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No love from Apple iPhone Developer Program

03.14.2008 at 9:58 am

iphonesdk.pngLast week when Apple announced its iPhone SDK, I immediately downloaded it and began playing around with it, even though I don’t know how to develop a single line of code in XCode. It was still worth the time because it is actually very cool, especially with the iPhone emulator. At the same time last week Apple announced their iPhone Developer Program. Again, I immediately applied–which was a simple process of filling out a form and waiting for a response. Today I was excited to receive and saddened to read this:

Dear Registered iPhone Developer,

Thank you for expressing interest in the iPhone Developer Program. We have received your enrollment request. As this time, the iPhone Developer Program is available to a limited number of developers and we plan to expand during the beta period. We will contact you again regarding your enrollment status at the appropriate time.

Thank you for applying.

Best regards,

iPhone Developer Program

Looks like the response was so overwhelming, even during the first few hours, that a lot of people will have to wait, including me!

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How to create a custom iPhone or iPod Touch WebClip bookmark icon

01.16.2008 at 2:41 am

Now that the iPhone and iPod Touch allow a user to save a WebClip bookmark to your site on their Home Screen, most web developers are wondering, “How do I customize this so it doesn’t look so horrible?” To specify a bookmark icon for all pages of a web site, place a PNG image named “apple-touch-icon.png” at the root directory of your web server - similar to the “favicon.ico” which appears to the left of your URL in your web browser.

To override the site bookmark icon on a specific web page, insert a <link> element similar to <link rel=”apple-touch-icon” href=”/apple-touch-icon.png”/> within the <head> element of the page.

<head>
    <title>chrisTHIS!</title>
    <link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="/apple-touch-icon.png"/>
</head>

The bookmark icon dimensions should be 57×57 pixels. If the icon is a different size it will be scaled and cropped to fit. My examples are shown to the right. Design tip: leave space around your artwork since Apple crops the edges to make the icon round.

Safari will automatically composite the icon with the standard “glassy” overlay so it looks like a built-in iPhone or iPod application.

Note: I have noticed that the <head> element is not needed for this to work. Just put the .png file in your root folder! Perhaps this isn’t needed if you use the default “apple-touch-icon.png” file name in the root folder? I went ahead and did it anyway, just to be on the safe side.

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Soda, snacks, and iPods

10.30.2007 at 12:28 am

I’m staying at the Las Vegas Hilton this week for the SEMA Show, and down by the elevators they have the most amazing vending machine for Apple fanboys… BOOM! It’s an Apple vending machine. Chock full of iPods, cameras, headphones, cables, adapters… everything you might need in a pinch. They even have the latest toys, such as the iPod Nano, iPod Video, and iPod Touch. Check this out. Got any spare change?

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Mac OS X Leopard delayed for good reason?

10.27.2007 at 12:38 am

I got this (finally) late this evening from Apple:

To Our Valued Apple Customer:

Dear Apple Customer,

Thank you for your recent order with Apple.

Due to local emergency conditions in your delivery area, our carriers are unable to deliver to the address listed on your order. As a result, your Apple shipment is currently being held at your local FedEx facility.

Understanding that you may need your order sooner than it can be delivered, Apple has teamed with FedEx to allow you to pick up your order at your local FedEx facility. To claim your package, you must have:

– The tracking number
– A valid photo ID with name and address that match the delivery name and address

Regular delivery service will resume once conditions allow.

Thank you for your business.
Apple, Inc.

That explains it, however there aren’t any fires at the airport, or downtown, or anywhere on the way to my house. In fact, all of the fires are nowhere close to San Diego proper. So what’s with the delays, really? If I had to guess, it’s because Apple dumped thousands of overnight packages on FedEx yesterday (Thurs) and overwhelmed their drivers. Nice going!

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Mac Week is not this week

10.10.2007 at 11:22 am

Last week I thought I was set to make this week Mac Week for me. Problem is I didn’t get caught up over the weekend and October is quickly turning into a super busy month as usual, mainly due to my automotive interests.

For starters, this weekend I’ll be doing the vehicle graphics for our Truckblog project truck that is going to the SEMA Show at the end of the month. The owner is Brian Olhausen, who is taking his Ford F-250 Super Duty diesel truck to the show again with a lot of changes from last year. The vehicle graphics I’m doing this year for his truck are the most I’ve ever done for any project, so it should be interesting. You can see my design here in this mockup which is mainly used for sizing and layout estimates.

Then, later this month I’m going to Dearborn, MI with Frozone for a Ford Motor Company media event, highlighting the new Ford Super Duty truck. That will eat up two days. The following week I’ll be in Las Vegas all week long for the SEMA Show, which is my annual trip to the desert to cover the show with the Truckblog Crew.

So needless to say, Mac Week has been post-poned, mainly because I can’t factor in any loss of productivity in my schedule. I may take a day here or there to mess with it some more, but for the immediate future there is no Mac Week!

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Mac Week is next week

10.04.2007 at 2:14 pm

After reading last week about how Microsoft is extending the life of Windows XP due to the slow adoption rate of Windows Vista, it dawned on me that the mad excitement over the initial launch of Vista was nowhere close to what it was for Windows 95, 98, and XP. Has Microsoft lost its OS innovation or has it simply reached a point where it is as good as it gets? Outside of the great new graphical interface, I personally have no need to upgrade to Vista. Actually, I am running a product called WindowBlinds 6 that has a XP theme that is spot-on! There are no killer apps that are egging me on to hop on the Vista train, and I know that many of the USB peripherals and software that I current use on XP will not function under Vista.

So what about Apple? Outside of having an iPod and the iPhone, I have never been a huge fan of the Apple Mac OS X operating system. That is most likely because I’ve always been a PC guy and all of my skills revolve around Windows and PC hardware. In recent years the Mac has adopted PC hardware, such as Intel chips, and many USB devices work with both Mac and PC. Earlier this year I bought a Mac Mini purely for doing native Safari browser testing and Yahoo! Widget development. This was my first Apple computer since my Apple ][+ days. My initial thought was that the UI was cool as hell and very easy to use. I got the low-end Mac Mini (512MB RAM) and hooked it up with the Apple wireless mouse and keyboard, using the VGA mode on my DELL monitor to view it.

This all led me to think… why not give the Apple Mac a run for its money? I can use the same keyboard/mouse monitor and most of the apps I use work on both platforms.

So next week is Mac Week for me. I’m giving the Apple Mac a week-long test to see if it can do everything I do on a daily basis with my PC.

Hardware: this week, in preparation for Mac Week, I upgraded my Mac Mini from 512MB RAM to 2GB. What a huge difference that has made. And you already know about my keyboard so I won’t get into that again. The good thing there is that I’m now used to the Apple keyboard on XP so switching over to the Mac won’t be an issue from the input device side of things.

Software: I’ve got the essentials already installed (Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Firefox, and Skype). I thought I was going to be screwed with Remote Desktop, which I use constantly to access Windows servers for work. Much to my surprise, Microsoft actually has a Mac Remote Desktop client and you know what? It works better than the Windows version! Go figure! While I’d like to try out the native Mac email client, I will probably stick with Thunderbird so I can just copy my mail files over and not be interrupted.

I’ll document my week in a separate article, updating it as I go along.

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Remapping Apple Mac keyboard for XP

10.04.2007 at 12:52 pm

Yesterday I got the new Apple aluminum keyboard and I was raving how cool it is, even for Windows XP. My main complaint was that the Windows and ALT keys were swapped, which was causing me much havoc since my brain has been programmed for so many years to find the ALT key to the left of the space bar.

My initial hunt returned nothing, but after some more Googling today I found the answer in a Freeware product called KeyTweak. This program modifies the Windows registry in order to re-map keys. I was able to swap my Windows/ALT keys (or ALT/Command keys on the Apple keyboard), map the F7-F12 media keys for Previous Track, Pause/Play, Next Track, Mute, Volume Down, Volume Up, and a few other keys. My only complaint is that any changes requires you to reboot your PC. Big whoop!

It works great! I also found another product called AppleKPro (shareware) that does some other fun keyboard mapping action, but I haven’t tried it yet.


Click to view full size

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My new favorite XP keyboard is…

10.03.2007 at 12:57 pm

This is kind of an odd discovery. I used part of my $100 Apple iPhone rebate to purchase the new Apple aluminum flat keyboard, with the expectation that I would be using it for my Mac. It arrived this morning and since my primary computer of choice is a DELL Windows XP desktop, I figured ah what the hell, I’ll plug it into my DELL monitor to see what happens.

Much to my surprise, it detected it just fine and not only that, it functions perfectly with Windows XP as well. The Command/Apple key doubles as the Windows key, and the Option key doubles as the ALT key. There are only two drawbacks, both of which are minor. First, the Windows key is swapped with the ALT key, so that will take some getting used to. Second, the multimedia controls to change the sound settings and pause/play movies do not work on XP. Perhaps there’s a driver out there somewhere that will allow this but I cannot seem to find one.

As far as the keyboard is concerned, it is similar to typing on a notebook keyboard (like my DELL) but better. I can typically type about 75 WPM, and it seems a heckuva lot easier on this keyboard. Plus it is low profile, so it is easier and a more natural way to type which should help with my tendinitis. Time will tell, but I think this is a keeper.

So in case you are curious, that is my current desktop setup above for Windows XP, and yes, that is Windows XP (not a Mac). I replaced the Windows taskbar with ObjectDock which I have been using for several years now and is very stable. It is very configurable, but as you can see I have it set to mimic the Apple OS taskbar. As for the big screen, that’s my beautiful 27″ DELL widescreen monitor running at 1920×1200 resolution. I absolutely love that thing… which for me is necessary since I spend so much time in front of the computer.

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Syncing Google Calendar with iPhone

09.17.2007 at 11:15 pm

When it comes to the Apple iPhone and Windows iTunes, you can synchronize your bookmarks with Internet Explorer or Windows Safari, and contacts from Outlook or Yahoo! but when it comes to synchronizing your calendar you are severely limited, unless all you use is Outlook, because that’s all you can directly sync with at the moment.

I was an Outlook user for years until I gave Microsoft the (thunder) Bird. The biggest problem with making the change from Outlook to Thunderbird was the loss of my synchronization between my iPhone and my calendar, because I don’t use Outlook anymore. I do use Google Calendar (GCal) because it allows me to access my calendar from anywhere (like Gmail) and share calendars between my family.

So how do you sync the iPhone with Google Calendar?

Well, you can’t. But through some sneaky workarounds, it is possible. Since the iPhone only knows how to sync with Outlook, the trick is to get your GCal appointments synced with Outlook.

This is possible with some commercial (pay) services such as ScheduleWorld and SyncMyCal, however the route I went after trying his free trial was David Levinson’s gSyncit. It’s a whole 10 bucks and it works great. After throwin’ down $10 via PayPal and instantly getting the registration code by email, it got rid of the nags, enabled automatic synchronization, and allowed me to add the other 3 GCal calendars that I needed to sync with Outlook. Plus, you don’t need to touch GCal and copy ICAL URLs. Just supply gSyncit with your GCal username and password, then it gives you a list of Google Calendars to sync with.

You can sync both ways, too… from GCal to Outlook, and vice-versa. I am currently only syncing one-way (from GCal to Outlook) so I can’t comment on how well it works the other way.

After configuring gSyncit and clicking the Sync button on my Outlook toolbar, I was able to sync my iPhone through iTunes with ease. Now all my Google appointments are on my iPhone!

…now if I could just figure out a way to get the Chargers to beat the Patriots…

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Apple OK with iPhone hacking

09.11.2007 at 5:38 pm

Interesting stuff:

“In an interview given to Gearlog, Apple VP of Hardware Product Marketing Greg Joswiak confirmed that the iPhone and iPod Touch run the same software, and said that Apple is not bothered by the flood of native, third party software for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Joswiak defined the Apple stance as neutral, and while they will not intentionally break the apps with firmware updates, they will not go out of their way to prevent updates from breaking apps either. So iPhone coders, rejoice, you’ll live to hack another day.” - Gizmodo

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New iPods announced; new Nano on the way

09.05.2007 at 1:12 pm

Apple today announced their complete new line of iPods, including a whole new 3rd-generation Nano, updated iPod Classic, and a new iPod Touch which is basically the iPhone without the phone. They also dropped the cost of the 8GB iPhone by $200 and discontinued the 4GB iPhone (good move). This should make the decision for a lot of people to cancel their contracts and move to the iPhone/AT&T a whole lot easier (ahem, Mike!)

Amazing technology… glad I skipped a generation of Nanos so I can get the new one with the video screen.

The new Nano also works with the Nike+ sport kit, so this is a no-brainer for me! I can use it for my running, and have an extra video player and gaming machine around which is key for my kids. They seem to monopolize my iPhone when we’re out… so this solves that problem too! The 8GB black Nano is ordered.

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Every kid should have an Apple IIc

09.01.2007 at 2:05 am

Now here’s blast from the past! I was going through some of my old website files from the early 90’s looking for something specific (I can’t even recall what it was I was looking for now…) and found some Apple IIc print ads from my old Apple II+ fan site:

Why every kid should have an Apple after school

According to this Apple Computer, Inc. print advertisement (circa 1985), every kid should have an Apple IIc after school. I never had the IIc, but I did have the Apple II+ (I still want to type as “][+”). Maybe that’s why I didn’t turn out quite right.

I ran my first “website” on my Apple II+ which back in the day was called a BBS and I was the SySop (LOL). I ran it on one dial-up 300bps line with an AppleCat modem and four full-height 5-1/4″ floppy drives. I programmed the BBS using Apple Basic. Good Lord, those were the dark ages of personal computing, but I loved every minute of it. Now if I can just find that old photo of me in my Adidas cut-off t-shirt holding my Apple II+ with the cover off, oh that would just be real special. I think all that was missing was a propeller cap.

Well, enough of my geeky childhood… read the text of this ad for a good laugh. Click the image to view it full size and look below for two more print ads.

Read the Rest of ‘Every kid should have an Apple IIc’

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Apple iPhone Bugs and Missing Features

07.10.2007 at 2:10 pm

After a good week’s worth of use, I’ve decided to keep the iPhone, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its fair share of problems or missing features. Most notable is its built in email client which is a terrific start, but falls short when compared to other mobile phone email clients.

My guess is that Apple has already heard most of these and my hope is that all of them will be addressed soon in updates.

Here’s my top 35 bugs and requested features/options, in no particular order. I’ll be updating this list as I discover more. Please note that this is not a comprehensive list… these are my own hot issues!

Read the Rest of ‘Apple iPhone Bugs and Missing Features’

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Another converted Verizon/Windows Mobile user

07.10.2007 at 1:14 pm

Exactly one week ago I took the plunge and snagged an iPhone at my local Starbucks (what, Apple didn’t tell you that you could buy one at Apple stores, AT&T stores, and now Starbucks?) After the initial excitement of having the coolest gadget in the world wore off, I began to really use the iPhone for my daily mobile phone tasks… calling other humans, reading and writing email, and surfing the web.

I couldn’t put the iPhone down, and every other person I showed it to was in awe of my groovy new Star Trek-looking device. I remember doing the same thing with my Q after I’d put a hot new app on it like Skype or the SlingPlayer. I’d show it to a friend and they would be totally impressed with the technology. The biggest difference that I’ve noticed is that with the Apple iPhone I never have to show someone how to get to the app or how to use it. I’d have to do that with the Q, but not the iPhone. The interface is the iPhone’s biggest breakthrough. Yes, it has shortcomings, but no other mobile device on the planet can touch the iPhone when it comes to its slick, finger-loving touch screen interface.

I don’t miss my Q one bit. In fact, a friend of mine who still has a Q stopped by the other day to play with my iPhone (he too was blown away). While he was thumbing through its awesomeness, I took a look at his Q. Even after a few days, I couldn’t believe how archaic the Q now felt to me. It really felt like I was stepping back in time to the dark ages of mobile phones.

So, with the hype and excitement out of the way, I’ve decided that the Apple iPhone is a keeper. No need to wait 30 days, no need for further testing, this is the phone for me. As for my Verizon contract? I had another 1.5 years on my current contract, so canceling it would have cost me $145 (they pro-rate it from $175). We needed another phone in the family, so I downgraded the mega voice+data plan I had down to an extra $10/mo on our family plan to keep it going with an older Motorola flip phone I had lying around. End result: Verizon lost $90/mo but they can still consider that contract in their mega customer count.

I never thought a phone purchase would make me leave Verizon… until I saw the iPhone. Nice job, Apple. Bad move to pass on the iPhone, Verizon.

BTW, check out this funny video, iPhone Day.

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