Marc

For a while now, there has been a lot of speculation about just what the Apple AppStore review process consists of. Do they actually run the applications? Is it simply a rubber stamp? Is there any sort of criteria for acceptance or rejection? As a developer with a product in the AppStore I can confirm that the review process is very real and frankly this is a good thing!

The reason I bring this up is that besides having to prove export approval, Apple asked us for a copy of the desktop portion of eWallet so that they could review the synchronization process. Never that I know of have we had a distributor specifically tell us that they were going to test sync. Maybe they did, but I’m not convinced of that. I’m fairly certain the review process for most device software stores is much looser.

Now this process means some waiting to get apps OK’d by Apple, but in the end I believe that people will come to appreciate Apple’s careful approach to this. It will save hours of frustration for consumers who often have to “beta test” applications that don’t actually work as advertised.

So in the meantime, we’re waiting patiently. The Apple black box isn’t quite so black anymore (more of a dark grey) so we know what is happening and where we are in the process.

And in the end, I think the extra time folks have to wait to see an app go live will prove to be a long term benefit for everyone involved.

Every now and then we receive an email from a customer who shares an eWallet “Success Story” with us. Now admittedly, as is the case in this example, these stories usually involve some sort of misadventure, but eWallet is the silver lining! We love to hear these, because stories like this are part of the reason we created eWallet. Making enough to pay the bills is certainly a motivator, but the thing that makes this job so fun is working on a product that really does help people!

So here it is! A very cool eWallet success story:

I was pick pocketed in St. Petersburg, Russia; I had my iPhone with ewallet and was able to cancel all credit and debit cards within an hour of the event.  Thanks for great software.  Now I’m looking forward to being able to synch with a version on my PC.

The thing the customer told me (I promised him I wouldn’t share his name) was that he’d entered all of the “Call of Lost or Stolen” numbers from his credit cards into his eWallet cards. No searching for old billing statements at home, no wracking his brain to figure out which cards he had. He just opened eWallet and started calling.

So there you go! A little bit of self-congratulatory back patting, I know, but the story put me in a great mood so I just had to share it.

Hey everyone! I just wanted to let everyone know that as of today, everything for eWallet 6.1.2 with complete iPhone Synchronization is on it’s way! Apple has the software, the desktop portion is locked and loaded, and all preparations are complete! We expect it to go live sometime next week!

Full details after the break, and as a warning, there are quite a few screenshots in case you’re running wireless…

[Read more…] about We have liftoff…

I’m going to risk sounding like we’re patting ourselves on the back here, because I really want to publicly acknowledge the great job Lee is doing. Lee is one of our support folks and has been with us for almost 7 years now. She does a fantastic job of helping people out, and if you ever call here for support it’s very likely that she’s the person you’ll talk to.

The inspiration for this post is a note somone left on tinyapps.org that read:

Ilium Software / eWallet: Best Support on the Planet
Lee Stutesman at Ilium Softwarewent WAY above the call of duty today (via toll-free support, no less!) in helping fix our Palm HotSync issue with an ancient version of eWallet. These guys set the standard for shareware support. If Rackspacehas “fanatical” support (a fair assesment, BTW), I would call Ilium’s “completely and totally berserk” (in a good way – think “spider monkey on crack all over your tech problem” – there is no way that it is going to go unresolved). Thanks to Lee, I have become a lifetime cheerleader for Ilium.

 So congratulations Lee! And thanks for all your excellent work!