so far nothing has been heard from Google. This illustrates the importance of the Apple letter and now its move to intervene: developer relations are vital to the success of any tech company's mobile and tablet platforms, and so companies such as Apple and Google are most likely compelled to defend their development partners in such situations – or else face a backlash from the development community.

Two days ago Mueller also reported on the case being brought by ForeSee Results, a research and consulting company which has a mobile app in the Apple App Store called ForeSee Results Mobile Portal.

The Michigan based company is seeking a declaratory judgement against four Lodsys patents. As Mueller explains, a declaratory judgement would not force an end to the Lodsys lawsuits, but would put the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, the court where ForeSee Results filed their case, on record in the case pending in Texas – as Mueller writes, "It can prevent a lawsuit, or even a whole series of lawsuits, by resolving an issue pre-emptively."

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étapes redesigns its English language print magazine into a free, natively developed iPad edition

The French design website étapes has launched an iPad app edition of its monthly English language magazine. Etapes magazine is a free app which also currently gives readers free access to the content, as well.

The app is a natively designed iOS app for the iPad which is designed exclusively in landscape, but because of the amount of photography and animation found within still weighs in at 440MB. It can be found under the Lifestyle category in the App Store.

The app does not create a library, so either an updated app will have to be released for this, or else the publisher will choose to launch separate apps for each edition published.

As separate print edition of the quarterly magazine can be found in the Zinio digital newsstand, as well, for the rather odd price of $36.19 for four issues.

This new app is the third to be released by the publisher: Etapes HD is a French language app of the design site's daily news, and Open Projects, which is $7.99 book app and describes itself as "a stroll to the heart of contemporary design, from Amsterdam to Montreal."

To illustrate the cover and uniquely designed TOC, as well as the animation, here is a short video look at the app:

Question: why do so many news sites have to quote others in regard to Apple's developer guidelines?

Whether they have intended to or not, quite a number of media news websites (and magazines) have revealed a rather startling fact today: they don't have access to direct information about Apple's developer guidelines because they are not developers themselves.

First a definition: an Apple developer is someone who has registered with Apple and paid the $99 fee to become part of the program. One does not need to actually create an app themselves. So if you want to know what is in the guidelines one simply signs in and looks at the guidelines themselves.

But unfortunately it appears that those who write for many of the leading news sites that report about such matters are completely left out in the dark and desperately in need of others with access to the developer site in order to write their stories. It is as if I were writing a recap of yesterday's Giants game (they won) without seeing the game myself, only reading reports from other sources.

Do you find this shocking? I have to admit that I do. Not everyone who writes about apps will be a registered Apple developer, but I would think that those who write about the subject of app development guidelines might consider it a good idea to become one. I certainly would not employ a reporter to cover the subject without this little detail being taken care of, would you?

No wonder then that so much misinformation is being posted today. I don't demand that the reporter that covers the Giants has been a baseball player in the past, just that he knows the rules of the game. It especially helps when the subject of the story is . . . the rules of the game.

Google's Doodle and in-house development

This morning's Google Doogle, probably one of their best yet, reminds me of a conversation I once had with a newspaper manager a few years ago.

I was speaking with someone who was in charge of all things digital at a major Midwestern newspaper discussing online video. We were offering an opportunity to add customized video content to their website and the woman in charge had some questions about what they would need to do on their side of things.

Somewhere in the conversation she said "you know, we don't want to become programmers here." At first I let the comment go by. Later, when it was apparent that the newspaper had no interest in online video, claiming that they wouldn't be able to see ads for the video, I had to say what was on my mind.

I asked the newspaper manager if they had people on staff who knew anything about digital photography. Of course, she answered. And did they have people on staff who knew how to create charts and graphs it illustrate news stories. Again, of course they did. So why would they be against employing people who could help them develop new digital products? The answer was that that was not what newspapering was about, that they could outsource that activity.

It's an odd attitude some publishers have concerning programming and developing. Yet when the industry transitioned from hot type to cold type to desktop publishing the publishing executives of those eras saw the importance of having those skills in house.

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For the record, the Google Doodle above is a tribute to Les Paul, the guitarist, songwriter and, more famously, a pioneer in the development of the solid body electric guitar.

YouTube is quickly filling up with examples of people using the Doodle to create music videos. Here is a little Beethoven: