It’s a new year and a new era!
Juggleware’s debut iPhone app, Freedom Time, as many of you so cleverly noticed, was an application with a time-specific usage. Funny, it just happened to coincide with the inauguration of President Obama.
For those of you who were lucky enough to get the banned iPhone app, or even bothered to look at the Flash version on the site, you’ll see that the time began to move forward at the precise instant* of the swearing in of President Obama at the inauguration, and the text end of an error changed to time to clear some brush!
So it’s a kind of forced obsolescence, but it’s still functional for those who wish to count the days, hours, minutes and seconds since the Bush regime, it’s still working. And in all humility, we were the first to pat ourselves on the back for the nifty symbolism of time moving forward from that moment on.
We’re not giving away any more copies of the app however. We’re moving onward and upward!
In that respect, we hope to have some nifty games for the iPhone in 2009. Keep checking back for news on the latest.
* actually, the precise scheduled moment; he was sworn in a few minutes late and the clock actually ran out during Yo Yo Ma’s cello introduction.
Steve Jobs might think that counting down the last days of Bush’s grip on authority (and loose grip on reality) might be too controversial to allow in the Apple iPhone world, but today Bush actually said that he did a good job responding to Hurricane Katrina.
Yes we all know the guy refuses to take blame in any case, shifting reality to suit his power politics; but I thought he’d at least be smart enough to shut up about it now the gig’s been up.
The whole world knows his famous phrase “Heckuva Job, Brownie,” that he was cutting birthday cake with John McCain and only days later blessed the skies with Air Force One as he looked down upon the mess caused by the failures of the federal levee system. The Coast Guard did their best, as did local volunteers and others who drove to New Orleans, but Bush couldn’t get a single bottle of water distributed in a week, and people were on roofs for 5 DAYS or longer.
If you think Katrina wasn’t enough (you don’t live in New Orleans), here’s another 127 reasons why.
I made a promise to myself on November 3. If Obama wins, I’ll make a downloadable version of Freedom Time for Mac and Windows and let everyone download it.
Well, as everyone in the galaxy knows, we now have two reasons to celebrate at 12:00:00 GMT -0500 on January 20, 2009: good riddance to the worst president of all time, and hello to the first African-American president (and the first president I ever voted for with a smile on my face!)
You don’t even need to have an iPhone now to have a virtual iPhone on your desktop.
Watch the actual countdown on this page:
http://www.juggleware.com/iphone/freedomtime/
and download the version for your computer and keep it on.
Only 73 days left! TIME for a NEW leader!
Tip: click on the screen to hear the next Bush quote. (These are all actual audio quotes by Bush and are unedited.)
Wow, although I’m not happy with Apple right now, I have to give Apple’s CEO some serious credit for answering the email I wrote yesterday:
Dear Steve, A quick note to let you know what kinds of apps are being rejected for the App Store. This app is not defamatory, harmful or speaking untruth. It is lighthearted and humorous. Does it imply critique? Of course it does, but not without crossing any lines of decency or the boundaries agreement. For a quick screen shot: http://www.juggleware.com/iphone/freedomtime/ Sincerely, Alec Vance juggleware llc
Mr. Jobs replied :
Even though my personal political leanings are democratic, I think this app will be offensive to roughly half our customers. What’s the point? Steve
Even though my personal political leanings are democratic, I think this app will be offensive to roughly half our customers. What’s the point?
I’m not sure if he’s asking what’s the point of the app (not much—just poking fun and a time-killer), or what’s the point of letting me risk alienating a portion of his customer base (which is what I think he’s asking, rhetorically).
My friend John Barousse (the guy who convinced me to write Mr. Jobs) makes the point that the market should decide. And why not? No one thinks this is an Apple app, it’s clearly from an independent developer. Why would Apple lose business because of this app? As John says, “It’s not Apple’s application; they’re the store.”
It started out as Court’s idea as a way for me to learn Apple’s Xcode, Obj-C, and the iPhone development kit, but it kind of took on a life of its own.
There was a pretty steep learning curve, and registering to be an iPhone developer (although very affordable) and getting your device provisioned and such was a little more difficult than I’d hoped, once you’re over that hump it’s really kind of fun.
Court done the graphics up, Texas style. Originally, we were going to call it “Freedom Clock” as in Freedom Rock, but I found a bunch of public domain audio clips where W. says “time” in them, such as “It’s time for a leader” or “It’s time for a new administration to deal with the energy crisis” that hilariously illustrated the current situation.
More information is available on the Freedom Time for iPhone page.
Submitted to Apple for review; look for it in the App Store soon!
