Archive for December, 2008
Beta Testing my App, Part 2
Well, I figured out how to create an ad hoc provisioning profile and distribute my app.
The only problem is that it only worked for one person. The other two people I distributed the app to couldn’t get it to work. That is pretty strange since I put all of their devices into the profile. All of them should have worked, or none. So I don’t know what’s up with that.
My next strategy is just to submit the app to Apple’s AppStore. 
Beta Testing my App
I am at the stage now where I can beta test my app. So I went to Apple’s developer website to figure out how to sent beta versions of my app to friends, and the instructions there were less than lucid.
I understood the part about getting my friend’s Device ID’s, and creating a new provisioning profile. But things got muddy from there.
I found some 3rd party instructions online, but they mention stuff in the Build Settings in Xcode that I simply don’t have. Grrrr…
I know a few of you are waiting for a copy of my app, so please be patient. I’m working on it!
Shakedown
For the past couple days I’ve had some free time between assignments that have been rather short. So I’ve had a chance to work on my app.
I guess it wouldn’t be that big a deal to reveal that it’s yet another Xbox Live friends app. Back when I though of the idea, there were no other apps like this, honest! But since then, a couple have appeared, and I have wondered if I should just give up on the idea.
I decided to tough it out and complete the app, as a learning experience if nothing else. My app will have a couple things that make it unique, so I think that it’s going to be truly more useful than similar apps out there.
One thing that I’ve done recently is to load up the friends and show them to the user, and only then retrieve the information from the servers about each gamer’s online status. This makes the app come up quicker, and we all know how important responsiveness is.
One of the issues I had was that I was doing the server update stuff on a separate thread. Often after doing the update the gamers’ statuses weren’t being properly reflected. Then I remembered that GUI updates should really be done on the main thread, so performSelectorOnMainThread came in really handy to fix that problem.
Now I’m having a couple problems left that I need to fix.
One, I’m using an image in the detail view, and I used a colour picker to match colours, but it still doesn’t match the colour surrounding it, which is very frustrating. I went to great lengths to make sure the colours matched, but now they don’t. I wonder if the iPhone changes colours slightly when loading a PNG? That doesn’t make any sense, though.
As well, I have a problem where the gamer’s avatar image is incorrect. Tracing through the code, it all looks okay, but I’m sure I’ll find the bug eventually.
So yeah, my first app is one I’ve been working on (and off) for a long while. Now that I have some time on my hands, I hope to complete it soon.
On the other hand, having time on my hands isn’t good for paying the bills, so I’m also looking for my next assignment. Several people have said maybe in January. I realize that December is a bad time to be looking, but that doesn’t help me pay for my kids’ Christmas gifts!
iPhone Developer Profiles @ Mobile Orchard
Mobile Orchard, a great iPhone blog, has started a profiles section. You can add yourself as an iPhone developer, you can endorse others, and hopefully others will endorse you as well.
I’ve created a profile there , but I don’t know if I’ll get any endorsements because I know so few people in the iPhone world. We’ll see.
At any rate, I thought it was a good idea and I’m giving it a try. We’ll see how useful it is as time moves on.
Promotional Codes are in, Still no Demos
According to MacRumors, developers can now issue 50 promotional codes for their iPhone applications. So as a developer, you can give out 50 codes for people to download your app for free. This means that people like those at Veiled Games don’t have to send review sites money anymore to cover the cost of purchasing their games.
This is great news for those who want to promote their apps to review sites and journalists. But it doesn’t solve the problem of demos. Many developers want to have demo versions of their apps with unlock codes that’ll allow people to use all the functionality of the app. This is not possible today. Instead, developers have to issue two versions of their apps to the AppStore.
Either way, this doesn’t affect me yet. I’m doing custom iPhone work for others who have to worry about publishing to the store. And my first app is going to be free, whenever that is!
Chewy Apps on Twitter
If you use Twitter, you can now follow Chewy Apps through “chewyapps”. That’s thanks to a cool utility called TwitterFeed which takes any feed and creates Twitter tweets out of it.
Also, I had a couple interviews on the weekend for iPhone development jobs. I think I did well. Both of the opportunities sound excellent, and if they both want me I’ll have a very hard time deciding which one to take.
That said, nothing’s ever a sure thing so I’m still looking around for iPhone programming jobs. It looks more and more like contracting will be my future, which is weird because I’m so used to being an employee.