Mobile – Page 6 – ɔimoɈɒ

Why the hell not?

Jeff LaMarche writes: This really needs to stop, Apple. There is nothing in the SDK agreement or documentation that you can point to that would reasonably justify this rejection. It’s your store. If you want to set up concrete rules and enforce them, that’s fine. I think you’d be better off letting the market decide, … Continue reading “Why the hell not?”

Jeff LaMarche writes:

This really needs to stop, Apple. There is nothing in the SDK agreement or documentation that you can point to that would reasonably justify this rejection. It’s your store. If you want to set up concrete rules and enforce them, that’s fine. I think you’d be better off letting the market decide, but it’s your house, I’m okay with you making rules about what goes on there. But… make real rules and enforce them fairly. This arbitrary, capricious shit has got to stop. Applications shouldn’t get rejected because some reviewer got in a fight with their spouse, got a speeding ticket on the way into work, or just hasn’t gotten laid recently.

The capricious and some might say haphazard way that some apps are permitted and others rejected and some are removed after a time, tells me that it’s not one person making the decisions, it’s a team. And some of them don’t like fun.

I’m unlikely to buy apps like iFart, Sound Grenade or Nails on Chalkboard but I’m inclined to think that if people want to buy that sort of shit and if it’s only a couple of dollars, why the hell not?

I’m not suggesting they open the doors but I’d appreciate some sort of consistency in the screening process and more description of why in the rejection process. At the moment it’s a lot of chickenshit posturing and vague pointing to things that are ‘inappropriate’ or in their heads ‘don’t offer sufficient value’.

XCake 1st Meetup

After several months of talking about it, we’ve had our first XCake meetup. We had 20 people turn up, all told. They ranged from the education sector (Belfast Met, The University of Ulster and Queen’s University of Belfast) to the private sector (sole traders, bedroom developers, partnerships and limited companies) including some companies which have … Continue reading “XCake 1st Meetup”

After several months of talking about it, we’ve had our first XCake meetup.

We had 20 people turn up, all told. They ranged from the education sector (Belfast Met, The University of Ulster and Queen’s University of Belfast) to the private sector (sole traders, bedroom developers, partnerships and limited companies) including some companies which have a distinguished history of software development.

Philip Orr’s Home of Serendipity has another XCake writeup.

It’s to be followed next Tuesday (24th) by an XCake meetup in Dublin.

XCake iPhone meetups in Belfast and Dublin [updated]

Mentioned earlier but now gathering a little steam. These meetups are mostly informal and designed to help build a little community around what we have here on the island. XCAKE BELFAST: Thursday 19th Feb, 6 pm. Roast, Lisburn Road, Belfast. I’ve confirmed they have WiFi and will be happy to have a cluster of seats … Continue reading “XCake iPhone meetups in Belfast and Dublin [updated]”

Mentioned earlier but now gathering a little steam. These meetups are mostly informal and designed to help build a little community around what we have here on the island.

XCAKE BELFAST: Thursday 19th Feb, 6 pm. Roast, Lisburn Road, Belfast.
I’ve confirmed they have WiFi and will be happy to have a cluster of seats taken up by coffee-swilling nerds. I’ve been told of ten people who have expressed interest in going to this – let’s make it busy and kick-ass.

XCAKE DUBLIN: Tuesday 24th February, 7 pm. Radisson SAS Royal Hotel, Dublin.
This is only an hour after the BizSpark Innovation Accelerator being held by the DigitalMediaForum and in the same hotel so people interested in both might be interested in attending both. There’s folk coming all the way from Belfast and Kerry coming to this so you should consider it too.

iPhone games in the Dub

John Kennedy recently updated his blog with a Post Mortem of his second game – explaining why the first one had to be pulled and why this second one took so long. He also includes a great screenshot. Yup, I’m buying it. Related posts: The Games Market is about to have a significant and violent … Continue reading “iPhone games in the Dub”

John Kennedy recently updated his blog with a Post Mortem of his second game – explaining why the first one had to be pulled and why this second one took so long.

He also includes a great screenshot.

Yup, I’m buying it.

XCake Meet Up, Thurs 19th Feb, 6 pm

Between us (@cimota, @dogthreezero, @grib) we’ve arranged a meetup for XCake folks who want to meet up and discuss stuff. The time is 6 pm on Thursday 19th Feb. The venue is at the moment undecided but should have WiFi, seats and drinks. If anyone has any suggestions then please drop me an email, a … Continue reading “XCake Meet Up, Thurs 19th Feb, 6 pm”

Between us (@cimota, @dogthreezero, @grib) we’ve arranged a meetup for XCake folks who want to meet up and discuss stuff.

The time is 6 pm on Thursday 19th Feb. The venue is at the moment undecided but should have WiFi, seats and drinks. If anyone has any suggestions then please drop me an email, a DM on Twitter or comment below.

Mobile Console Gaming

Paul Malone sent me this link to an article on euroGamer. The article points out the rise of the smartphone in gaming and the inevitable changes this will make to the gaming industry. No-one would have guess that Apple’s iPhone would be the third place mobile console (behind the Nintendo DS and the Sony Playstation … Continue reading “Mobile Console Gaming”

Paul Malone sent me this link to an article on euroGamer.

The article points out the rise of the smartphone in gaming and the inevitable changes this will make to the gaming industry. No-one would have guess that Apple’s iPhone would be the third place mobile console (behind the Nintendo DS and the Sony Playstation Portable) – both of which have been out for much longer. Microsoft has yet to enter this market though they, with Sony and Nintendo, are still warring over the static console market.

“The latest shot to be fired in this unusual war came this week, when digital research group comScore revealed its latest figure for mobile phone game consumption. Yes, mobile gaming; the videogames industry’s unloved stepchild, launched to so much fanfare and so much subsequent disappointment. The sector has been quietly marshalling its resources and building its revenues for some years now, but it’s still never quite had the breakthrough which would make up for all the overstated ambition of its early years.”
…
“comScore’s figures show that the overall number of people downloading mobile games last year grew 17 per cent, to 8.5 million. In itself, that’s respectable growth – but the real news here is that this growth was in spite of a 14 per cent decline in those downloading games on traditional mobile phones.”
…
“Those pundits who looked at the early sales figures for games on the iPhone’s App Store, tapped their noses and predicted that this device would have a huge impact on the whole world of gaming on the go have, thus far, been proven correct. It’s hardly stunting the growth of the DS yet, but even at this early point, the iPhone is making waves.”

The iPhone is making waves. I love that turn of phrase.

Neil Young of ng:moco

With a bit of luck this won’t time out… Neil Young > iPhone is greater than… from Dom Sagolla on Vimeo. Related posts: Take a couple of minutes to appreciate genius. OpenMoko FreeRunner: *sigh* So what will this tablet be for? Use of OpenData: Icelandic Earthquakes

With a bit of luck this won’t time out…

Neil Young > iPhone is greater than… from Dom Sagolla on Vimeo.

iPhone Developer thingies

Anton Mannering writes about an iPhone Dev Camp happening in Belfast and Dublin. “The intrepid guys up in the North have been kicking around the idea of an iPhone DevCamp for hose interested in learning how to develop for the platform. … Matt Johnston of the Digital Circle brought this to my attention and is … Continue reading “iPhone Developer thingies”

Anton Mannering writes about an iPhone Dev Camp happening in Belfast and Dublin.

“The intrepid guys up in the North have been kicking around the idea of an iPhone DevCamp for hose interested in learning how to develop for the platform. … Matt Johnston of the Digital Circle brought this to my attention and is one of the main motivators in making it happen.”

We’re going to get some of the people kicking off some meetups in the two regions – aim of which is to raise awareness of the event and also give us some idea of the coverage. This sort of thing is gaining momentum behind the scenes and therefore we want it to go ahead without a hitch.

At the moment it looks a bit like this:

POSSIBLE AGENDA
9:00am	Welcome, and overview
9:15am	Keynote speaker
10:00am	Programming Talk 1 – Developing for Cocoa. Someone builds an application live on stage. On the Projector, we can see what he’s doing. Obviously limited to some simpler projects.	Basic Game Development for iPhone – someone goes through the basics of setting up a background, showing accelerometer code, collision code. Keywords: Unity? 3D? 2D? Must bug the UNITY team about this. Spoke to Chris McClelland about the QUB interests in Unity.
11:00am	Coffee and bio break
11:30am	Programming Talk 2 – Developing for iPhone. Someone builds an application live on stage.	TILT – More on the controls needed for games.
12:30pm	The App Store – Some devs with experience of the Apple App Store talk through their experiences	The Business of Entertainment – Games and entertainment are selling hot on the Apple Store – from the complex Super MOnkey Ball to the simple ‘sound grenade’.
1:00 pm	Lunch
2:00 pm	Show and Tell Any developers attending take ten minutes to walk through their projects. If they wish, they can open the floor to answer questions and take suggestions.	Making it special – adding in location based services or even just a high score page on the net for your game.
2:45pm	Coffee and bio break
3:00pm	Getting your App to the iPhone for development and distribution
4:00pm	Prize Draw (e.g. books, Pragmatic Programmer gift vouchers, iTunes gift cards) for stuff happening that day – prizes from sponsors. And I think this would be a good opportunity to launch an All Ireland iPhone Competition to run over the next few months.
4:30pm	Random chattering until home time.

It’s not set in stone of course and I kinda want there to be three tracks:

Developing apps using Cocoa (using the standard Cocoa controls)
Game development (or developing stuff using OpenGL, collisions, non-standard controls)
The Business of Apps (or realising that getting your app on the App Store is 10% of the work)

Before then, let’s get together and have Belfast and Dublin Meetups to pave the way – a quick show’n’tell, a quick demo. What do you say?

iBlogging

I was inspired by TheRonster to try out iBlogger after being faintly disappointed with the native WordPress application. The results are pretty encouraging though I’m not 100% sure that I like the editor – aren’t I a fussy bugger? Anyway – testing out a link and photo. Aha – links are listed at the bottom … Continue reading “iBlogging”

I was inspired by TheRonster to try out iBlogger after being faintly disappointed with the native WordPress application.

The results are pretty encouraging though I’m not 100% sure that I like the editor – aren’t I a fussy bugger?

Anyway – testing out a link and photo.

Aha – links are listed at the bottom unless you hard code them and photos are at the top, again, unless hard-coded. Not bad. Will give it a go on the road tomorrow during Open Coffee.

Mobile Blogging from here.

Digital Circle

Silent Hill on App Store

I’m kinda wondering how Murderdrome can get rejected multiple times from the App Store due to “content” and Silent Hill can make it in? I mean – Silent Hill is scary, interactive and promotes the murder of faceless healthcare professionals. Evidently a metaphor for the NHS. Related posts: I Want A Facetime Availability Tool … Continue reading “Silent Hill on App Store”

I’m kinda wondering how Murderdrome can get rejected multiple times from the App Store due to “content” and Silent Hill can make it in?

vn0f-cc9e11fcb1e27f9da9dcbcd9345b2efa49513bb9

I mean – Silent Hill is scary, interactive and promotes the murder of faceless healthcare professionals.

Evidently a metaphor for the NHS.