Wednesday, July 1, 2009

CheckSplit — iPhone App

After a long time of not moving ahead with this project I was persuaded by those around me to publish an app that I wrote and we were successfully using for months now.

So I added the final polishes to the application, created a mini-site for it with all the information about it, with the help of my wife put together a good screencast that demos the application and its functionality. And then it was uploaded to Apple for a review.

I’m happy to say that CheckSplit was approved by Apple and is up in the AppStore as of yesterday. I would appreciate any feedback and reviews.

In: Software Tags: app, Apple, AppStore, CheckSplit, iPhone, SDK
Time: 10:06 Comments: 5 Comments Post a Comment

Just placed an order for a pair of expensive leather cases made by Vaja for our iPhones. For Alena we’re getting ivolution Top SP and I picked classic Retro Dockable case. It’s going to take a while for us to get them since they are custom made, but judging by reviews, should be worth it. 0

Friday, June 26, 2009

iPhone 3G S

Well, it didn’t take much time or effort to switch to the new phone. Simply plugged it into the computer and iTunes gave me an option to restore from my previous back up¹.

The phone looks exactly the same as the old one with the exception of lettering on the back being done in chrome instead of gray color. The screen is supposed to collect less finger prints and maybe it does, but it still does collect them.

The differences inside are more interesting. Obviously the biggest new feature is the compass. I have no idea how I lived before without it. It’s hard to imagine. But now those sorry days are far behind me.

On a more serious note — I really like the photo camera improvement. The photos above where taken with the phone in the same position. The phone now auto-exposes depending on your selection of focus point, which is done by simply touching the screen. Video is a nice feature, but I don’t see myself using that much as I never did before on my other phones.

Speed increase is much more noticeable than I expected it to be. iLounge has a good video demonstrating it.

Now I just need to find a good case for this thing, so Shublik doesn’t “upgrade” it.

I synced my old phone right before the start. [↩]

In: Gadgets & Gear Tags: 3G S, Apple, iPhone, unboxing
Time: 16:01 Comments: 1 Comment Post a Comment

Friday, June 26, 2009

Good Morning

My morning started off well today. I got an unexpected surprise from FedEx. You see, they are in fact so bad, that they can not even predict their own delivery date. But this time around it actually worked in my favor, so — I thank you, FedEx!

FedEx box. All the way from China to NYC in 1 day.

I placed my order with a certain company based in Cupertino, CA on Saturday, June 20th. And it took them 6 days to ship my order out. I got an email with tracking information yesterday in the morning, saying that my package was shipped out from Shenzhen, China! And to make it more cruel — scheduled to be delivered on Monday morning!

Yet here it is! 1 day later, all the way from China, in my hands.

In: Gadgets & Gear Tags: 3G S, FedEx, iPhone
Time: 11:18 Comments: 5 Comments Post a Comment

Daniel says: Subscribed

June 26, 2009 @ 13:06

Yeah, I was surprised too. But FedEx tracking page gives a step by step list and seems like it really did come from China.

Jun 26, 2009 10:14 — Delivered
BROOKLYN, NY
Jun 26, 2009 08:31 — On vehicle for delivery
BROOKLYN, NY
Jun 26, 2009 07:19 — At dest sort facility
JAMAICA, NY
Jun 26, 2009 03:42 — Departed FedEx location
MEMPHIS, TN
Jun 26, 2009 12:21 — Arrived at FedEx location
MEMPHIS, TN
Jun 25, 2009 15:04 — Departed FedEx location
ANCHORAGE, AK
Jun 25, 2009 13:27 — Arrived at FedEx location
ANCHORAGE, AK
Jun 25, 2009 20:17 — In transit
SHENZHEN CN
Jun 25, 2009 12:10 — Left FedEx origin facility
SHENZHEN CN

All times are local.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Beejive IM 3.0

Apple has finally approved the newest version of Beejive, the one that supports new push notifications. In essence that makes IM as effective as SMS with a key difference of IM being completely free.

Feel free to contact me through AIM or ICQ on iDR2000 or 424614398 respectively. I will get your messages instantly on my phone.

In: Gadgets & Gear, Software Tags: Apple, Beejive, IM, iPhone, push
Time: 12:06 Comments: No Comments Post a Comment

Went to AT&T store at lunch — no line, but their systems are barely moving. It took them 40 minutes of me talking to a sales rep to realize that they are out of 16GB versions and I have no need nor will to pay for 32GB one.

Also Apple is not approving any real push notification applications and this is really uncool. Either they are really swamped with new applications or decided to control the load on their network by controlling apps, or both. Again, not cool.

Impatiently waiting for Beejive to get through. 0

Apple’s keynote from WWDC 2009 is happening now. Mac and iPhone news — incoming.

Update: Well, that was pretty boring. Mostly rehashing everything that was already known. News — Snow Leopard upgrade will be $29, iPhone 3.0 software out on June 17th, iPhone 3G S out on June 19th.

Update 2: Apple released firmware 3.0 Gold Master to paid iPhone developers today. Update went through smoothly. 0

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Shublik & iPhone, Part 2

iPhone after an unfortunate encounter with Shublik, The iPhone Destroyer.

For those of you who were not convinced by Part 1 of our testing for Shublik & iPhone compatibility we present you conclusive evidence from Part 2 testing. Need more? I hope not!

In: Life In General Tags: broken, glass, iPhone, screen, Shublik
Time: 11:56 Comments: 2 Comments Post a Comment

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Update: Shublik & iPhone

The latest patch has added a custom iPhone plug to Shublik hardware.

Looks like the last patch has improved the compatibilities issues. Now Shublik comes with a headphone jack, ready to be plugged right into iPhone. However there are still some bugs to work out — for the past half an hour he’s been trying to drop my iPhone off the table just to see what would happen…

In: Life In General Tags: iPhone, Shublik
Time: 10:35 Comments: 3 Comments Post a Comment

Monday, April 6, 2009

Shublik: iPhone Incompatible

iPhone headphones have clearly failed Shublik compatibility test.

I’m sure Shublik looks very technologically advanced to the untrained eye, but contrary to the popular belief it isn’t so. We’ve ran some tests and were able to establish with 100% certainty that iPhone isn’t Shublik compatible. Test results are provided in a “graph” above.

P.S. Poor Alena. It was her headphone set.

In: Life In General Tags: headphones, iPhone, Shublik
Time: 16:32 Comments: 6 Comments Post a Comment

There is a bunch of cool little apps that developers are putting out. I think iLightr is one of them. What I don’t get is why some people keep whining about that fact that it’s useless and demand that Apple doesn’t approve those. Don’t like it — don’t fucking buy it, assholes! It’s that simple. 1

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Split Check: Entering Info

I still have a lot of development to do to finish this app up, but here’s a short update on progress.

The check creation (list display + price entering) screens are ready, so is the screen to set up tip and tax values with persistent data storage. The split itself is the last thing that needs implementation, but it’s probably going to be the easiest step now.

On Saturday we gave it a real life test on entering information only to find out that the original idea was flawed. Read more…

In: Software Tags: app, iPhone, SDK, Split Check
Time: 12:57 Comments: 4 Comments Post a Comment

We haven’t posted in the longest time now. There is really not much happening. Work, work, work. For both of us now. I also have been reading a lot about iPhone SDK and Objective-C. Actually making good headway and building my first app. 4

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Griffin Wave for iPhone 3G

I’ve never had a case for a phone before. But then again I never had a phone that seems so fragile to a drop. Don’t get me wrong, the build of iPhone seems sturdy and solid, but because of the huge glass display it seems it won’t live through a fall.

After reading a number of reviews on different sites I decided to trust iLounge and their opinion. Out of several B+ graded¹ cases they had Griffin Wave seemed the most visually appealing, yet slim, to me.

We ended up picking up a pair of these at BestBuy yesterday. They didn’t have any color choices and they were sold as a pair — one was black and white and another one was green. Both of these are translucent to some degree.

After putting the case on one thing becomes apparent — it feels amazingly good in hand compared to the naked plastic of iPhone. It stops being slippery and it won’t collect grease the way iPhone does.

The cases came with a screen protector, but I decided not to install it. It’s very unlikely that glass is going to get scratched, and I don’t want to sacrifice even a small portion of touch screen sensitivity.

The fit of the case is also very nice, except for one corner where there is no locking mechanism of any kind is present. There is a 1/3 of a milliliter gap between the top and bottom parts there which annoys me slightly. Otherwise I think it’s a very good buy.