There was not a lot of changes to the full version – just some bug fixes however due to my update to Snow Leopard I lost all backwards compatibility with the older iPhone SDKs so the new versions do not support any iPhone platform older than 3.0. The lite version is now ad supported and almost completely the same as the full version. This is a test to see if I can actually support development on ads… if it fails then I’ll end up going back to a truly lite version.

Finally, I think I’ve got a bug where if you take a picture with the camera it is not putting that picture into the app properly. I’ll try to track that down asap and get it resolved. Not sure why it started showing up now, but I have a feeling that its only a problem on 3.1…

Here’s something I know. I know I can’t draw. I know that when I get a great little idea for an iPhone app, that there’s a couple things which are going to give me a hard time before I even get down to considering code and that’s mapping out the application itself and drawing what its going to look like when it gets on the device. Well thankfully there’s at least one new tool to ad to my arsenal and that’s the iPhone Sketchbook.

Sometimes an idea is so darned obvious that nobody really thinks about it. There’s a ton of very good iPhone books and many of them discuss planning out your application before you start writing it. There’s also many people who (like me) have done this that hard way with an iPhone like shape on a piece of paper and then maybe some horrible little icon things to represent common elements like the status bar, the signal strength and the battery. My iPhone drawings are horrible and finally there’s a book for that.

The iPhone Sketchbook is the brainchild of Kapsoft and I love it. I’ve only had the chance to use it a couple times, but I can tell already that its the (near) perfect tool for capturing an iPhone app idea quickly and easily so that when you sit down to really think through an application your initial idea can be right there ready for you to implement it.

I’ve tried a couple different methods for designing applications and prior the the sketchbook nothing had really stuck. There was always free hand drawing on lined or graph paper and teamed with the iPhone Stencil I bought that worked out pretty well. Other tools (like OmniSketch) didn’t work out so well simply due to the complexity required just to capture an idea. Now, with the iPhone Sketchbook I’ve got a simple notepad which already has the iPhone laid out on paper for me, ready for my to start filling in the elements and making notes so there is no chance I can forget the details later.

Great concept and as I said “near” perfect. My only complaint is I would really like to see the iPhone itself be bigger and by possibly adding a second image on the page the sketchbook would be even better. On paper its life size, which is handy, but when doing an initial sketch I’m less worried about scale sizing and more worried about capturing the essence of the idea quickly. With more space to draw I think capturing the idea would be simpler and less concern would be placed on making sure everything fits.

That’s a fairly minor gripe however. And so far I’m really happy with the iPhone Sketchbook. If you’re an application developer looking for a great tool to capture ideas with, the iPhone Sketchbook definitely warrants a look. You can find out more about the sketchbook at Kapsoft’s Sketchbook Website, pick it for $14.99 at Amazon, or you can check out the video (not mine) below:

photo credit: BrianScott

I’ve gotten a couple of emails giving me some feedback about crashing in both applications. It would appear that some are having the app crash as soon as it opens, others are crashing when they hit the settings page and change the text options. To be honest I was able to recreate the crashes – but only on 2.x software. I had a report of the app dying on 3.0.1 but so far I haven’t seen that yet.

So, that brings me to the next points:

1. I have tried as best I can – but I can’t get any of my 3 devices to downgrade to 2.2.1 – without that I can’t test on device.

2. See the picture up there? Snow Leopard. Yea, it came out. Yea, I bought it. And while is rocks – there’s one thing that sucks… The iPhone 3.0 SDK on Snow Leopard DOES NOT support older versions of the SDK, and you can’t install older SDKs. So what does that mean? That means gCalWall and gCalWall 1.4 will be 3.0 only. With no way to test older iPhone builds there’s little I can do – SORRY!!!

3. gCalWall Lite is moving to an ad supported model. With a couple thousand users over the past few months (and over 50% of my full version users being cracked versions) – it was time to find a better way. So ad supported it is. But with ad support, I’ve decided to turn on basically everything from the full version in the lite version.

There you have it. That’s the update. Let me know what you think – and again I’m sorry for having to drop 2.x support. Unfortunately Apple has dropped 2.x support from the SDKs.

I’ve also decided to just leave pricing where it is. I think for what it does and the fact that I can’t set the wallpaper for you, it’s a fair price.

Again thanks to all who have purchased gCalWall. It’s definitely done well enough to cover a nice vacation with my lovely wife!

I just wanted to throw up a quick post on the current state of gCalWall. I know there’s some things that are a little “wonky”. Some (minor number) of folks have seen issues with all day events, and some other stuff like blurry images. I have every intention of doing everything I can to fix these issues. I also have every intention of working in some requested improvements. But at the same time, I haven’t made much of anything off of gCalWall wall – so while its a product I intend to continue working on, it’s not a “top” priority.

So, long story short – I’m working on it, but I wouldn’t expect to release anything (aside from a major affects everybody emergency bugfix) until the iPhone 3.0 software is released. Why? Well, there’s some things I have to change for gCalWall in 3.0 to work properly and I’ve already got a development build started. So, rather than try and maintain separate builds, I’m jumping ship from 2.x and moving on to 3.x…

I just had a support email come through this morning. And while as usual I responded… this one isn’t going to work out too well.

Recipient address: –CUT—@hotmail.com
Reason: Remote SMTP server has rejected address
Diagnostic code: smtp;550 Requested action not taken: mailbox unavailable
Remote system: dns;mx2.hotmail.com (TCP|17.148.16.101|63745|65.55.37.88|25)

So, if you sent in a support request to me this morning and your name is Gregg, I’m not ignoring you. Your email address that you put in the contact form just doesn’t work.

Sorry!

I’ve been spending a lot of time today going over in my mind if the Kindle might be the right device for me and my ever growing need to read. If you’re wondering why I’m reading… when there’s 200+ pages of Core Data waiting for me to read through, 200+ pages of Core Animation, and another couple hundred pages of Obj-C 2.0 waiting for me. And all of that is sitting in eBook format.

Now, so far I’ve been OK reading a bit here and there on my MacBook. The screen is good, and the text spaces out nicely… but I can’t really take my MacBook with me to my mother-in-laws, to my parents house or to work and fit in a few pages here and there. Not to mention even if I could the MacBook is just too darned heavy and too darned valuable to lug around everywhere I go.

Which leads me to – why not just use the Kindle software on the iPhone and be happy with that? Good question. The price of the books still applies. I have full connectivity everywhere just like the Kindle. I mean, basically it is the Kindle software… on my iPhone. Well, I have it already and the iPHone screen while gorgeous just isn’t the right thing for reading a 300 page book. Its too small and really does hurt the eyes.

Anyway, I’m thinking of a Kindle. I’ve looked at a couple Sony devices – and while I really like the form factor, the lack of content in the Sony store, the prices, and the lack of connectivity is really what are keeping me from going with the prs-505.

I guess I’ll keep racking my brain to see if I can come to a conclusion. I really need a device I can take with me everywhere and squeeze in the tons of reading I have to do. But, until I’ve made a decision – maybe I can win one?

and unfortunately they don’t look so hot. Now to be fair, the ratings/reviews are pretty decent from the folks who have taken the time to write them. They aren’t all positive, and some are downright rude, but unfortunate reality of the App Store is that (as Iliumsoft wrote) Apple really has designed the rating system to make it super simple for those who “hate it to rate it” and those who love it … to not rate it at all.

Now, I’m happy with what gCalWall has done. It has sold a “decent” amount of copies, and the free version has done very well. I’m never going to make it rich off the application (hell I’m never going to buy a broken down Honda off of it), but for being my very first attempt at building anything its done very well. Ultimately I took a lofty goal (capturing data from Google and getting onto the lockscreen) and for the most part I succeeded. I didn’t truly succeed, but the goal was impossible because Apple doesn’t allow access to the lockscreen. Ultimately, the failure of gCalWall is a failure of my own.

What do I mean by that? Well, I mean that the ratings for gCalWall are very low, because I mis-judged that people wouldn’t mind taking a few extra seconds and setting the created image as a wallpaper. The ratings are low not because the application itself doesn’t work – but because of STUPID restrictions placed on the developers, and my own mis-judgement that people wouldn’t mind the extra steps for the much added benefit of having a useful lockscreen.

Keep this in mind. I want to dynamically update the lockscreen when you run gCalWall. There’s nothing I want more. Its been written in the app description and mentioned in every fricking write-up on the web. I WANT TO DO IT. APPLE WON’T LET ME. So please – if you like the app, review it on the App Store. If your only complaint is that it doesn’t set the wallpaper – TELL APPLE, but don’t give it 1 star reviews because of that.

Long story short – the rating system is broken. Go read about the feelings a successful developer has about the process, and imagine how I feel. Not only am I getting my ass kicked by Apple once for limiting functionality, but I’m getting it kicked again by Apple for having a broken rating process.

Oh and iTunes won’t restore it either. So, it’s either time to try and use a Dev team app to restore it or time to go to the apple store for a replacement.

Either way – this sucks.