iPhone

A preview of things to come

by

I expect to submit PicSlide by the end of this week. It’s a picture puzzle which lets you choose one of our included pictures or one of your own, with two board sizes and four difficulty levels. Slide the rows & columns until you solve the puzzle.

IMG_0829.png

If the 4×4 puzzle is too easy, try an 8×8 puzzle:

IMG_0831.png

All of the included photos are my own, taken in Fort Lauderdale, San Francisco, and Vancouver. Since it doesn’t access the internet, *hopefully* I won’t have too much trouble getting it approved and I should be able to use a 4+ rating.

Beta Testers needed for ICHC

by

I need ICHC users who are experiencing the crash to beta test a possible fix. I’m fairly sure what’s causing the crash, although I’ve been unable to duplicate it myself (it has to do with your saved position setting and the number of items changing, due to a feed problem). I would like someone to verify that it actually does fix the crash before I submit it.

In order to send beta copies, I will need your iPhones device ID (not the serial number). To get the device ID, click once on the serial number in iTunes when your iPhone is connected.

iTunes
Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!

The device ID will then be displayed. You can simply hit Command-C to copy it to the clipboard.

iTunes
Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!

After this bug is fixed, there will be no further updates to version 1.x. I’m completely rewriting 2.0 (which, of course, will be a free update) using Three20, the open source framework used for the FaceBook app. There will be a completely new user interface, much faster switching, zooming that actually works properly, and *maybe* a thumbnail view.

Before version 2.0, I have another application I’m getting ready to release very soon. I’ll be writing more about it later this week.

I switched to OmniFocus

by

I’ve gone back and forth between Things and The Hit List for a while, but I was never completely happy with either one of them.

I like THL’s user interface and flexibility to set up nested lists & folders, but I’m frustrated with the lack of an iPhone app, which I find essential.

I use Things just for their iPhone sync, but I’m frustrated with its inflexible structure and lack of folders or outlines with subtasks.

After trying the Mac app for a while, I finally took the plunge today and got both the Mac & iPhone versions of OmniFocus. Like The Hit List, OmniFocus allows complete flexibility to create outlines of subtasks and it goes even further by letting you promote a task to a project. iPhone sync is even better than Things, which can only sync over the local network. OmniFocus syncs via Mobile Me, so you don’t have to be near your computer to sync with it.

OmniFocus is more expensive than the other applications but it’s well worth the price if you want complete flexibility and iPhone support.

ICHC Crashes

by

I’ve been receiving a lot of reports of ICHC crashing recently. I’ve never been able to duplicate any of those crashes myself, but from looking at the crash logs available in iTunes Connect I have an idea of what’s crashing them.

The crashes seem to occur when restoring the last viewed item results in an index out of range. We use a scraped feed (which is hosted on one of ICHC’s servers) that returns pages of 10 items each, to reduce the load time. I’ve seen a few instances where items, usually videos, are missing from the scraped feed, and in that case it returns a page of fewer than 10 items. If you happen to have been viewing item 10 the last time you quit and the next time you end up with only 9 items, it will crash.

I’ve put in some error handling for that case, but if you’re experiencing that crash, I’d like to have you test it before I submit the update, so email me your device ID and I’ll add you to my beta list. Note that Apple can take several weeks to approve an update, so even if I submit it right away, it may be a while before the update becomes available.

This will be the last update to this version. I’m doing a major rewrite for version 2.0 using Three20, the framework used in the FaceBook app. This will be a free upgrade.

Before I do much on v2.0, I’m finishing a new application I plan to release first. More about that in the next few weeks.

Easy way to add sound effects to your app

by

Every game needs sound effects. A free gem called cxfr makes it easy to create retro video game sound effects and export them for your game. You start with one of their presents like pickup, laser, explosion, hit, jump, or random and adjust the sound to your liking using sliders. You can then export your sound as a wav file to use in your Mac or iPhone applications.

I Can Has Cheezburger free version STILL not approved

by

I submitted version 1.5.2 of both the free & pro versions at the same time. As you know, ICHC Pro was approved a few days ago. The free version is still in review.

I got a call from Apple today asking about a contest (which I figured out was probably one of the ads). Thanks to AT&T’s wonderful wireless service, the call was dropped right in the middle. I wasn’t able to return the call and they haven’t called me back.

U CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER NAO!

by

I Can Has Cheezburger ad free 1.5.1 (actually 1.5.2, which I replaced while 1.5.1 was still in review) is now ready for sale. The free version, which I submitted at the same time, is still in review, although the old version 1.5 is available again.

You can download ICHC (ad-free) here, or if you prefer the free version, download it here.

New features in this version:

  • Shake to shuffle
  • Movies show web page immediately instead of click to play graphic
  • Action sheet no longer shows ‘save to photos’ for movies
  • Can now email images rather than just links in OS 3.0
  • Allows you to log into ICHC (pro version only)
  • Supports movies from Viddler at FAILblog and other sites

Note that not all Viddler movies are playable; the person who created it has to specifically enable downloading for it to work.