Leftovers

One thing about developing software for mobile devices ….

… you end up with a lot of old stuff.

Before I donate anything I can and responsibly dispose of the rest, does anyone want any of it? We’ve got docks and chargers, old PDAs and phones, cases and sleeves, folding keyboards, and a few other odd items. I don’t know what works and what doesn’t, but if anyone’s interested in any of this for some reason (maybe trying to make some interesting art out of old electronics), send me a reply here or on Twitter. I think it’s all pretty useless, but maybe someone else won’t.

NewsBreak Lite Free from Total Access

I was excited to see that NewsBreak Lite is now available for free from Microsoft’s Total Access service for Windows Mobile. NewsBreak Lite is the free version of our NewsBreak feed reader/podcast grabbing software. The app is great and the price is right so if you have a Window Mobile device you definitely want to grab a copy.

If you aren’t familiar with the Total Access service, here is the official blurb from MS:

Total Access is your guide to all the things you can do with your Windows Mobile phone. Make your phone unique with free ringtones, games and themes, find helpful software and other extras that further enhance your phone, and get premium help and support from user forums, so it’s easier than ever to get more done on the go—that’s Total Access.

It’s a pretty cool service for Windows Mobile users. Definitely something you want to check out even if you already have NewsBreak (or RSSHub which is the HTC branded version of NewsBreak.) They have a ton of great stuff and are adding more all the time.

The Myth of "Not My Problem"

I’ve read some really interesting comments regarding the problems in the AppStore. One thing that came up a few times, however, is something like this: “Who cares? This sort of stuff has no impact on the consumer.” I’m posting today to explain why this is a myth - problems with the AppStore that developers are having directly and negatively impact the consumer.

If you’d like to hear why a silly icon rejection is a big deal to you, read on…

I’m not going to frame this with a lot of color text - let’s get right to the point.

1. No Features For You! Apple is preventing you, as a consumer, from getting upgrades and features you deserve. Right now, users of eWallet can’t use Copy & Paste because Apple delayed our update over an icon.

2. New Features OR AppStore Compliance Updates: You Choose This sort of stuff eats up developer time which in turn cheats you out of better products. Instead of focusing on things that will actually benefit our customers, we’re messing around playing AppStore acceptance games.

3. Diminishing Returns No matter how good a platform or outlet is, developers will only take so much. At some point the system become onerous enough that it makes more sense to focus on other markets. This is the long term cost of this sort of thing – and at some point there WILL be a powerful competitor.

4. Too Risky for Good Products Illogical, petty, and ever changing acceptance requirements will cause developers to think twice before making a major investment in an iPhone application. If you don’t know whether your app will even get in, you reduce your initial investment to protect yourself. That means you, as a consumer, end up with apps that don’t hold a candle to what a developer might have risked in a more stable environment.

None of these are speculation – in every case I’ve seen it happen in the AppStore already, or in the case of #3, I’ve seen it happen on other platforms. And remember, the problem they are talking about isn’t just about us – this is affecting numerous developers.

So yes, these little and seemingly silly issues have a VERY REAL COST to the consumer. It’s easy to think “Meh, not my problem.” but in the end (as always) the consumer is the one who pays the price.

New Wave of Apple Rejections - Including eWallet!

Apparently someone is on a graphics kick over at the Apple iPhone app approval center. Thanks to the iPhone card icon in our application, Apple has rejected the eWallet update. Even though the icon has been there since we released eWallet (the week the AppStore went live), apparently the icon is now a problem so we have to remove it.

We aren’t the only ones running into this sort of thing lately. The folks over at TapBots ran into almost the same thing- an icon that’s been in their app for ages that Apple has suddenly decided is a problem. Like I said, it seems more like an “issue du jour” than a real problem.

Still, like TapBots pointed out, we’ll go ahead and pull the iPhone card icon (sorry to those of you using it) because we know there isn’t anything we can do and we want to stay in the AppStore. The frustrating thing is that it took weeks to find this out and may take weeks to find out if the change we make is good enough. Crazy store requirements aren’t anything new - we’ve been dealing with those for years (and not just from Apple). What is a problem is this whole “wait a month to get your product out while Apple lumbers through the review process.”

Hey, Apple! Clean this process up, will ya?

And the Power Returns

Our electricity came back late Friday afternoon. We’ll try hard to return all the emails and phone messages today. Apologies to everyone who was inconvenienced.

No Electricity Today

Our office lost power about noon today (Friday), and it looked very much like it was going to be down for a while, so if you’re trying to reach us, please try again Monday. Thanks, and sorry for the inconvenience.