A little while back my friend Charles Perry and I decided to try our hand at putting together a podcast. While we’re fully aware there are lots of great tech podcasts out there vying for your precious listening time, we thought together we could offer our own spin on things and add a bit more to the conversations going on in the independent iOS and Mac development communities.

I’m a big believer in giving back to the community in any way I can. While my occasional rants on this blog are one of my favorite ways to do that, I also thought maybe it was time to start using my physical voice as well as my internal one. Plus, having a discussion with another developer who might actually disagree with me on occasion could certainly be interesting and beneficial to shaping my views. Charles is a really smart, opinionated guy, so hashing out these topics with him made perfect sense to me.

Release Notes, then, will be a weekly half-hour-ish show geared towards fellow independent developers. Those who are new to the game looking for tips and tricks, and those who are just curious to hear from two other people in the same boat. It’s not a technical show at all; our tagline is “everything but the code.” Rather, it’s about the business of app development.

Episode one covers tech conferences. Why one should or shouldn’t attend them. How to get the most out of them. Even some specific conferences we recommend.

Next week, episode 2 will cover the scary prospect of quitting the day job and going full-time independent.

After that, given the timing, we’re going to talk WWDC. (And I’ll give away some of my secret tips on where to find the best coffee, bourbon, and Scotch whiskey in San Francisco.)

Hope you enjoy. We’d love to have your feedback. We’re just getting started with this thing, and already I can feel the conversations are just going to get better and better over time.

Find out more about Release Notes at releasenotes.tv.

Subscribe via iTunes, or search for us in your favorite podcatcher software. Our feed is http://releasenotes.tv/feed/podcast/.

Take a look at this picture.

For movies, Apple gives us the same customer reviews we get for apps on the App Store. But before those, and much more prominently, we get the Rotten Tomatoes score and blurbs from several professional reviewers.

Do this for apps, and the problem would be solved entirely. No need for us devs to respond to customer reviews that are bogus. The pro reviewers are going to be fair and more prominent.

Meanwhile, the customers can still post their views and be heard. Just not as loudly as professional critics who make a living writing about apps.

So someone needs to create a Rotten Tomatoes for App Store reviews. Pull in reviews from Macworld, Macstories, iMore, the Loop, etc. Average them. Then Apple can show blurbs with links to detailed reviews, just like they do with Rotten Tomatoes for movies.

Everybody wins.

Free Trials and Tire Kickers – Marco.org: “But PC-class pricing would fundamentally change iOS buying habits, and we may not like the results.

Browsing the App Store and getting new apps, often spending a few bucks along the way, is a form of casual entertainment for a lot of people. This role used to be filled by movies and music. Today, it’s filled by browsing the internet and playing with mobile apps. Usually, they’re games, but not always — modern mainstream culture, especially younger people, seem to be more interested in media and social apps than games.

This apps-as-entertainment market falls apart if app pricing rises above casual-disposable levels for most people. Few people balk at spending $1-3 for something that doesn’t end up being that great, but when someone’s $30 app is disappointing, that’s going to stick with them and inhibit future purchases.”

(Via marco.org.)

Marco is absolutely right when he says that free trials on iOS wouldn’t solve every developer’s problems, and could actually hurt certain categories of apps.

The thing is though, for anyone making apps that aren’t games or “tire-kicker” experiences, the lack of free trials is absolutely crippling. I don’t want the average selling price on the App Store to be $50 for weather apps. I’m fine with casual apps that are priced according to their purpose. I just want my phone and my iPad to do a lot more than “apps-as-entertainment” allow them to do, too.

We’re not seeing a more sophisticated level of software on iOS not because the iPad is a weak computer. Not because touch interfaces are toys. But because the economics of the App Store make sustaining such an app near impossible. It’s simply not worth the investment.

That’s not just bad for developers. It’s terrible for Apple in the long run, too. And it’s terrible for customers.

PayPal exec aims to “obliterate passwords from the face of the planet” | Ars Technica: “Phones could also authenticate a user with voice biometrics, eye scans, or facial recognition, he said. On PCs, there would be a browser plugin which could recognize the authentication methods that the system is capable of. A USB stick loaded with FIDO software could also work, allowing users to authenticate to computers they don’t own. Google is reportedly working on similar ways to eliminate the password.”

(Via ars technica.)

I’ve made it clear on at least one occasion how much I think user names and passwords are futile. This FIDO concept has me very excited, indeed.

About that Bloomberg report of ‘falling iPad mini demand’ – Apple 2.0 -Fortune Tech: “But Bloomberg’s Tim Culpan came away from Wednesday’s conference with a different story, one with an anti-Apple slant that got widely picked up… Focusing on the fact that after growing 162% year over year in Q1 Pegatron’s revenues from consumer electronics were expected to fall 25% to 30% in Q2, he set out to pin the blame on the iPad mini.”

(via Fortune.)

Ok. So we no longer need to suspect that there’s a concerted effort out there to spin news negatively toward Apple to support the ready-made premise that Apple is failing. Thanks to Phillip Elmer-DeWitt, we now have clear proof.

You’re supposed to let the facts dictate your conclusions, folks. Not the other way around.