After multiple complaints from parents and other App Store users about mistakenly buying in-app purchases, the Cupertino company is finally addressing the widespread complaint. Last week, Apple quietly updated the App Store to add a note to the “Free” apps in the store that mentions on the bottom that it “Offers In-App Purchases.” This warning is currently displayed only on the iTunes App Store, but will likely be available on iOS soon, as that is where the unintended purchases are usually made.

A number of users, mostly parents have complained that their children unknowingly make purchases for upgrades, and other tokens inside of applications. Some of these In-App purchases can range anywhere from $1 and sometimes can go past $100.

There have been a number of reports on the issues that customers have had with the flawed in-app purchasing system, including a five-year-old boy in Britain that charged £1,700 to his parents credit cards through in-app purchases in the game Zombie.

Apple has been sued by some customers, including a man from Phoenixville, PA, who filed a lawsuit against Apple, claiming that the company was allowed to “pocket millions of dollars” off of unauthorized purchases. In order to address the concerns, not only has Apple added the new warning, the company has also begun to refund money and give $5 iTunes credits to customers who filed claims that the in-app purchases were an error. It is unclear what other actions Apple will take if the issue persists.

{Via AppleInsider}

Apple now has over 300,000 apps in the iOS App Store and over 100,000 in the Mac App Store. It’s almost impossible to fathom just how successful both App Stores have been and how much more potential it has, to become even a bigger part of our everyday lives.

Late last week, Apple introduced a new promotion in both the Mac App Store and the iOS App Store, called Free App of the Week as well as Editor’s Choice. The Free App of the Week is self explanatory based on the name and builds on Apple’s past app giveaways via retail outlets such as Starbucks which began to offer select apps and even iBooks every week via promotional codes.

This week’s Free App of the Week is the normally priced 99 cents, Cut The Rope: Experiments app which is currently posted on the front page of the iTunes App Store. Apple has also added Editor’s Choice, with certain apps gettting a separate distinction than others in the App Store and posted to the front page alongside the Free App of the Week. These apps are likely judged on their usability, development, and popularity.

For this past week, the chosen apps were Deus X Human Revolution and Cobook in the Mac App Store. The iOS App Store’s Editor’s Choice apps were Extreme Skater and as expected, Facebook Camera. Apple continues to build on its App Store for both iOS products and the Mac and gives developers all of the spotlight.

This latest promotional addition will give app developers a chance to showcase the hard work and effort that they put into developing credible and fun apps for Apple’s App Store.

{via: TUAW — Image Credit: Arstechnica}

Apple purchased San-Francisco start-up, Chomp, in February in order to utilize its App Search service for their own App Store. However, Chomp retained its app search service for Android users, until late last week. Apple likely decided to pull support for Android in order to minimize the usage of the website and focus it on iOS applications. Chomp also has the possibility of being integrated into iTunes, so that the service can access the data directly from the application, as opposed to users going to the Chomp website.

Apple has surpassed 25 billion app downloads from the App Store, making it one of the most successful applications stores out there. Chomp would allow Apple to organize all of its applications, and let users find them more easily and efficiently. Searching for apps in the iTunes App Store can be quite the task, with limitations on sections of apps, and type of apps.

Chomp was purchased by Apple for $50 million, a substantial amount of money, when considering that Chomp would be integrated into Apple’s ecosystem and would become one of the many features in its operations.

As of right now, Apple has not released any plans as to what they intend to do with Chomp, but the Cupertino company has made it clear that they are no longer supporting Android.

{Image Credit – TUAW}

Apple has opened up a new section in the iTunes App Store that highlights some of the Retina Enabled apps for the New iPad 3. On March 7th, Apple announced the New iPad, with high resolution Retina Display, A5X chip and an updated camera.

The section is called “Great Apps for the New iPad” and takes advantage of the higher resolution display of the New iPad. Games in the “Great Apps for the New iPad” section include Flight Control Rocket, Sky Gamblers, Infinity Blade II. Also listed are apps such as Tweetbot and Evernote.

The third gen iPad has already launched in many countries including the United States and is now available in very limited quantities. The new iPad now supports the highest resolution on a mobile device and as Apple explained it has more pixels than a full HDTV. The display also improves the saturation and makes photos, text and games look amazing on 9.7 inch display.

Even though the overall design hasn’t seen any major changes Apple continues to dominate the tablet market with a product design that is almost one year old. iPad (third generation) has witnessed huge demand and even after initial shipping delays Apple has recorded new sales record for the new iPad.

Apple has effectively said that any apps published in the iTunes App Store must be developed using its own tools, and based on a certain subset of programming languages. Depending on which camp you are in this is either Apple simply being evil, or a reasonable set of restrictions to allow Apple to provide a stable environment for developers and customers alike as they try to push their platform forward and maintain market dominance. That last bit might be a problem in more conservative observers eyes. But business is business, and Apple is hardly breaking the law by dictating how it would like its business to run. People are free to choose other platforms after all.

Until this news is confirmed by a more reliable source, I would tend to think it is purely speculation, or a fishing attempt by certain hacks.

The gist of the article is something along the lines of someone has said that someone familiar with the matter has knowledge of ongoing discussions inside the US Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission about who gets to investigate the “case”.

It is possible it has been discussed inside the “government”, and even worth considering that the discussions were at the behest of Adobe. Who were rumored to have considered both legal and governmental angles to try and force Apple to allow Flash on its devices. Then again someone inside the government may have simply picked up the chatter on the web and raised it over coffee one morning.

Adobe have recently said they will not pursue the deployment of Flash on the iPhone, and are concentrating on other mobile devices instead. It should be noted that Adobe have not shown anyone a working version of Flash on a mobile device to date though.

This rumor is perhaps what sparked Steve Jobs to pen his letter on Flash last week.

Officials at both the Justice Department and FTC have apparently declined comment so far. Apple did not return calls seeking comment either.

We’ll keep you posted.

Let us know in the comments if you think Apple should or should not be investigated.

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