Just Say No to Payola, or Why I’m Not Paying For a Good Review.

Posted on January 24, 2012 by alec

So I released my latest iPhone app— called Sol: Sun Clock— and decided to do some actual marketing this time. Apress had sent me a free copy of The Business of iPhone App Development (1st ed.) and I finally had a chance to go through it. (There’s lots of good information in there. In the interest of full disclosure they sent it hoping I would say that, since I said something good about one of their other books, and I can generally recommend it for developers who don’t like to think about marketing.)

As recommended by the book, I wrote up a press release and I’ve started sending it out. One of the first responses I got was from a well-known app review site that was near the very top of the alphabetical list:

Hi,

Thanks for sending over information about your app. It will be evaluated for possible review on [SiteNameHere]. Please note that due to the number of inquiries and review requests we receive daily, it may take a while to get to your app. However, we have several other options to help you connect with [SiteNameHere] readers.

[SiteNameHere].com can provide an expedited review for a $150 fee which will get your app reviewed within approximately 7 business days. Paying to expedite your review does not guarantee a positive review. However, if the app scores lower than 5/10, you will have the option of keeping the review private. You will still receive a copy of the review as professional feedback and can request that we review your next update instead.

We also have several forms of advertising opportunities on [SiteNameHere].com. Ads and tweets may be purchased online at [URL redacted].

Banner Ads: $350
Right Column 180×150

Social Media Advertising: $29
Send a tweet to [SiteNameHere]’s 13,500 followers

To get started with an Expedited Review, send your payment for $150 via Paypal to [email redacted]. Be sure to mention the name of your app in the notes section of your payment.

This is an automated message. Please contact me directly if you have additional questions. I look forward to talking to you about advertising opportunities. For a faster response, please reply to [email redacted].

And here is the footer that makes it kinda clear they are up to no good…

CONFIDENTIAL! This e-mail contains proprietary information some of which may be legally privileged. It is for the intended recipient only. If an error has misdirected this e-mail, please notify the author by replying to it. Regardless of whether you are the intended recipient or not, you may not disclose, distribute, copy, or publish this email in public view without written consent from the sender.

 

I have a strong distaste for even mild extortion, especially when it comes to the “free” press, and I for one won’t be buying my app reviews. Thanks to Google, I found out I am not the first person to air this complaint about this company  (check the comments for the writer’s follow-ups—I’d love to call this company out by name, but you can find it easy enough on this link).

Some people might feel this is just the way that advertising works. If you want your shop or restaurant to get a review in a local free weekly, it sure helps if you advertise in that publication. Often the ads are placed right next to the review so there’s no confusion! Theoretically I like to believe that the ad isn’t influencing the writer that the paper sends out to write the review, and that there’s not a “confidential” memo with borderline unethical practices circulating.

I wonder how many other sites do this? I hope that more developers will stand up and call out this bullshit. People who visit these sites need to know that they are reading paid-for reviews. Developers trying to release useful and quality apps stand a better chance of competing when the reviews aren’t all gotten through extortion.

What are your thoughts? I’d love to hear from other developers and iPhone users… what sites are legitimate and worth visiting and contacting? I mostly rely on word-of-mouth and Twitter, but I have heard good things about 148apps.com .

Posted in iPhone Apps, iPhone Development, marketing, Sol: Sun Clock | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

Why I made Sol: Sun Clock

Posted on January 16, 2012 by alec

We’ve been working on this one for months and I’m happy to announce that Sol: Sun Clock, our lastest iPhone app, is now available in Apple’s App Store.

It lets you look at the day’s sunlight times, quickly find sunrise and sunset, solar noon, twilight, and so on — And crucially, set alarms for each of these events that change every day, and per your location on planet Earth.

This project stemmed from an idea I had when driving home from work every evening, and occasionally I would get lucky enough to see a spectacular sunset just as I crossed the bridge in front of the old Blue Plate Mayonnaise factory,  but I had to leave work at just the right time. Too often I answered a few more emails and left as it was getting dark.

(I still never got the perfect photo, but that has more to do with the foolishness of trying to take a photo and drive at the same time than my timing; one of my attempts you can see here, below.)

Blue Plate building, New Orleans

I also discovered that it was an easy bike ride to the river near our house and it was great to be up on the levee path when the sun was setting. Wouldn’t it be great if there was an iPhone app that would remind me that I had an hour left of daylight? I could catch the sun as it was setting on my way back home.

I checked the App Store and there was one app that would give me an alarm when the sun was setting, but that was already too late. I didn’t want to be reminded when it was already dark—I could usually figure that out—I wanted to be reminded when  I only had an hour or so left of light. Good for photography; and useful for exercising… I could think of many more people that might use this.  None of the other apps in the store could do it.

Josh Warren and I had worked together on the original Aquarium 2 app for Blu-ray, and he was excited to contribute some great design ideas and work to Sol: Sun Clock that would help take this app from something with a list of cool features to a unique user experience as well. We really wanted an app that would help you visualize what the day looked like, plus was fun to interact with.

As an obsessed amateur photographer, I started to use the app to remind me when the golden hour was. When my wife and I took a trip to Gulf Shores, I had it remind me to walk back out to the beach to catch the last hour of light, taking photos with my iPhone; and had it wake me up in the early morning to walk outside to catch the sunrise.

Gulf Shores Sunset

We spent a lot more time working on this app than we planned but I think that anyone who is interested in the changing daylight conditions —everyone from gardeners to exercise junkies to vampires — is going to get a lot out of this. Travelers, photographers and event planners whose work depends on it will find it essential.

Also, as someone who lived in Dublin, Ireland through three winters can tell you, the amount of sunlight you are exposed to can have a huge effect on your general happiness (so can a pint of Guinness of course).  I realized that the wintertime blues all but vanished upon my moving down to sunny Louisiana, but that I still needed to make sure I got outside when it was light. I’ve used this app to make sure I get enough time outside when it counts, especially in the winter when the days are shorter.

There was an insane amount of math and calculations involved in this app that, combined with our perfectionistic attitude to having the perfect UI, caused it to take a bit longer than we hoped. I’d love to find out how you use it, and feel free to contact us with your suggestions as well.

Sol: Sun Clock official page

Sol: Sun Clock for iPhone at the App Store

 

Posted in App Store, iPhone Apps, iPhone Development, Photography, Sol: Sun Clock | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 24 Comments

A Farewell to Steve Jobs

Posted on October 6, 2011 by admin

When I heard that Steve Jobs was resigning from Apple, I suspected that he wasn’t long for this world. But I was still taken aback to see how quickly the end came. He worked pretty much up till the end, I guess—no real surprise there, for a man who had endless passion for creating art with technology and technology that could help us create art— but I was still surprised at how surprised and emotional I was. Why was I tearing up for a man that I had never met—and for whom my only personal interchange with was a (frankly curt) email personally defending Apple’s rejection of my first iPhone app?

The first computer I ever got to play with was an Apple ][. It belonged to a middle school friend’s wealthy doctor dad, and the son wasn’t too eager to let me play with it, but I did get to experience a few brief minutes of games like Wizardry and Choplifter. Shortly thereafter our school science class took a field trip to the high school mainframe computer lab and they let us play with the BASIC games there (I remember Super StarTrek and a very simple horse-racing game) and you could see the source code by typing LIST.

My best friend’s dad became a office computer manager or salesman and got the latest Apple computers. I remember seeing a LISA briefly, but it was the Apple /// that gave me the chance to write my first program. It was only there for a day, but I brought in a legal pad with my hand-written code on it and typed in my first game, a text-based Lunar Lander simulation that used what I’d learned in 8th grade physics class to apply thrusters and calculate the speed the capsule was dropping.

It was another year or so before I had my own computer (the more affordable Commodore 64), but a few years later (1984) my best friend’s dad got him a Macintosh, and we made art with MacPaint in FatBits mode for a fantasy RPG game we were designing. I had designed my own character set for the C64, but what the Macintosh brought with its much more sophisticated and proportional fonts blew me away.  Clearly a new era in computing had arrived.

My first Mac was an SE/30, which I loved but was too busy with a heavy college work load to use it for much more than writing papers (and Tetris, Dark Castle and NetTrek), and moving to Ireland shortly thereafter meant I was without a computer at all for 3 years.

On my return, however, I found a really poor economy (much like now) and no opportunity for decent employment for someone with an English degree. After a slew of crummy jobs, it was my experience doing layout with the Mac that got me a desktop publishing job at a print shop, that eventually led to a job as a multimedia (CD-ROM) designer, that became web programmer, that led to educational software developer, that led me to programming games and other apps for iOS.

Intersection of Technology and Liberal ArtsIn a sense I’ve come full circle: to doing what I love in a field that includes many of my interests: design, programming, typography, music, literature, language, AI, technology, communication, gaming, math, physics, simulations…. and while from a pure IT manager’s perspective many of these things  are irrelevant distractions, from this arty geek’s point of view, life on this planet would be a lot less interesting without Steve Jobs and Apple, which includes all of the people from Steve Wozniak on who made his crazy visions possible .

The photo of Steve Jobs standing under street signs reading “Liberal Arts” and “Technology” has been making the rounds again; it’s truly his legacy, and it has shaped my life in immeasurable ways.

Thank you, Steve.

Posted in Miscellany | 2 Comments

Drawing Text on an Arc in CocoaTouch

Posted on August 18, 2011 by alec

CoreText is available now in iOS, but it’s not an easy framework to use. After trying several other approaches to draw text on an arc at this Stack Overflow page,  I adapted Apple’s sample code  CoreTextArcCocoa for Mac class for iOS.

Here’s the code. Hope it proves useful to someone. Please let me know in the comments if it does!

Posted in iPhone Development, Programming | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

New app: Blanchard Gold Prices

Posted on August 8, 2011 by admin

Juggleware worked with Bent Media to develop a real-time financial reporting iPhone app for Blanchard and Company, Inc.

Gold Prices: Charts tab

The app uses a special chart-drawing library that we developed to display the (seemingly ever-increasing) price of gold, silver and other precious metals. Instant price readings and movements of these metals as well as buillion (coins) can be checked on the Prices screen. The News feed lets you check on recent alerts and other related material.

Gold Prices, News, Charts on the App Store

Gold Prices, News, Charts on BlanchardOnline

Posted in Client App Work, iPhone Apps | 1 Comment

Psychic Summit: Aquarium 2 app approved

Posted on December 20, 2010 by alec

There’s been lots of App Store news here recently, but this one is extra special to us because Juggleware was so heavily involved in the design as well as the programming of this one (with Communal). It was a lot of fun to work on, and very satisfying to see so many ideas realized.

Being a huge fan of Brian Eno’s “ambient music” and part-time musician and computer music experimenter as well, the Aquarium 2 iPhone app was especially fun for me to work on. We got many great sounds from the guys at Psychic Summit, in particular Morgan Kahli to build a color-wheel ambient music loop mixer. If you have ever played with Brian Eno’s iPhone app Bloom, or enjoyed the calming sounds of a Buddha Machine, you will definitely enjoy playing with this one.

Psychic Summit: Aquarium 2 on the App Store

The plasma effect on the mixer screen is a nod to the old-school demo-scene days of folks dating back to the days of Commodore 64s, Amigas and Ataris. Swiping left-to-right changes the color palettes of the sound wheel and the accompanying music, as well as the samples assigned to each wedge in the color wheel.

Of course, as it’s also a companion piece to the “Aquarium 2” Blu-ray disc released by HD Moods, other features include a pictoral dictionary of each fish, organized by tank/chapter, as well as a built-in music player of some of the best tracks from the disc. As a special bonus, we even included an on-screen remote inside the app that connects to your Blu-ray player when the Aquarium disc is connected—so you don’t have to switch between iPhone and remote when you’re enjoying the full experience! Owning the BD disc is not at all required for any of these features, except the remote of course.

Posted in App Store, Client App Work, iPhone Apps, iPhone Development | 1 Comment

Gaia Herbs app also in store (belated post)

Posted on December 15, 2010 by alec

Somehow, another client job that we completed this year and has been in the App Store since July didn’t make the Dev Blog, so I am going to try to correct that oversight now.

Gaia Herbs appJuggleware was contracted to do the development work an app for Brevard, North Carolina based Gaia Herbs. (We worked with Canary Collective who were responsible for the graphic design.)

The app lets you connect with Gaia’s extensive database of herbs to trace precise product info back to the source; as each bottle contains a code that ties each herb batch in the product to the very farm it was grown on.

Check it out now on the iTunes Store. (You can tap on the field on the first screen to have it generate a product ID for you if you don’t happen to have a Gaia Herbs product handy.)

Description from the App Store:

Meet Your Herbs lets you trace the purity, integrity and potency of each herb in your Gaia Herbs product. Enter the Meet Your Herbs ID # from any Gaia Herbs product to begin.

Meet Your Herbs lets you trace your herbs’:

  • Source
  • Source Bioregion
  • Harvest Method
  • Harvest Field at Gaia Farm
  • Heavy Metal testing
  • Pesticide Testing
  • Microbial Testing
  • Lab Test Technician
  • Date of Testing
  • Constituent Levels
  • Date of Manufacture
Posted in Client App Work, iPhone Apps | Leave a comment

MOPED app approved

Posted on December 15, 2010 by alec

MOPEDToday we got an email from Rob Hudak, Interactive Creative Director at Zehnder Communications, that MOPED, an iPhone app on which we recently completed programming work, was accepted by Apple and is now in the App Store.

It allows agency field reporters to efficiently report instances of housing blight, including user-entered data, photos, and GPS information captured by the device, which instantly populates the authority’s database.

It’s a remotely (via server) customizable application that gets all its form field data via JSON from the server after authentication, and creates an input form using native iOS UI elements. Data is subjected to rigorous validation before uploading, and is cached for later upload in situations where the user does not have a network connection.

Description from the App Store:

The MOPED – a mobile “Blight Index” application for the iPhone works as an efficient data collection and measurement tool for community redevelopment initiatives. The app works with a web-based online reporting dashboard to identify and classify urban hotspots that are in disrepair. The app is designed to bolster community revitalization efforts while replacing the antiquated clipboard & paper fact-gathering methods that require redundant data entry.

Posted in Client App Work | 3 Comments

Climbing the (psychic) summit…

Posted on November 17, 2010 by alec

I’m putting the finishing touches on our latest app, which is being produced for HD audio/video outfit Psychic Summit.

All I can tell you now is: think Brian Eno’s iPhone apps, or the Buddha Machine…

Posted in Client App Work, iPhone Apps, iPhone Development | Leave a comment

Apple: Only “professional” satirists can make fun.

Posted on September 9, 2010 by alec

Well the Freedom Time controversy has long passed from my mind, except when some other story pops up that reminds me.

Today I had the chance to read Apple’s new App Store Approval Guidelines (registered developers can read them here), and by “new” I mean brand new as it’s essentially the first time they’ve posted them in full, since most of these more specific rules were known to developers previously only by osmosis, trial-and-error, or consultation with mystics.

It’s great to see they’ve revealed the 5MB per 5 minute rule for streaming media, something we found out by trial-and-error but was conveyed by us by a helpful App Store review team member, but it’s a bit disheartening to see the rule that prohibited us from making light fun of The Man Who Clears Brush put into relief:

14. Personal attacks
14.1 Any app that is defamatory, offensive, mean-spirited, or likely to place the targeted individual or group in harms way will be rejected
14.2 Professional political satirists and humorists are exempt from the ban on offensive or mean-spirited commentary

So this is how the Pulitzer-prize winning cartoonist’s app rejection reversal is justified, officially in the rules, while “amateur” satirists like yours truly are by definition, “defamatory, offensive and mean-spirited.”

Posted in App Store, Freedom Time | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment