I’ve written in today’s Guardian (What’s in store for iPhone app developers?) about how to get your killer iPhone app idea into the App Store, even if you don’t have the technical know-how, or the funds to hire a developer.

I spoke to Dave Swartz at MEDL Mobile about his company’s App Incubator scheme, and Rob Shoesmith, one of the first applicants to have his idea developed. Rob is recording his progress on Twitter. I also interviewed Ethan Nicholas, developer of the hugely successful iPhone game iShoot, and William Kehl, creator of the website iphonefreelancer.net.

Elsewhere in today’s Guardian, Bobbie Johnson points out that only the developers of top-selling apps are likely to strike it rich. And with over 40,000 apps already competing in the App Store, and 2,700 new ones being added every month, making money from apps is no easy feat.

For those tempted to try app development, Ethan Nicholas offered some advice that didn’t make the finished article: ‘iShoot looked like a relative failure at first, not even breaking into the Top 100 and selling poorly. It took what essentially amounted to an advertising campaign, in the form of iShoot Lite, to spur sales to this level. The best advice I can offer is “don’t give up”.’

[Today's Technology Guardian also flags up this blog's response to an article from last week on digital music. The full blog post is here.]

Technology iPhone, The Guardian

Two interesting pieces on piracy in today’s Technology Guardian:

First up, Victor Keegan on music downloads, explaining why the music industry’s insistence that ISPs stop the flow of illegal downloads is boneheaded and unworkable.

‘The music industry simply won’t give up blaming everyone but itself for the sorry state it claims to be in,’ he writes. ‘If ISPs are responsible for pirate music flowing past them, then ditto for pornography and everything else. Great idea: I can sue my service provider whenever a virus gets onto my PC. How dare they let it through!’

Keegan points out that the companies offering solutions for the furture of music – Apple with iTunes, Nokia with Comes with Music, Spotify, Last.fm etc – are coming from outside of the music industry, which is presumably too busy getting all litigious about teenagers illegally downloading the odd track they can’t yet afford to pay for.

It’s easy to see the future of music moving away from the outdated big record companies, with artists linking up directly with the likes of iTunes and Spotify, leaving Simon Cowell and co wondering whatever happened to the 1980s.

Next, Mark Harris on movies, and the RealNetworks vs Hollywood trial. Seven movie studios are suing Real over its RealDVD software, which allows users to make digital copies of their DVDs – with copy protection left intact, and without the ability to burn extra discs.

Harris quotes Real vice-president Bill Way: ‘Here’s the interesting thing. They have not brought a copyright infringement case against us. They have not brought the classic Universal v Sony VCR case, I presume because they knew they would lose it.’ As Harris points out, Sony is now one of the studios suing Real.

Is ripping a DVD to a PC any different from ripping a CD to an iPod? If you pay £16 for a DVD or £11 for a CD you should be entitled to watch or listen to it in any way you choose. Making a copy for personal use cannot be piracy, otherwise 90 percent of the population must be criminals. How about the studios focus their efforts on developing alternative delivery methods (ad-supported streaming movies, perhaps)?

Harris says DVD sales are declining by 20 percent a year in the US. This has little to do with piracy. If Hollywood really wants to save its skin it should probably stop churning out so many crappy movies.

Film, Music, Technology Piracy, The Guardian

My story on the ebook format war is in today’s Guardian. It was clear from this week’s London Book Fair that the UK publishing industry is finally ready to embrace ebooks. But before the ebook can really challenge its paper equivalent, the industry has to avert a format war a whole lot more complicated than VHS vs Betamax. Read more here.

Books, Technology eBooks, The Guardian