Here are my mental notes for today’s earnings call…
Category Archive for ‘Apple’ 
Myth Busted: iPhones Won’t Work With Gloves
Imagine me getting a mani-pedi during the Christmas holidays. No, really! We have a lady come to our house regularly and doing all willing feet.
Somehow our casual conversion came to the iPhone. Now imagine this healthcare professional telling me:
“For me the iPhone is no option because it does not work with the gloves we use”.
One does not have to say THAT to me twice. This myth was begging to be busted.
Apple’s Patent on NSDataDetector
Apple owns patent US5946647 and slapped that around HTC’s team of lawyers successfully. Apple has previously sued HTC over them infringing 4 of their patents seeking to block sales of several Android-based mobile phones that HTC is making. On December 19th the International Trade Commission published their final determination as to the validity of two claims in this patent while finding no infringement on the others.
This result is interesting for us iOS developers for several reasons. For one it shows that something we are taking for granted was actually patented by Apple. They filed it on February 1st, 1996 and the patent was granted 3 years later on August 31, 1999. Usually patents are very elusive and it is generally hard to show how a device or operating system really infringes upon them. But in this rare specimen Apple has the rights on something that you probably see every day.
Amazing Apple-like Documentation
I know I know, Documentation is a bad bad word, especially for us creative people. The true creativity is in writing code, not in writing comments, isn’t it?
Well, regardless, you might find yourself in the situation that you want other people to reuse your code. Or better yet, a different self of you in a year should be able to understand your line of reasoning of today. If you do programming for a longer time you will pass the phase of being shocked at how bad your code was and then get into the phase of having no idea what you where thinking. So a liberal sprinkling of comments can help you get up to speed on your old code.
I invented a technique of chewing on a portion of a programming puzzle where you comment almost every line of code as if you were to explain to somebody the steps in your ingenious approach. Maybe somebody else coined a term for this, for me it helps me sort my thoughts. And probably will do the same a year or ten from now. So commenting comes naturally to me, Documentation by Comment-ation is a logical extension to the concept.
He Says He Cracked It
For lack of any other sensible field in Apples backyard to speculate on we are hearing multiple news sources and recyclers invest their brains in talking about a real Apple TV, as in TV-Set-style TV. All my favorite podcasts are full of it. And even Steve Jobs himself speaks to us from the grave via his biography where is quoted to have said “I’ve cracked it”, referring to an integrated TV-Set.
Not to be outdone, let me also add a bit of speculation, founded on some actual facts. Loops that Apple left intentionally open as if to telegraph their next moves.
The Definition of “YOU”
Apple apparently has begun to enforce a new rule when it comes to submitting new apps to the app store. You can no longer make an app for a client and submit it under your own developer account.
This is of consequence for two kinds of apps:
- apps that are truly owned by the client of a contractor
- apps that are owned by you but are branded or contain content under license from a third party
Often there are contractors who published apps under their own account because that saved the client from having to go through the process of establishing a paid Developer Program account.
iPhone 4S on 1-2 Weeks Expedition
Hearing how all these people report on queueing up for buying their iPhone 4S I got a urgent itch myself to scratch. So I asked if somebody could also get me one and lo and behold Cyril from France heard the calling.
Cyril Godefroy, maker of 321Run had only ordered one for himself so he graciously ordered mine as his second iPhone 4S. Ah, the French, how nice people they can be …
Establish Podcasts as Payable Content
Ben Lang commented in a blog post “Hey Apple, iOS 5 Needs Newsstand for Podcasts!”
The usual method to get Apple to do something is to file a Radar. So I did. I filed this feature request with number 10277643 to suggest a new business opportunity to Apple iTunes. It aims to establish a new model that would allow professional podcasters to offer podcasts under a for-pay subscription model to eliminate the need for advertising.
You are welcome to dupe the request or add your comments below.
Moving from Individual to Company
Most iPhone developers start up next to a full time employment by getting signed up for the Individual iOS Developer Program. For my recent workshop I researched the various kinds of programs that Apple offers and what the differences are.
I omitted the column that was titled “Registered Developer” since it did not have any benefits besides being able to download the current stable Xcode version.
Here is an overview of the subtle differences and how I got my Individual account changed to a Company account.
Audible Bows to App Submission Rules
Just wanted to briefly share with you that Audible.com is now also giving into Apple’s much criticized app review guideline that forbids linking to a web-based shop from within your app:
11.13 Apps that link to external mechanisms for purchases or subscriptions to be used in the app, such as a “buy” button that goes to a web site to purchase a digital book, will be rejected
Audible just e-mailed their customers explaining their workaround. I am posting this because it is an example of how you can work around this annoying restriction.
