Politico: “I came here to warn you, the party may be over,” Franken said. “They’re coming after the Internet hoping to destroy the very thing that makes it such an important [medium] for independent artists and entrepreneurs: its openness and freedom.â€
Bummer.
tap tap tap: “The reality is the gold rush days of the App Store are long over – that’s not to say there isn’t loads of gold still locked up in the hills, it’s just all the easy gold deposits have been scoured and panned for and found. The market has matured, and App Store customers’ tastes and demands have grown more sophisticated. Success stories these days tend to be of hard earned fortunes and corporate bought victories instead of the parade of indie lottery-winner stories we heard again and again during the App Store’s early days.”
Back when Jay and I were working on RxCalc I was hoping to make a few hundred dollars a month. The reality of it was all together something else. A few dollars a month. On a good day we sell five copies. I haven’t given up on the idea of making a living on iOS or OS X, but it’s not going to be easy.
Scripting News: “1. If you make a Twitter client, you have a bit of time to get out of that business. If you were thinking about writing one, don’t.”
I haven’t read the entire “consistency and ecosystem” post but there’s a lot of language in there around do’s and don’ts. A lot of it is to help make the service as good as it can possibly be, you don’t want, or need, a bunch of spammers abusing the API’s, right? Me neither, but what about Twitter advertising, or things like the #dickbar that had users of the Twitter iPhone client up in arms? What if your client WAS REQUIRED to show the #dickbar? How would you feel about that? Probably not so good.
Is it time for that distributed “Twitter-like” service without the single authority? Maybe.
If you’re a Twitter Client developer you’d better read the new Twitter API Terms of Service, now.
Good morning movie liners, we have a winner.
Congratulations to Mr. Chris Ledoux!
The correct answer was…
as delivered by Edna ‘E’ Mode.
Good morning, here’s the line, good luck!
Ok, quick, what movie! Send your guesses here.
Manton Reece: “Free apps and the problem of exclusive distribution are linked. Get rid of free apps, and the store can support itself naturally. Get rid of exclusive distribution, and Apple can be more creative about charging developers who do want to participate in the App Store. If Amazon isn’t happy with Apple’s terms, users can install the Kindle app outside the store and it doesn’t cost Apple anything to maintain.”
I can’t see this happening, but I’m sure a lot of folks would like to see it. I don’t happen to be one, at least not today.
Mike Ash: “As anyone who does threaded programming knows, it’s difficult. Really difficult. Threaded execution results in highly unpredictable timing with how multiple threads interact with each other. The result is that code which appears to be correct and passes tests can be subtly flawed in such a way that it fails rarely and mysteriously.
There are many rules to follow when writing threaded code, but the most important one is this: lock all access to shared data.”
If you’re a Windows developer, and have had the pleasure of coding a threaded application, OSAtomic sounds pretty darned familiar, without reading Mike’s article. If your brain instantly went to InterlockedIncrement you’re not alone.
Threading can be difficult. Read what Mr. Ash has to say if you’re new to Cocoa, or new to development. Threads can be your best friend or your worst enemy.
Design then Code: “Building iOS Apps From Scratch is an introduction to Objective-C and Cocoa for first-time coders. It explains Obj-C’s unique syntax, the Cocoa frameworks, creating and using objects, Model-View-Controller, and how to build an app’s interface. This is suggested reading before tackling project tutorials.”
This is Mike Rundle’s latest project to help the iOS Design and Development community avoid creating Frankenstein applications. Mike’s a rare breed, he’s a great designer and he gets Cocoa and Objective-C, which makes me a bit green with envy.
If you’re a beginner, and can’t wait to build your first iOS App, you could do a lot worse than purchasing the Design Rookie and Cocoa Rookie packages together. Heck, if you’re not sure, give the free tutorial a spin before purchasing. That should give you some idea of the quality to expect.
Well done Mike!
The Unofficial Apple Weblog: “Now that the MacBook Pro refresh has happened and the iPad 2 is out, what’s left for the rumor mill? The iPhone 5 of course. Citing a Chinese source, Japanese site Macotakara claims that Apple is abandoning the current iPhone 4’s exposed antenna/glass backside construction for the iPhone 5. The iPhone 5 will supposedly have an all-aluminum rear case similar to the iPad 2. Wireless signals will penetrate the case via the Apple logo, which will be made from a plastic resin, presumably similar to the black bar on top of the 3G iPad 2.”
It looks like the new iPod Touch, which isn’t so bad, but this just doesn’t pass the smell test. I’m not buying it.
Apple Core Labs: “My frustration with the disconnect between us and our customers on the App Store continues to grow. For RxCalc we typically see ratings that have to do more with lack of features, or new features, than the features we actually have. Don’t get me wrong, that’s great! The problem is we have NO way of communicating with these users to find out what they really want. We can make an educated guess and hope we’re correct, but that’s the best we can do.”
I posted this back in early February. If there are any iPhone development shops out there that have resolved this problem I’d love to hear from you.
Oh, and if you’re a Pharmacist using RxCalc we’d appreciate your feedback here and at the App Store.
Thanks.