MODERN APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT

We’ve just submitted Clocks, our multi time zone alarm clock to the app store. Fingers are now firmly crossed!

Clocks basically grew out of the work we we’re doing for the job timer app. Basically, once you’ve gone to the trouble of creating a nice looking updating LCD display, it seemed a shame not to use it.

I’d already considered creating a Rosebrae version of the bedside clock that’s popular on the app store, but it was the specific need to have multiple time zones available at a glance that gave me the idea.

With family in at least 3 widely differing time zones now, I wanted something to help me keep track of their time, and I thought a fusion of that with a bedside clock app might be an idea. Certainly it’s an app that I use everyday and every night.

Sent this out a while ago, but have recorded here for posterity.

Press Release: iPhone Developer denies being a 4 (Munter).

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sep 24, 2009

Auckland, New Zealand – Andy Griffiths, lead developer of the new iPhone application iRateEm has denied that he is the fat bloke seen in the applications screen shots and that he rates a 4 (Munter).

Despite being short enough to be cast as an extra in Snow White and weighing over 85kg, the NZ based Brit stated "There’s no way I’m a 4, that’s so unfair. I’m at least a 6 (Not Bad) or a 7 (I would).

The new application, iRateEm, was released earlier this week and is designed to allow users to take pictures of people they see on a night out and pass them around their mates, taking turns to score their attractiveness. The loser is the player whose score is the furthest from the group average.

Although the game has received criticism from some quarters for encouraging a shallow view of people based on physical attractiveness, Griffiths is unrepentant.

“If it’s shallow to want to take a picture of a perfect stranger and immediately subject them to a judgement by my pissed up mates based on how big their booty is, then I hold my hand up and admit to being shallow. In reality iRateEm was actually conceived as a means of fostering better communications between the sexes and promoting peace and harmony for all, and there aren’t many better ways of doing that than passing around a picture of your mate Daves’ mum, who’s at least an 8 (Oh Yeah)”

Whilst the application has been praised for being well designed and written, there is strong competition from within the iTunes AppStore. Griffiths, however, is bullish.

“You’ve got to be joking, have you seen our main competitors developer? He’d be lucky to rate a 3 (Moooose) and quite frankly I have him down as a 2 (Double Bagger). Don’t tell me that a bloke with a face like a bulldog chewing a wasp is going beat us!”

iRateEms’ features:

- Take pictures of people you like (or not!)
- Use existing pictures from your photo collection
- Save collections of pictures as sets for future use
- Customise text descriptions of each score and an insult for the loser

Pricing & Availability
iRateEm is available for purchase for US $1.99 on the iPhone App Store

Update: This was picked by Krapps

Clocks has just been released to the App Store. No problems with review, thankfully, but I’m busily now putting all the marketing in place. Iphone development certainly has stretched my skill set ;-)

App Store link is here

When I check the App Store this morning I almost spat my tea all over the Mac.

Clocks was ranked no.4 in the US Utility category.

Alas, it was not to be, turns out there was some sort of glitch at Apple HQ.

For a while, though, rumour was rife amongst developers that Apple had changed the rules and was employing some different algorithm when calculating the ranking system.

That’s not good.

Unfortunately, it speaks volumes about the lack of trust that now seems to exist between Apple and iPhone devs that anyone gave it any credence at all.

So far, there hasn’t been any communication from Cupertino about what happened, so we’ll wait and see if any explanation is offered. Frankly if people have lost money (and they will have) then someone should be on the blower double quick wringing their hands in abject apology.

Meanwhile we’ll see if this has any effect on Clocks’ sales.

I’ve been meaning to get a few tecchy posts up, but the ongoing shenanigans in the AppStore keep diverting me. Briefly, the lastest rumour mill is that any updates to an app now won’t get shown in the newly released section in iTunes.

For anybody who doesn’t know, having your app appear in that section is one of the major ways that a new or updated application gets air time and free marketing on the AppStore. Since a large proportion of people find apps by browsing in the AppStore, this is a big deal.

Of course, devs have been gaming this like crazy and many release frequent updates to their apps which contain little or no new functionality, just to keep getting the publicity. Not that I blame anybody for this – for an indie developer, getting any publicity for an iPhone app can be an uphill task without an advertising budget.

I’m more concerned about what this says about Apple. Again.

CAVEAT – At this point this is all still rumour, and it may be part of the ongoing issues with the AppStore at the moment.

That said, if this does mark a policy shift by Apple, it sucks. It sucks root.

Why? Because it’s just another example of Apple having a hidden set of policies which developers then plan their entire release lifecycle around, only to have the rug yanked from under them once again because Cupertino decides to switch things around.

More on this as we find out more, but I really hope this is just another glitch.