little cat feet

Catching up (again)

Yea, so I haven't posted anything personal since July 1st.  What can I say but "Sorry, been busy"?  Both the personal and professional sides of my life have been bursting at the seams lately.  So let's catch up, shall we?

Personal

Most important - yes, Wayne and I are still together and going strong.  We haven't had a fight yet - sure, we get annoyed with each other from time to time, but that's life.  I have no significant complaints, and he doesn't have any either (that he's willing to admit to, anyway :).  It embarrasses him to no end when I say this but I still feel like a knight in shining armor rode up on his white steed and swept me away...

A fair amount of time (and money) has gone into our RV.  Mike had gotten it in the divorce, but he hasn't been working and couldn't afford it anymore, so now it's mine.  Wayne and I have gone on a few trips with the dogs and a good time has been had by all.  We've done a bit of traveling around Oregon, to the beach and the mountains, and we'll be taking it to Nevada to spend Christmas with his dad.

Wayne's 40th birthday was October 21st, and I made sure that was a Big Deal.  Originally all I had planned was a big party with all of our friends, but then fate intervened - the guy I do contract iPhone work for called us all to New York for a week of training and it happened to be Wayne's birthday week.  So we spent the week staying at Alex's place in Manhattan, three blocks from Central Park and one block from a subway station.  We had dinner on the 21st at an awesome restaurant , and then came back just in time for the original party, complete with limo ride.  I'm guessing he'll be remembering this birthday for a good long while! :)

Pet-wise, we still have the two dogs, and are now up to four cats.  Mike had found a new home for Angel;  she likes to pee in inappropriate places, which makes her somewhat unsuitable as a house pet.  We had hoped she would stop doing it if she was the only cat in the home but no, she continued until they finally gave her back, which meant she came straight back to me (don't ask).  She now lives in a decent-sized kitty cage in my office.  I don't like confining her like this, especially since she's getting *really* fat, but I don't know what else to do with her.  In the past the only option vets have had was to give her kitty Valium, which works but makes her groggy all the time.  At this point I'm not exactly sure I know which is worse, sleeping all day due to a medication, or due to being stuck in a cage with nothing to do...

Professional

Speaking of my office (how's that for a segue?), a few months ago I upgraded a bit.  I had been in the back bedroom since we moved here in 2005 and I decided it was time for a change.  So I got a new, much larger desk from Ikea and a super-duper powerful Mac Pro computer with dual monitors.  It's an awesome work space.  In order to fit all this, I moved my office up front, into the living room, which we never used for anything else.  It's a bit odd to walk in the front door and have my office be right there, but I've always been one to arrange things around how I use them more than how they look (though being able to accommodate both is nice when it works out).  

It's a bit odd at night, when I have the lights on and I know that everyone walking by can see me through the front windows, but I've learned to adjust.  The next challenge will be figuring out what to do with the Christmas tree;  it's usually in the front window, but that's not necessarily going to work this year.  Although having the tree there blinking colorfully in front of me could be very festive.... or it could drive me nuts, I'm not sure.

I won't get into too much work detail - I'd lose most of you.  The short summary is that I've lost a bunch of old clients this year, but have picked up new ones.  It remains to be seen if I will be able to completely replace what was lost, but we're doing fine at the moment.  Subject to change... the big difference is that my previous income came mostly from hosting websites, which is free money most of the time, punctuated by the occasional total panic requiring 24/7 effort until things are fixed.  My new work is mostly hourly, or fixed-price contract.  It's going to require me working a lot more hours to make the same amount of money in the new world order.  I can't say I like that, but it's not exactly unreasonable.  I've had kind of a free ride for a long time, and I always knew it would not last forever.

The main thing to know is that I'm now building iPhone applications, which is fun, though hard, work, and is about as cocktail-party buzzword compliant as you can get right now in this industry. :)  Right now I do all my work as a subcontractor for Codefab, run by my friend and colleague Alex Cone, but eventually I plan to pick up some clients of my own, and I also have a few ideas up my own sleeve that I would like to build and sell myself.  It's an exciting time to be a programmer who likes Apple products, that's for sure.

I think that's it for me - how are *you* all doing???

This App Store thing is really starting to piss me off

There was some consternation when the iPhone first came out and the only place you could buy apps for it was through Apple's Application Store. Some felt that Apple would abuse the power, but most of us had faith that they would do the right thing. Now, however, it's time to worry.

First, they threw out a few apps which clearly had questionable value, such as "I Am Rich", which cost $999.00 and didn't do anything but prove that the user was rich enough to afford it. Stupid idea, and although I would have preferred they allow the marketplace to sink that app to the bottom of the pond, I could understand why they pulled it. Then there was "Pull My Finger", which made fart sounds (complete with making the phone vibrate). Even less defensible, but I could see where they would not want news articles being written that contained both the words "iPhone" and "fart", so ok... I don't think the world is worse off without a fart sound generator, even though I think they were wrong to reject it.

Then things got worse. They denied a couple of apps for duplicating existing functionality. This is wrong on so many levels... first, there, is nothing in the developer agreement that says you can't do this. It's called competition, people! And even worse, they are only doing this with apps they feel duplicate *Apple's* functionality. They don't care if there are 15 sudoku games, but if you want to play podcasts or display email messages, even if you do both of those things in a clearly different way than Apple's apps do, you're shit out of luck.

Even worse, there's no way to get an idea pre-approved, so the only way to find out whether Apple will accept your app or not is to do *all* of the work of building it, submit it for review, and cross your fingers.

Their last smooth move was to deal with the uproar, which is growing by the day, by putting an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) notice in the rejection letters. So if your app is rejected, you're not allowed to discuss that fact in public. WTF??

And all of this is happening coincidentally with the release of the first phone to run Android, Google's open source mobile phone OS. Apple, please.... could you *be* any more stupid?? Do you really want developers turning their attention to Android because they are afraid to trust you anymore???

This has all been written about many times, by far bigger names in the community than mine. But there's one thing that strikes me that I haven't seen anyone else mention: this tactic Apple is using, of putting an NDA on the rejection letters... is it just me, or does that seem an awful lot like those National Security Letters the Bush Administration is so fond of? The ones where they send you a letter demanding some kind of information in an unlawful manner (ie no warrant, no probable cause) and you are not only obligated to give it up, but you can't tell anyone about it. Not even a lawyer, so you are incapable of defending yourself. Of course the stakes are a lot higher in that situation but still... the tactics seem similar to me, and equally indefensible.

It all makes me sad... I love my iPhone and I want to see it and Apple succeed beyond all our wildest dreams, but this is pretty hard to support. I have a couple of app ideas that I'd love to build, but even if they are accepted and do well in the store, the ick factor is going to take away a lot of the joy. And I know quite a few people now who are abandoning their iPhone dev ambitions, at least for now, because they can't afford to put in the time and then have Apple reject their app.

*sigh* C'mon, guys, just admit you blew it and fix this, m'kay? Preferably before you do so much damage to the brand that it never fully recovers....

Update - Gruber is questioning the part about the rejection notices being covered by NDA. I'll update this post if he publishes any conclusions.

First iPhone post!

Sorry I've been so quiet; life has been very busy lately. I'll try to get back to posting more soon, that is, after I get done standing in line for a new iPhone tomorow... :)