Rob Fahrni » iOS

Mobile, definitely a passing fad

Rob Fahrni — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 15:50:39 +0000

VentureBeat: “Starbucks has now processed more than 26 million mobile payments since January, Adam Brotman, vice president and general manager of digital ventures at Starbucks, told VentureBeat.”

In a word, WOW! Do you think Peet’s and other big names will soon follow suit?

Peet’s, I’m here to help. (I know, shameless, but a guys gotta try, right?)

My Favorite iOS Apps

Rob Fahrni — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 05:39:58 +0000

I was trying to convince someone at work that we needed to do some iOS Apps. During the conversation I said something I always say about native iOS Apps. They provide the best chance at a great user experience. He asked to give him some examples of great iOS Applications, so I thought I’d share them here.

I use the applications above more than any others on my phone, but I have a few from some other companies that I really appreciate. Enjoy.

Atwood on Apple

Rob Fahrni — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 23:28:41 +0000

Jeff Atwood: “But as a software developer, I am deeply ambivalent about an Apple dominated future. Apple isn’t shy about cultivating the experience around their new iOS products and the App Store. There are unusually strict, often mysterious rules around what software developers can and cannot do — at least if they want entry into the App Store. And once you’re in, the rules can and will change at any time. Apple has cracked down several times already:”

Jeff, it’s ok to feel this way. You have other vendors to choose from. Android and Windows Phone 7 to name a couple of great ones.

I’m an iOS developer, not a popular one like Marco Arment, but an iOS developer all the same. I’m ok with giving Apple a 30% cut of my revenues. It’s a part of doing business. I benefit from their infrastructure. They’ve given me store space, server space, they’ve provided a way to install applications and manage upgrades, and they collect money for me so I don’t have to deal with credit card companies and the like. It’s not such a bad deal.

Now, I’m not disparaging Jeff for his opinion on the matter. It’s like a lot of things in life. We have different opinions. He just can’t live with the idea, and that’s perfectly fine. Jeff has contributed a lot to computing and computer science and I look forward to reading his insightful articles for a long time to come. I just may not agree with him. (Psssst, that’s ok.)

ARC

Rob Fahrni — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 17:41:39 +0000

Mike Ash: “That, in essence, is what ARC is. The memory management rules are baked into the compiler, but instead of using them to help the programmer find mistakes, it simply inserts the necessary calls on its own.”

Reference counting is a pain in the keister, until you understand the rules. ARC is going to become an important tool in the quest to creating error free code. If you’ve ever written ref counted code you know how careful you need to be so you don’t leak memory or double-release something and cause a crash. It can be frustrating if you don’t pay attention.

This is a welcome change and one I’m looking forward to.

I think it’s time for an RxCalc refresh anyway. Plus some other nifty things I’ve been working on, that will definitely be ARC’d and Mac OS X Lion / iOS 5 only.

Dear Steve

Rob Fahrni — Mon, 23 May 2011 17:11:24 +0000

Craig Hockenberry: “I’m one of the developers that is affected by the Lodsys patent infringement claim. I’m writing not to beg for your support, but rather to give you a better idea of how this legal action affects the average iOS developer.”

Go read the entire article. Craig gets to the point. Paying this troll won’t break the bank, but it opens the door to others.

Something else to keep in mind. Lodsys reserves the right to increase their licensing fee at any time. So, what if 0.5+% goes up to 5% of your revenue, or 10% of your revenue? That would definitely hurt the ecosystem.

A Call to Boycott In App Purchase

Rob Fahrni — Wed, 18 May 2011 15:10:02 +0000

Mike Lee: “If you currently have an app on the App Store that uses in-app purchase, you don’t have a choice. While removing in-app purchase from your app may not protect you from lawsuits, leaving it in at this point is tantamount to asking to be sued.”

I couldn’t agree more.

If you’re using In App Purchase you should remove it, at least until this is settled.

Prophetic

Rob Fahrni — Wed, 18 May 2011 15:03:52 +0000

Mike Lee: “You might think that sounds dramatic. A small cut is not going to kill a thriving business, true, but this is the opening salvo to all-out war. The parasites have taken notice of the goldrush, and would like nothing more than the precedent that allows every modern-day mobster with a patent lawyer on retainer to start cracking nuts.”

That post was on May 16. Today, May 18, we get this lovely news. That’s right, it’s a different company going after patent royalties.

From the article: “Jim McGill, chairman of MacroSolve, has said that the patent covers “thousands of existing apps” that collect data and send it to a central server. “

Thousands of apps. Here we go again.

Configure @Twitterrific to use @mlkshk

Rob Fahrni — Sat, 14 May 2011 17:45:32 +0000

With all the hubbub surrounding the Terms of Service changes at TwitPic I thought I’d share how to configure Twitterrific to use a hot new photo sharing site, mlkshk.

Steps for configuring Twitterrific on an iPhone.

Sorry, I don’t have an iPad, but they should be similar.

First off Twitterrific doesn’t have its configuration settings inside the application. You’ll need to tap the Home button and locate the Setting’s App Icon.

Step #1: Tap the Settings Icon.

Step #2: Scroll down until you find Twitterrific, then tap it. This will open the Twitterrific Settings.

Step #3: Scroll down to Advanced. Tap it.

Step #4: Scroll down to URL, tap the edit field, and type “https://mlkshk.com/upload” minus the quotes, you’re all done! Congratulations! When you add a photo to a tweet it will now show up in your mlkshk Shake.

Steps for configuring on Twitterrific Mac.

Step #1: Start Twitterrific.

Step #2: Select Twitterrific > Preferences…

Step #3: In the “Custom Upload Service” edit field type “https://mlkshk.com/upload” minus the quotes, you’re all done!

The reason this works is both The Icon Factory and mlkshk saw fit to support the TwitPic upload API.

I very much dislike patent trolls

Rob Fahrni — Fri, 13 May 2011 17:54:45 +0000

The Guardian: Florian Mueller, who closely watches developents in smartphones and patent claims, analysed the claims by H-W Technology and commented: “What’s really disconcerting about this lawsuit is that it’s the first such lawsuit to attack – besides operating system vendors and device makers, which are routinely sued by patent holders – a number of companies because of their smartphone apps. I’m really afraid we’re now going to see more patent lawsuits against application developers. Hopefully this won’t ever affect little guys who can’t afford to defend themselves, but if there’s a major company behind an app, or if an app is commercially very successful, it can happen and it has now apparently started to happen.”

This story contains details related to my earlier post. Darned patent trolls.

Is Apple Big Brother?

Rob Fahrni — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:47:07 +0000

Alex Levinson: “I don’t think that’s a legal battle Apple wants to face considering the sale of over 100 million iDevices worldwide. That raises the question – how is this data used? It’s used all the time by software running on the phone. Built-In applications such as Maps and Camera use this geolocational data to operate. Apple provides an API for access to location awareness called Core Location.”

No, Apple isn’t “Big Brother”, that’s the government’s job. Go read the article, it’s very good, and gives you the truth about how the data is used, including this nice little nugget.

“Apple is not harvesting this data from your device. This is data on the device that you as the customer purchased and unless they can show concrete evidence supporting this claim – network traffic analysis of connections to Apple servers – I rebut this claim in full.”

Oh, and yes, Android devices do something similar.

If you have an iPhone and would like to create a map of the places you’ve been, there’s an app for that.