The iPhoneSpree started last week on Wednesday and so far more than a 1,000 people are following the initiative on Twitter @iPhoneSpree and many have also participated by mail.

The idea of the iPhoneSpree was born with Victor Agreda Jr from TUAW when he visited us in our offices a month ago in Paris.

Since then, we have been contacting developers we liked from all around the world to get them to join the initiative. We had a very positive response and the Spree was soon populated with amazing apps.

The #1 iPhoneSpree succeeded in gathering 18 iPhone applications from 13 independent developers :

• Michael Krause – Real Artist, TiltShift
• Mobiata - FlightTrack Pro
• Audiorealism – Technobox
• RaizLabs – TipCalculator
• FORMation Alliance – Press Check, Eye vs.Eye, Kern
• Eric Métois – iChalky
• MagicTap – FakeCalls
• IllusionLabs - Sway, Labyrinth, TouchGrind
• Avatron Software – AirSharing
• RogueSheep – Postage
• ZoozMobile – ZoozBeat Hip Hop
• Intua - Beatmaker
• Visuamobile (event organizer) – EarthSecrets

We can’t thank them enough for taking part in this adventure.

A $1,000 worth of applications will be given away on June the 3rd at the end of the #1 Spree and 80 participants will win app bundles.

The #2 iPhoneSpree is already on its way. Many developers have already contacted us to join.

Visit the iPhoneSpree.com and follow @iPhoneSpree to get a chance to win amazing bundle of apps

Don’t hesitate to send us your questions and comments at support@visuamobile.com.

A PostSecret/Ocarina Mash-Up

I always have been a fan of PostSecret.com. And  obviously, not the only one. 228,084,571 people have visited the blog and more than 30K follows PS on Twitter since it has been recently added. What really amazed me with PostSecret was that it was the first time a website felt so ‘human’.

And recently, I was also fascinated by the Ocarina app from Smule. Not because you can play music with it, but because of the globe. Because of the idea the world could so easily gather on a phone screen.

That’s how the idea of Earth Secret was born.

Earth
The 3D globe was done first. I wanted it to be brighter than the exising ones. Once it was done, we fine-tunned all the globe prameters: zoom factor, inertia, deceleration, axis and background.

UI
After this OpenGL ES globe interlude, we designed the UI (back to Objective-C). We wanted it to be ‘dead simple’, letting a maximum space to the globe and the secrets. We tried to get nice and bright colors but also avoid any childish stuff as I wanted the app to feel serious.

Animations
Then, we had to decide how to animate the secret, how it would pop-up on the screen. It was a difficult choice as it had to be ‘un-computerish’ and smooth. We finally settled on an animation that is the exact opposite the way your secret flies to your GPS location on Earth when you post one.

The Rules
Finally, we had to set the rules. Obviously, the secrets had to be moderated. It was suggested it could be nice to answer other people secrets or rate them. I felt like secrets didn’t need any answers and that rating was way out of line. So, we created the ‘Hugs’ to allow users to communicate their sympathy and keep track of their favorite secrets.

After many tests and some corrections required by Apple, the app was posted and released on the AppStore. It is available here for free.

This blog is meant for you to point out what could be improved, so don’t hesitate to comment.

Sam Gwilym at Apple Insider has just reviewed the app, you can see his post here: ‘Earth Secrets reveals the dark side of iPhone users’.

The community is growing and we are happy to see that most people are posting really touching secrets.

Don’t forget that you can browse the 3D globe with your finger to see the secrets in the area you are interested in (instead of pressing the ‘Next’ button). You can also have a look at your personal stats in the ‘i’ section of the app and see the most read and most hugged secrets.Most importantly, don’t forget to ‘Hug’ other people secrets when you like it and spread the love.

As one of our user said it ‘All those views and so few hugs…send some good Karma, please!‘

*Most hugged secret so far : ‘Hug me. Just do it. Please‘

PS: The ‘I am Batman‘ secret was really funny. Thanks to whoever posted it, it made our day.

Get Earth Secrets on the AppStore while it is still free

Our latest app: Pin Up Weather is available on the AppStore.

Weather forecasts are now brought to you by a sexy Pin Up who dresses according to the current weather. We really hope it’s hot and shiny where you live…

Features:
- Accurate worldwide weather forecast: sky condition, “feels like” temperature (Metric and English system), Forecast station ID and hour of prediction for more than 3 000 000 locations in the world.
- Choose to be located either by iPhone GPS or Wifi or just type in the name of any city
- Compatible with iPhone and iPod Touch with OS 2.0 or better
- No video download

You can get the application here

As always, we have made a video presentation for our upcoming application: Earth Secrets
I hope you will enjoy it. Earth Secrets should be available in a few days on the AppStore

Earth Secrets will be free when released for a limited time, so don’t forget to get your free copy and post your secrets !

We totally understand our customers. Indeed, you deserve to benefit from a true support and we apologize for the time we took  answering some of your mails. Visuamobile is still a start-up so everything is not going the way it is supposed to be and Support has unfortunately been forgotten. We know it can be frustrating for you not to have answers right away.

We just wanted to say that we are doing our best dealing with what has to be done and we will make significant efforts to dramatically improve our support in the days to come. We really hope you understand.

gNotes and Robots are now available for free on the AppStore. We really hope you will enjoy it. You can get gNotes here and Robots there. 

We are about to release new applications. The first one is called Eliza and will be released on March, the 3rd. The second one is still a “secret” and will be released mid-March. 

Stay tuned !