TapMode iPhone Development

Yet again another rejection of News Addict.  Yet again it passed the last two times, no problem.  But apparently since my app allows access to the internet I must rate it 17+ because who knows what could be there?  Really I don’t have a problem with this, but if Apple wants to rate my app then just rate it themselves.  Why reject it and have me resubmit.  If they want to make it 17+, then make it 17+ and just notify me they had to change the rating.

So now I get to resubmit again.  Wait another week or so.

Oh I also have 5 break out apps submitted awaiting reviews and here is the kicker.  I can’t actually change the ratings while they are under review.  So now either I have to reject and resubmit each or wait for the rejection.  What an f****d up system.

[Update: Just noticed not one of my competitors have to rate their apps at 17+.  All are listed at 4+.  There are a couple of news apps rated at 12+.  However I have to rate mine 17+.  I don’t even think this is just some new rule either as my main competitor just had an update approved yesterday and his app is 4+. So its official, apple just hates me.]

[UPDATE 2: I emailed apple with my predicament and they actually have told me they will re-review it.  WOW! AWESOME!  Maybe they don’t hate me after all and it was just a mix up.  Lets Hope!]

Well I almost have three breakout apps done for various categories.  One thing I have noticed is the entertainment industry has by far the best iphone optimized sites.  Tech is by far the worse.  I would have expected that to be reversed…

Well I submitted version 1.2 to Apple for review.  Added a couple of features that I hope users will find useful.  Look for it hopefully in 1 week (usually it takes about a week to get approved).  I am probably going to spend the next week or so working on break out apps now that I have 1.2 done and also planning out the design of the 1.3 update.  1.3 will be the ability to add/edit and rearrange the websites which I know has been my number 1 feature request to date.  I need to think of the best way to do the bookmark feature.  I have some really cool ideas for it so hopefully my ideas won’t surpass my level of skill to create it.  Then I will probably add the ability to share links in the update after that.

Yaay…. Well my 1.1 update just got approved.  It just has a few bugfixes.

“Fixed a problem with the internet connectivity checking that could cause unnecessary slowness over edge networks.

Fixed a problem with some websites not correctly showing the iphone optimized version of the website on subpages.

Fixed a problem with iPhone 3Gs which was causing the news page graphics to show improperly when the back button was pressed.

fixed a problem with some news sites web icon border appearing too much like the safari web browser.”

I almost have my new feature done which will become the 1.2 update.  Basically it is done, I am just beta testing it.  So I will get that submitted in the next day or two.

Note 2 self: when setting up a UIViewController class.  Make sure you create it as such and not a regular Class file:-)  Otherwise you get errors like UiSettingsController may not respond to pushViewController.  Newbie mistake…

This was a great link that got me most of the way there.  http://www.theevilboss.com/2009/06/iphone-sdk-development-on-multiple.html

However once I installed everything I got this error.  “a signed resource has been added modified or deleted”.  After spending a while double and triple checking everything, I did a clean all targets and rebuilt and had success.

Well I fixed the icons and I hope Apple will approve it this time.  I also took the time to move development to a new machine and get all code signing working on it.  It seems to be working ok but as with everything there was a weird error message and something new to learn.

Ok well after waiting over a week for them to approve my updates which are nothing but bug fixes.  They rejected my app.  Not because of anything I changed in this version.  But because the icons for some of the news websites too closely match the look of the safari browser.  Would they rather I make them look like internet explorer?  I mean I can understand you can’t use the apple logo or images of iphone or whatever, but please this is just getting ridiculous, the review process is so inconsistent.  I passed last time for the same exact icons.  Also now comes the guessing game, I really want to make something that looks like a browser.  I guess I will use something closer to firefox with some other generic ones that aren’t apple like.

This wouldn’t be such a big deal if I didn’t have to wait another week or two for the bug fixes to get into the store.

I guess this is my Fathers Day present from Apple.  I get to spend the rest of the day redesigning icons instead of having any family time.

[I don’t blame the apple reviewers.  I do believe they are doing there best with what they are given.  I get rejected on a sunday morning.  It shows they are working hard, but Apple needs to re evaluate their policies.  Rejections have gone far beyond what we were intially told (Nothing Obscene, Nothing Malicious, No Private API Calls)]

Well the bug I found using the iPhone 3Gs is fixed.  I submitted the fix to apple, I hope that doesn’t push me to the back of the queue.  I have been waiting over a week already for my other fixes to be approved.  The approval process is painfully slow.

Well I wasn’t planning on buying a new iPhone 3GS.  But I got the discounted price so went ahead and upgraded, I am glad I did.  I just discovered a problem in the 3GS that doesn’t exist in the 3G or Edge.  I am wondering if there are different UIWebview optimizations only for the 3GS.  I am pretty sure there are otherwise it should operate the same way as the 3G and edge.  Now I wonder if I can detect if the phone is a 3GS and only apply the change for that model in my code.