My incredibly awesome pwnage in Civilization IV:

I have begun work on the next iteration of StreamDesk for Mac OS X, version 2.0. Much is to be unveiled in the coming months as progress continues.

Today, I would like to announce a few snippets of information:

1. Code Rewrite
2. New Interface
3. Media Shelf

So I was reading this article about “100% confirmed sources” that the iPhone would be getting faster specs, which would mean faster networking speeds. I would just like to point out that this is what I like to refer to as “common sense”. Most products are updated in this kind of fashion, getting newer or better parts to incease the product’s stats.

Anyone could of predicted that the iPhone would get faster and more powerful in mid-June-July. One reason, is because it will, and the second is because June-July is the time a new iPhone revision is released. Lastly, June of course would be a perfect spot due to annoucements at Apple’s WWDC (which seems to be held more frequently in June).

Here’s the article:
http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/03/23/att.on.new.iphone/

I’ve updated the site a bit, and added a new blog about Objective-C.

The reason for me to write this has to do with all the articles I’ve read on the matter.  One in particular, written by  Scott Mortiz of TheStreet.com located here.  From what I’ve read, apparently people were expecting hardware updates,  and newer flashier features for the system software.

To get started, I’d like to say that the flyers sent out for the event clearly stated this was for software only,  Apple appears to update the iPhone in early summer, and the iPod in fall.  Secondly, the major portions of Apple’s products are about the software (”…The big secret about Apple, of course–not-so-big secret maybe–is that Apple views itself as a software company…”- Steve Jobs).  I’ve seen many articles wondering about hardware for the next generation iPhone, people that are saying other companies, like Palm, are beating Apple in that devision.  This is what I’ve been wanting to know, has any of these people seen an iPhone before?  Have they noticed how simplistic the shell of it is?  How virtually every control is software base rather than hardware?  The iPhone has bluetooth, Wifi, an accelerometer, 24 bit full colored 163 DPI screen (I still see many phones with 16it screens), GPS, 3G, and camera, so what else does it need?  At the most, it seems many features only need a few minor updates in the next version.

Other “review” like “news” articles pointed out how few new features are in the iPhone OS 3.0 update.  Apparently to them, 100 new user based features isn’t enough.  As for me,  I’ve been waiting a long time for Spotlight and to be able to use Apple’s own set of applications in landscape mode, like Mail and Notes.  Copy and Paste is a hyped up feature that many people wanted, however it’s not that big a deal to me.

What is a big deal to me is something that most writers ignored.  The 1000 new APIs in the iPhone OS 3.0 update.  I guess it doesn’t mean to much to people that don’t quite understand what it means to a developer.  However 1000 new APIs doesn’t just effect us, it effects the user as well.  It’s hard to put in so little words how important this is for the user.  Imagine all the new applications or new updated ones that you already own.  All the features that will be added, making them much more useful.  Who cares about user system software features, when most people are using 50+ 3rd party applications instead.  As a user, I’d much rather have the programs I bought from the App Store become more useful, than getting copy and paste.  In my own opinion, most apps right now are basic and mediocre.  Apple didn’t originally give enough APIs for small developers to do much.  Larger corporations did what they did through their own custom code, something many indie developers don’t know how to do or don’t have the man power to do so (Like in app emailing or multiplayer games with bluetooth).

All in all,  I think this new update is huge.  Before this, I felt that Palm’s Pre had a good chance of becoming a major competitor to the iPhone,  I was actually hoping for it.  However, do to the new version of the iPhone OS and what Palm gives to 3rd party developers, I doubt the Pre will hurt the iPhone market at all.  I give the same argument to Android.  They are great efforts and I hope they continue to improve, but they still don’t seem to be close in proximity to the level of the iPhone… yet.

At this time, there are many new APIs I have been hoping for, which allow me to make the applications I’ve had in my head for some time.

This post is being published before the new update is downloadable, so it might not be there when you read this.  I have changed a few things in the new release.  The first one is Mac OS X Tiger compatibility.  There have been many feature requests for this.  The second major feature is changing the way the stream data is downloaded.  A major bug was found that only allows admins to update the stream due to permissions if the application was located in a high permissions location (like the Application folder).  Along with this, there have been a few minor bug fixes as well.

Between all the software development I’ve done for the past while, my true passion is game development.  The first thing that got me into programming was making games.  Right now, I have so much stuff going on, however I still want to move things around so I can start making iPhone games.  I already have many ideas of what to make, though I don’t know where to begin.

Video game development is not like any old programming.  It’s the most challenging fields in software.  You need excellent programers, musicians, artists, and normally a pretty good sized budget.  I myself can handle programming and some graphics, however I have little skill in music.  At this point, I have a basic opengl based engine in the works.  I have looked at other engines, like Unity3D (I have the desktop licensefor it), however that’s over kill for the types of games i want to make.

I probably have over 1000 game ideas in my head, but I am having a hard time picking the simplest one, so I can get a foot in the door.  Apparently on the App Store, customers are brutal.  They want incredibly good games that take up to 6 months of work (if built by a large group) for no more than 1 or 2 dollars.  I know that  I, myself, can’t do something like that alone.

I have continued work on my implementation for IRC.  I began this project with my GeeksRadio application, released on March 1st.  I have begun to think about developing my own IRC application for the iPhone.  Right now there are about 4-5 of these programs on the App Store, so I don’t know how well my own app will play out with the others.  I do believe my implementation has some advantages over the competition, however I do see weaknesses as well.  If you have any insight or have used the GeeksRadio iPhone application do feel free to add a comment.

I am also working on a ported version of my IRC system for Mac OS X.  It will be added with the new version of StreamDesk.

When the iPhone was originally released, the first thing that came to my mind was excitement about a new development platform.  I was a bit disappointed when I found out Apple was only allowing developers to make web base apps for it.  However, I knew eventually they would release a native SDK for it.  I can’t imagine why a software company like Apple, who spent all that time porting OS X over to the ARM processor and making Cocoa Touch, just to create a few apps for it.  I also noticed it’s way of representing applications to the user, which looked similar to the Wii.  This gave away the fact that the iPhone OS was designed to hold more than just a few Apple branded applications, along with the jailbreaking teams’ work on discovering the ability to move application icons around and multiple pages to move them to.

There was one other thing I had a feeling about, which is what I wanted to do on the iPhone OS since I saw it’s introduction, games.  Apple has been slowly adding to their road map, video game development.  This has been shown countless times now, from iPod touch ads, to demonstrations at WWDC (Apple’s Worldwide development conference).

Now it is 2009, and after messing with the iPhone SDK and a few project ideas over the past year, I finally got one of them finished and added to the App Store.  My appliction was uploaded on February 24th, putting its release date as March 1st.  It’s now on sale, which is one of the causes for me to write this blog post.  I want to share my own experiences and thoughts on the App Store.

The first thing I’ve noticed, is the approval process.  It seems Apple has gotten more strict on the rules.  I, myself, was worried that my application wouldn’t be approved the first time.  Most applications seem to be rejected once or twice before being approved.  Mine however, was approved the first time.  I was quite happy and excited about this if you didn’t already realize.

I impatiently waited for the application to get reviewed, however every time I checked, it still said “In Review”.  Although I should point out, I checked about every hour of the day, for four days.  It was finally the end of last day of February, and my application was still “In Review”.  At this point I had given up hope it would be released the day I wanted it to be.

The next morning, I was bombarded by messages from people.  All of them saying my application was on iTunes!  I jumped for joy at this good news, and had seemingly discovered that Apple puts priority of applications based partly on the date you specify for release.  I’m fine with Apple doing this, however it doesn’t give much room between rejection and the release date if Apple doesn’t approve your work.

After getting all excited about my app being on iTunes, I started getting a little frustrated.  Apparently there is a syncing and refreshing issue with the App Store, both in iTunes and on the iPhone.  My application did not appear on the release list until the day after it was released.  It also did not register reviews until the next day (Although they might have to be approved by Apple before they show up).  I have also uploaded three images of my application, however, on the iPhone’s App Store it only shows two of the three images.  At this point it still does not show any rating or review count in the release list, even though I have 5 out of 5 stars and 6 reviews.

Now as a user,  I have noticed a bug with updating software.  It seems, at least on my device, that if I update my software, the App Store will continue to say that my applications need to be updated.  I actually have to sync with iTunes on the desktop for it to know that I have updated my software.

For all the bad things I’ve said about the App Store so far it actually has some nice features and implementations.  It’s the simplest way to download software, which every other review has said already.  I find the search feature to be the best implementation for finding applications.  I think there should a better way to list featured and popular programs.  They seem to always be the same and it becomes harder to browse for newer applications that you might want (besides the release page).  Maybe they could add different ways to view the popularity list, like a weekly, daily, and monthly option.

So far, and yes I did use “So” at the beginning of this sentence, I have received one report on my sales.  Not a bad mark for the first day, even though you had to search for it by name.  I will do a new post after the first 7 days to see how well this whole thing works out.

At this point, because of the bugs and it being a bit to simplistic for me, I would give the App Store a 7/10 rating.  This is actually a good score; I would probably give most online stores about a 5/10 or lower.  I would also like to say the iTunes application hurts it as well.  I find this program to be slow, clunky, outdated, and missing some very nice features for the store (like a contextual menu).  I’m hoping iTunes will become a full Cocoa application eventually.

To add, my application is in a more specific niche market, so I don’t expect to complete against the big guys with their huge market values and branding power.  My next application will be more generic and aiming towards a larger audience.

If your a listener to GeeksRadio, who has an iPod or iPhone, you can now download a dedicated GeeksRadio application for it.  It’ll allow you to not just listen, but to chat with other listeners and the DJs themselves.  If you haven’t tried out GeeksRadio, or have no idea what GeeksRadio is or about, then go to their webpage at:

GeeksRadio.com