Bulk Purchases

I've noticed that there have been a few bulk purchases of a few of my apps over the last couple of months. The iPad Science RSS app seems to be the most popular. I'd love to hear from anyone who has made one of these bulk purchases. I'm very interested to know what they're being used for. Perhaps I can enhance some of my apps to be more useful depending on the needs of bulk purchasers.

Inspect Tor - Update

The update is now in the App Store. The app now covers the time period between Aug/2009 and Aug/2011. It's been a while between updates and I hope that the next one will be sooner rather than later. There should be at least one more before the end of 2011.

Update - Inspect Tor

I've been working on an update to Inspect Tor that will include inspections up until August 2011. There have been some issues with the data and Google hasn't been very co-operative. Those are some of the reasons why it's been so long. Anyways, it should be submitted this weekend and hopefully available some time in the next week.

New App - Medicalpedia

I released a new app a few days ago. It's another themed Wikipedia app called Medicalpedia and it's focus is the Medicine category of Wikipedia. This is an excellent category and the app has all the features of my other Wikipedia themed apps. The link is in the list on the right hand side of this page.

Some jerkface gave me a single star and bad review in the American store. His complaint is that there is no search in the app. He obviously doesn't understand how Wikipedia works, because if he did he'd know that there is a search box on each page that the app renders. I could have built a search but I saw no reason to duplicate functionality that already existed. I don't mind criticism and I don't mind if people don't like my apps. People have told me to my face that they don't like my apps and I'm fine with that. What I don't like is people trashing my apps for no reason. I am very clear about what my apps are and what they do in the descriptions and to give me one star because they don't have a feature that someone thinks they should have, (and in this case do have), is just being a major league idiot.

New App - Sportspedia

I have a new app out. It's another Wikipedia browser, this one is sports themed. It's listed on the right hand side of this page. I'm getting towards the end of the Wikipedia browsers. I have two or three more in mind and then that's it and I'll have to find a new project to move on to. If anyone reads this blog and has any suggestions for a themed Wikipedia browser they'd like just let me know.

Updates

More updates have been approved by Apple. Biblicalpedia has been brought upto date. This weekend I'm hoping to update the rest of the Wikipedia browsers.

I've been experimenting with giving some of my apps away for free for a limited time over the last few weeks. I gave the iPhone MegaTech and the iPhone EnvironRSS away for a day each. I will continue to do this. I will announce my next give away here sometime in the next week.

New Apps - Sciencepedia and Artpedia

The last two apps I had waiting for approval were approved today. They are Sciencepedia and Artpedia. You can find links to them in the usual place. I hope you like them.

I've started updates on existing apps. The updates add Read It Later functionality and in some cases update the app info text.
Religionpedia and Histopedia updates have been submitted and I hope to get the rest of the apps updated over the next day or two.

New App - Histopedia

Apple has approved my latest app Histopedia. It's another Wikipedia browser, this time based on the History category. I've also completed an update to all my Wikipedia based apps that allows for offline saving via "Read It Later". I'm just waiting for two more apps I have under review to be approved and then I'll update them all. It's just easier for me to update all the apps at once so I don't have to keep track of which app has which set of features. I've also started working on including a way to switch views in the Wikipedia apps. I think I might start by allowing for the user to view the Wikipedia mobile view along with the regular web view.

New App - Religionpedia

Religionpedia was approved by Apple last night. This one had to be appealed just like Philosopedia, but it only took the Appeals Board about 24 hours to approve it. I have two more Wikipedia browsers currently in review. Once those two are in I have one more that I'm going to submit. If you're interested Religionpedia is listed with all the others on the right hand side of this page.

Inspect Tor in the Toronto Star

Inspect Tor is included in a Toronto Star photo gallery today. I'm hoping that this will help get the word out about this app. Thanks to the Toronto Star.

Lots of Updates - New iPhone RSS reader

A whole bunch of updates were approved yesterday. All the iPhone RSS readers have been updated. It was just a minor change; there was an issue with seeing all categories in some circumstances when adding a new feed. As well ScienceNewsRSSHD and EnviroRSS HD have been updated to fix a problem with the apps crashing when adding a new feed or category. An iPhone version of the ScienceNewsRSSHD reader is now available as well.

In its first couple of days Philosopedia has done pretty well. I'm hoping to have a few more Wikipedia browsers in the App Store by the end of the month, but lets see if Apple's on board with that.

Good News From Apple - Philosopedia

Last week Philosopedia a Wikipedia browser app similar to Biblicalpedia and Deathpedia was rejected by the app store review team for the second time. I decided to appeal the rejection to the App Review Board which is a group that Apple set up last year to deal with developer complaints regarding app rejections. I wrote them a short explanation as to why I thought my app deserved to be in the app store and an outline of what I saw as the proper use of my app. Well I got word today that they have approved my app. This is great news and a good argument for all of those people that claim that Apple is an organization that doesn't listen to or care about developers. Sometimes their system works.

If you're interested in Philosopedia a link to it has been added to the list on the right hand side of this page.

Fixes For iPad RSS Readers Are In The App Store

The folks at Apple are working real fast these days on updates. It only took about 24 hours to get the iPad RSS reader updates reviewed and approved and in the app store. Hopefully the iPhone updates will be in tomorrow.

Bug Fixes Submitted

I found two issues with my iPad RSS readers yesterday. I've already fixed them and submitted them to Apple, so hopefully they will be available by the end of this week. Apple is usually a little quicker with updates than they are with reviewing new apps. The apps were crashing when one attempted to delete a feed or a feed category. As well when adding new feeds one was not always able to see all category options when the keyboard was viewable. This second one wasn't really a bug because one can always dismiss the keyboard, but I just felt it was a better user experience to be able to scroll and view all categories without having to dismiss the keyboard.

As well I've updated all my iPhone RSS readers to better display the categories when adding a new feed. These updates are currently awaiting Apple's approval which I hope will be by the end of this week.

ScienceNewsRSSHD has a great first few days. It peaked at #5 yesterday in the News category in the Canadian App Store (it's currently sitting at #10), and it's at #12 in the News category in the US store. On the first day it was free and had over 200 downloads. It looks like there's reasonable demand for this app so I'll be building and releasing an iPhone version in the very near future.

New App - ScienceNewsRSSHD now in the App Store

My latest themed RSS reader is now in the App Store. The theme is science and it contains almost 150 feeds. It was free for the first day, but is now selling at the standard $0.99. This is an iPad only app. I might make an iPhone version if there's much demand sometime over the next few weeks.

I've also completed updates to one of my Wikipedia themed browsers and hopefully the folks at Apple will accept it. I've cleared up a minor GUI issue and added a new feature; the ability to organize articles into a "My Category" folder. I've also figured out how to offer an alternative view of Wikipedia articles, one that strips out a lot of the surrounding content and just displays the article. I don't think that the result looks great, so I've left it out for now, but I'm considering integrating it in the future if Apple decides that the app needs more features in order to be allowed into the App Store.

EnvrionRSS iPhone now in App Store

I made an iPhone version of the Enviro RSS HD app. It's called EnvironRSS and it's been accepted into the app store. I've added a link to it to the list of my apps.

I made a few more Wikipedia browsers but they've been rejected by Apple. They claim that they are not significantly different from the web experience of viewing Wikipedia. I don't agree with them. I think that the navigation, the ability to make and export notes, as well as the Instapaper/Facebook integration make it a much better study tool as opposed to viewing Wikipedia in a browser. But I guess that's not enough for Apple. So I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I guess I could put more functionality into it. I was thinking about adding the ability to collect favourite articles into a "bookmarked" or "favourites" folder. I don't know if that would be enough. I've also thought about maybe offering a "reading" view in which everything except the article content is stripped out. So there'd be no links, no references, nothing but text. I've looked into it a bit and it looks like a lot of work. It's not that I'm afraid of a lot of work, it's just that I think that I'd just be repeating the Instapaper functionality and not really offering much value to users. I don't know.

If anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them.

iPhone RSS Reader Updates

USGov RSS, CanGov RSS, and MegaTech iPhone apps have all been updated to allow the user to use the apps in landscape mode. The updates have been accepted by Apple and are available in the AppStore. I'm hoping to have a few more Wikipedia based apps out next week. They've been submitted to Apple and are currently awaiting review. It looks like the review process has slowed down again. It got a little better after Christmas, but it's back to about a week for updates and over a week for new apps. Hopefully this is only temporary.

I'd like to encourage anyone who has downloaded one of my apps and likes it to rate it, or leave a comment at iTunes. It would be great to get some feedback.

EU-RSS iPhone Update

I was recently contacted by a user of my EU-RSS iPhone app who requested that I make it work in landscape mode so that they could better read the articles that it provided. I have made this change and it is now available as an update through the app store. I will be updating all of my other iPhone RSS readers with the same functionality this weekend.

Currently I have two apps that are awaiting approval by Apple. One is "waiting for review" and the other is "in review", but I've been informed that the review process for this app will take extra time. Apple gave no reason why extra time is needed to review this app. I sent them an email a few days ago inquiring as to what the hold up is but they haven't responded yet. The same thing happened with Deathpedia and they offered no reason then either. This is kind of annoying, but as long as the app makes it in without too much trouble I guess it's a minor annoyance.

New App - Deathpedia - Inspect Tor updated

My latest app has been approved by Apple and is in the App Store. It's called Deathpedia and it's just like Biblicalpedia only the topic is Death instead of the Bible. I don't have high expectations for this app as far as sales go, but I like it. Death is a fascinating subject and the Wikipedia pages that deal with it and related subjects are really good.

Inspect Tor has been updated with the latest data set released by the City of Toronto.

I'm working on a few new apps and hope to have at least one of them done by the end of the weekend, but since the Super Bowl is this weekend it might not happen. Either way I'm hoping to have both of them submitted to Apple by the end of next week.

I've posted my email on the blog now so feel free to contact me with suggestions, bugs, job offers, whatever.

Updates

Updates to USGov RSS iPad, CanGov RSS iPad, EU RSS iPad, and MegaTech iPad have been accepted by the app store. This update fixes a problem when viewing web pages in landscape mode. The view was not being sized properly and as a result part of the pages were being cut off. The pages should now fit perfectly in landscape.

The city of Toronto has released a new DineSafe data set so I'm hoping to have an update to Inspect Tor submitted to the app store some time early next week.

New App - Enviro RSS HD

My latest RSS reader has been accepted into the app store. It comes loaded with over 100 RSS feeds from various organizations which all deal with the environment. I think that this is one of my best RSS readers because the content is so good. A lot of these organizations seem to keep their RSS feeds updated on a regular basis. As well I think that I included some really good organizations. This one I've done as iPad only.

I have updates to all my other iPad RSS readers pending. This update fixes a problem with viewing web pages in landscape. The web view is now resizing properly so that parts of the web page being viewed are not cut off.

Biblicalpedia Update

An update to Biblicalpedia has been accepted into the App Store. This update fixes a few bugs including the navigation data disappearing randomly and the app crashing when moving to the info page and back. This version is far more stable. If you experience any problems please use this blog to report them.

I've submitted another Wikipedia based app and am hoping to submit another RSS reader by the weekend.

Newest App is Out

My newest app is out. It's called Biblicalpedia. It's a Bible themed Wikipedia browser. It displays the Bible category from Wikipedia in a side bar for easy navigation. It is integrated with Facebook and Instapaper. The user can also make notes (which can be exported via email) associated with pages. The one thing I've never really liked about Wikipedia is the navigation so I built an app that works much better in that regard. I will be releasing a few other themed Wikipedia browsers. I'm also intending on enhancing them as much as I can over the next few months. See the side bar for a link to Biblicalpedia.

Apps Updated

Most of my apps have been updated. A user found a minor bug with regards to the search in Inspect Tor which has been fixed and released, (v1.2). USGov, EU RSS and CanGov RSS iPad versions (all now at v1.1) now have Instapaper and Facebook integration. As well I made a few minor GUI updates that should make the apps function/look better.

All Apps In

So I now have 9 apps in the app store. They are as follows

MegaTech - iPad/iPhone - a technology rss reader written for anyone interested in technology but with programmers in mind
USGovRSS - iPad/iPhone - a US government RSS reader
CanGovRSS - iPad/iPhone - a Canadian Government RSS reader
EU RSS - iPad/iPhone - a European Union government RSS reader
Inspect Tor - iPhone - a Toronto food services inspection application. It uses information released by the city of Toronto to allow the user to look up food services establishments located in the city of Toronto and view their inspection records going back to 2008.

MegaTech iPad version has been updated to allow the user to post links from the app to their Facebook wall, and to post links to the user's Instapaper account so that they can read articles offline. All of my iPad apps will have this functionality pretty soon.

I am investigating my next set of apps. I'm hoping to have something going by next week.

I'm now on Twitter as mikesistuff. I will be posting news there occasionally.

More Apps

Two more of my apps were accepted into the App Store today. Both are iPad apps, EU RSS and MegaTech. EU RSS is like the US and Canadian RSS readers that I submitted previously, but obviously focused on the EU. It contains over 150 feeds from the EU government. MegaTech is a tech RSS reader with over 200 feeds. It's got a bunch of good stuff for techies, especially programmers. I've seen RSS apps with as little as 14 feeds selling for $1.99. What's the deal with that? I expect a little more than 14 feeds for 2 bucks. Today I submitted a new app that I'm really excited about. It's called Inspect Tor and it contains food inspection info for the last few years for food services establishments in Toronto. It was a lot of fun to build. It's iPhone only now, but if there's demand I might do an iPad version.