DragAMouse
Jun 19, 2010 Code, Technology
DragAMouse is my second iPhone App and it went on sale yesterday in the App Store. I got the idea for this app from my 2 year old daughter who could operate the ‘slide to unlock’ function on my phone. She wanted to play the games that the older kids were playing but those games were to complicated for her age. She had fun anyway, but I thought it would be nice if there was a game more on her level. Something that was simple to operate and didn’t involve complex logic or strategy.
This game is intended for toddlers and very young children. I don’t expect that there would be any entertainment value whatsoever for older children or adults, it was just a simple concept designed only to entertain and occupy the little ones.
Computers?!
May 11, 2009 Code, Technology
My wife is always telling me that she doesn’t understand how with computers something can be working fine one day and then the next day it’s broken. Being a developer, I see this kind of thing all the time. “It was working a minute ago!”, or the times when you ask someone to look at something that isn’t working and when you go to show it to them it suddenly starts working perfectly.
Something like this happened to me recently. I was thinking about making some modifications to the iPhone app that I wrote, so I opened up the project and ran it but the audio wasn’t working and it locked up. I thought that was strange since I hadn’t changed anything since I ran it last, and the last time I ran it was when I was getting it ready to submit it to the App Store. I knew that this exact same code was currently for sale, which was a little disconcerting.
After a bit of digging I finally discovered an error that was complaining about a DivX file that couldn’t be found. I remembered installing a DivX codec to try and resolve a video playback issue I was having on my laptop but it doesn’t make any sense to me why that would have any effect on audio playback in the iPhone simulator. The DivX codec had not resolved my video issue, however, so I proceeded to uninstall it and sure enough my code started working again!
So those times when something is working one day and not the next, I’m 100% positive that there is a reason for it, because that’s just how computers work. Whether or not you can find the reason for it, the world may never know.
iFakeUout
Mar 10, 2009 Code, Technology
iFakeUout is my first iPhone application, and it went on sale in the App Store today!
My idea for this app started out as something else, but because of some limitations I ran into it evolved into what I think is just a fun, simple app that can be used to get a laugh out of your friends. The idea is to wait for just the right moment, then pick a sound to play that will get the best reaction. Thinking back, this would have been great to have on some sleepovers, like playing the school bell or the bugle when the whole tent is quiet and everyone is just about to fall asleep. Maybe that’s only funny to me though, but only because we actually did that kind of thing.
Ah, the dreaded shameless self promotion, nothing wrong with that though, right? On a side note, it was very encouraging for me as a developer to have my app accepted on the first try.
UPDATE (06/3/2010): I had previously allowed my developer subscription to expire and in the process this app was removed from the App Store. However I just recently renewed my subscription in preparation for submitting a new app and incidentally this app has been re-listed for sale in the store. Right now I’m not sure if I plan on leaving it up for sale so if you are interested in it, now is your chance to get it.