I’m old enough to remember a time before the Internet. I know what it’s like to develop software both with and without a worldwide network. Little has changed with the process of software development since the 1980′s. Of course there have been improvements in our tools and techniques, but the basic act of creating software [...]
Apple has recently released Xcode 4—a major part of this release is an overhaul of the user interface. Change in your development environment is always a bit disruptive, but overall I think the move towards a single-window environment that adapts to different working modes is a good thing. But this post is not to debate [...]
What happened? In spite of plenty of advance warning from Twitter, we got caught by the Twitpocalypse bug. For the 2.0.1 release, we had tested our software extensively. I actually wrote an emulation layer on top of the code that reads data from Twitter that added a large number to every ID read from Twitter. [...]
Everyone and his brother has a prediction about Apple and the mythical “netbook.” This is mine. Before I get into the actual prediction, let me say that I’ve come to this conclusion by looking at Apple as a business, not as a supplier of shiny gadgets for our technolust. As much as we love the [...]
A lot of people stumble upon this website because they’re looking for information about developing applications for the iPhone. If this is your first time here, welcome! I have been developing applications for the iPhone since it was released (using both the Jailbreak and official SDK.) My company is currently selling several applications in iTunes. [...]
Many of you are starting to realize that a ringtone price point does not sustain a business. I’m with you. Lately, I’ve been thinking about ways to make higher prices more palatable to customers. Several discussions at Macworld kicked off these thoughts, and a recent tweet by Justin Williams made me realize that a lot of [...]
Dear Steve, As an iPhone developer who’s been in the App Store since its launch, I’m starting to see a trend that concerns me: developers are lowering prices to the lowest possible level in order to get favorable placement in iTunes. This proliferation of 99¢ “ringtone apps” is affecting our product development. Unlike a lot [...]
A friend of mine recently commented that native Twitter applications are the new flashlights. It’s true, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise: consider the number of web apps that proliferated before the advent of the native SDK. Personally, I welcome this competition. Seeing the work of other developers whose work I respect and admire [...]
One of the great things about the NDA being lifted is that a lot of great books about iPhone development are finally being published. It’s about time: for many months the top search hit on this site has been iphone app development. A lot of new developers need guidance. Last week, Addison-Wesley contacted me saying [...]
Having just presented a talk at C4[2] about the human factors involved in developing touch-based applications, I find it rather ironic to see the Nike + iPod integration move into the latest iPod touch. Why? Because I see some serious problems with how our bodies will interact with this device and its software. Note: These [...]