Back in July I went to Treviso, Italy for 2 weeks to stay with Fabrica and work on some fun mobile projects. Besides drinking a lot of coffee (and getting made fun of for ordering a latte after lunch) I worked on an iPhone application in conjunction with the Exquisite Clock project. It has been sitting on my hard drive for a couple months while a couple bugs were fixed and beaurocratic barriers resolved, so I am proud to announce that it has landed in the App Store.

The Exquisite Clock is made up of photos of numbers from many different people. The display is simple and highlights the photos in clock format: HH:MM:SS. With the iPhone app you can now take photos quickly with your phone and add them to the Exquisite Clock, as well as seamlessly download the entire catalog of number photo images.

Go forth and download! It’s free, fun, and I made it with my fingers.

After being stuck in the review process for over a month-and-a-half, Apple silently pushed our application live a few days ago. We didn’t even receive an automated e-mail informing us that our app was not online. Our friend Marshall discovered it and notified us (After downloading and writing us a stellar review…Thanks!).

The last we heard from Apple:

Dear Steven,

Your application, Album Art Tap, is requiring unexpected additional time for review.   We apologize for the delay, and will update you with further status as soon as we are able.

Thank you for your patience.

I responded a number of times hoping for more clarification, or something I can do to help expedite the issue, but their lips were sealed and did not even bother me with a response. My guess is that since the app has in-app purchases there must be a different review workflow that takes an extended amount of time. I suppose I shouldn’t be too angsty since it did finally go live, but five-to-six weeks of little-to-no communication is a bit frustrating.

So now the fun part begins! We get to see people download and play with it, and most importantly, break it. Already was clued into a couple bugs that should be fixed in the next update. I submitted it a couple hours ago, so if our last experience is any indication, you should see it in a month-and-a-half. I’ve heard updates are processed faster, but I’m not holding my breath.

Album Art Tap for the iPhone is finished and submitted to Apple. We think it turned out great. We will post a link to the application within iTunes once it is reviewed and approved by apple. In the meantime, whet your appetite with the images below.

The goal of the game is to guess the album before time runs out. Tapping tiles will subtract from the timer, and hence your score. Once you know the album, clicking the ‘Name Album’ button brings up multiple choice answers to choose from. Be sure to choose wisely, as each wrong guess subtracts 250 points from the timer. If the answer is correct, the album will grow to full size, flip, and show details about the album. Repeat until your reach 100 (if you can).

I am putting together wireframes for a couple iPhone applications, and wanted something barebones so clients would focus on the structure, and not the aesthetic. I’m currently using iPhone Sketch ,  made by Soup Industries , a really simple and straightforward iPhone diagram in Stencil format for Omnigraffle.

I’m just beginning to use Omnigraffle, and so far am not very good at using it. Right now I’m using this stencil as a main view, and structuring the flow of my application from it. Hopefully this approach works alright and is more clear than confusing. I would love to see other wireframes people have put together for their applications. Anyone have any ones they’d like to share? I’m going to try and post mine if the client doesn’t raise a fuss.

Related
http://graffletopia.com/search/iphone

Techno Tuesday, 6/20/06 – by Andy Rementer (How did the sister send the up arrow icon? I don’t even know how to do that….And why is the 2 button so much bigger than the 3 button? ).

I Love Andy Rementer’s work. I really want to make an iPhone application in the style of his work. Maybe a suite an absurd suite of applications that make fun of the people trying to use then. Hurah! They wouldn’t do anything useful really, but would look super important. Maybe a calendar that puts the dates you entered into the wrong place, is off by a couple days every month, and emails your friends inviting them out to a party on the wrong day. What do you say Andy, are you in? We can split the proceeds. 90-10. Sound good? I’ll need a cash advance, but I know you’re good for it.

BIT-101
http://www.bit-101.com/blog/
BIT-101 used to talk a lot about Actionscript, but recently has been learning Objective-C and the iPhone. Since I am in a similar boat, I find the way he thinks about programming easier to understand that other writers. Often posts user tutorials and code snippets. 

PReV
http://bill.dudney.net/roller/objc/
Written by Bill Dudney, author of a couple good books about iPhone development.

Jeff Lamarche
http://iphonedevelopment.blogspot.com/ 
Turned me on to the wonderful and beautiful Accessorizer.

Cocoa With Love
http://cocoawithlove.com/
You’d probably want to know a few things about Cocoa & objective-c before looking at this blog…they’re pretty heady…and really good.

iPhone Developer Tips
http://iphonedevelopertips.com/
More a repository of code snippets than a blog. I have come across a couple useful tips here that answered problems that had been annoying me.

App Craver
http://www.appcraver.com 
Posts reviews and descriptions of new apps coming to the Apple App Store. Good resource to thumb through and see what other people are doing out there. Not all the apps they post are stellar, but knowing what doesn’t work is just as important as what does.

I really like how Josh Vickery put together this iPhone tutorial. Really clear cause and effect walkthrough of how you can connect a Ruby application with an iPhone application using the Objective Resource framework. I don’t even know Ruby and I still enjoyed the video. Something about watching someone explain code through video, or in person, that helps understanding, and is often lost when reading tutorials or technical manuals. The human element makes it seem not quite as daunting. See, not all code is written by robots, there is usually a human behind the scenes pushing all the buttons.

This is old, but thought I would post again for anyone who is still looking. A great tool for putting together iPhone mock-ups in Photoshop. I have found several elements missing and usually have to create a couple custom elements from scratch, but it is useful as a starting off place. I’ll try and post an addition to it with some of the asset’s I’ve made soon.

Related

http://www.teehanlax.com/blog/?p=447

iPhone & iPod touch use a service called Skyhook that can track your position by detecting what WiFi signals are around.  Skyhook sent out roaming vans and associated WiFi signals they detected with specific locations. Pretty dang cool. Looks like they have a developer API as well. Doing some quick searches I also found similar services (Herecast) that could potentially be used to extend functionality of other WiFi enabled devices.

Related:

http://machinesthatgobing.com/apple/skyhook-macworld-apple/