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Finally, accepted into the Apple iPhone Developer Program!
July 11, 2008 | 1 Comment
The subject of this post says it all. I just received an e-mail from Apple indicating that I have been accepted into the Apple iPhone Developer Program and that I need to fill out some information to complete the registration process. I sure hope everything goes smoothly. I, like many developers, have been waiting to try my application on the iPhone for months.
Upgrade to iPhone OS 2.0 Fails – Unknown Error (-9838)
July 11, 2008 | 6 Comments
The new iPhone 3G went on sale this morning at 8:00 AM and I’m sure there are long lines at various Apple stores around the country. I already have a first generation iPhone and was looking forward to the iPhone OS 2.0 upgrade. Sure, I’ll still have to live with the EDGE network speed when not connected to a WiFi hotspot and I won’t have a GPS, but other than those two shortcomings (and not being able to get one in white) my first generation iPhone is working just fine.
So, this morning when I sat down at my desk and pressed the “Check for Updates” button in iTunes with my iPhone connected it said that the iPhone OS 2.0 update was available for download and installation. I ran through the process and everything seemed to be going well right up until when it restarted the iPhone with the new 2.0 software. Then I get the dialog box shown below.
WTF! An unknown error? What sort of an iTunes Store failure is this? My phone appears to be bricked at this point. All I can do is make an emergency call. Oh boy, just what I wanted from Apple! If only I could make an “emergency call” to the Apple technical support line maybe they could let me know what the -9838 error is. I am not very happy right now.
The dialog box says to try again later. Well, I have retried this operation by ejecting and reconnecting my iPhone at least ten times now, and each time I see the same dialog box.
When I get this resolved I will post an update. For now, if you are eager to get the iPhone OS 2.0 I would suggest that your best bet is to go buy a second iPhone. Clearly Apple has not fully baked the iPhone OS 2.0 support for the first generation iPhones. How disappointing!
Update @ 9:05 AM
It is now 1 hour after I started this upgrade process and the iTunes Store is now reporting a different unknown error code.
What fun!
Updated @ 10:12 AM
Still no luck getting my phone to work. I am getting the “unknown error occurred (-4)”, and have been for more than an hour now.
There is a discussion of this issue on the Apple support site. Here is the link:
Topic : Cannot connect to store (error -9838): can’t activate iPhone !
Someone at Apple should be held to the flames for not anticipating this sort of issue and taking steps to eleminate it. They had very similar problems when the first generation iPhones were released and people couldn’t activate them.
Think Different, indeed….
Updated @ 10:20 AM
Finally!
Apple is very fond of reminding people that they build great user interfaces for their applications. Here is a perfect example of where they failed miserably. I think a lot fewer people would be complaining about this server scalability issue if the iTunes application had a “retry” button. Instead of just asking you to try later the software should do that for us. After all, the computer is more than capable of retrying the connection until it succeeds. There is no reason at all for all of us humans to be sitting here clicking on play lists and then clicking on the iPhone item and then waiting for an error and then repeating the process FOR TWO AND A HALF HOURS!
Apple, you need to put more engineering resources into this sort of thing. The scale you are dealing with on the iPhone and the iTunes Store and now the App Store is way beyond what .mac ever was. You need to THINK DIFFERENT!
iPhone developers put on hold by Apple
June 12, 2008 | Comments Off
The Apple World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) for 2008 kicked off Monday with a keynote presentation by Steve Jobs. As was expected, a new 3G iPhone was announced and there was a lot of discussion about the new capabilities in iPhone OS 2.0. Steve mentioned that the iPhone SDK has been downloaded 250,000 times since the release in March and that 25,000 developers have signed up for the iPhone Developer Program. Of those 25,000 developers Apple has selected 4,000 for participation in the beta program.
No mention was made of when (or if) the remaining 21,000 developers who wish to participate in the beta program will be permitted to do so.
Based on the numbers I think it is clear that developers are very excited about building and selling applications on the iPhone platform. Unfortunately, Apple seems far less excited about helping these developers get started. They have let a mere 16% of interested developers into the program. The remaining developers cannot build and test applications on real devices. Effectively Apple has put all these developers on hold. They want to build applications that use the accelerometer, the camera, the GPS, etc., but cannot since the simulator has none of these capabilities.
To illustrate what a ridiculous approach this is for supporting developers take a look at the following post that recently appeared on craigslist. Whoever this developer is, he/she really wants to get their application tested and running in time for the Apple AppStore launch.
Someone with influence at Apple Computer needed (santa clara)
I need my application to the iPhone developers program approved so I can get a certificate to test my applications on a real iPhone. Without one I can only run it on a simulator. I have a compelling application that I am working on that will be sold commercially.
Apple computer received my application two months ago and they have my credit card number for the $99 fee.
In return I can give you some cash or services or maybe a gift certificate for dinner someplace. Whatever you think is reasonable.
Apple and Steve have been positioning the iPhone OS (CocoaTouch) as a new platform for application development. The developer community seems to agree with this and wants to develop applications for the platform. Apple, please let the remaining developers who signed up for the beta program in. We all want to give you $99 so we can start running our applications on real devices. We all want you to take 30% of any revenue from the sale of our applications when they are sold through the AppStore. We all want to help make this a great new platform for application development.
The simulator just doesn’t cut it! Give us the ability to run on actual devices, PLEASE!!!!!
Apple iPhone SDK — Catch-22 for Developers
May 11, 2008 | 1 Comment
Way back on March 6, 2008 I signed up for the Apple iPhone SDK along with many other developers. Everyone watched the Apple announcement by Steve Jobs about the SDK and iTunes Application Store; everyone heard about the $99 enrollment fee for the developer program; everyone heard about the 70/30 split on application sales through the store; and most important of all, everyone heard that the store would go live toward the end of June. That was a clear signal to all developers hoping to sell applications for the iPhone or iPod Touch. The message was Start developing your applications now so they are ready in time for the grand opening.
Sadly, the reality of the iPhone Developer Program for many developers has been very different. What has actually transpired is essentially a Catch-22 for independent software developers wishing to build applications for iPhone/iPod Touch.
Many (possibly most) developers who signed up for the program on the 6th were greeted with the following message after the multi-step enrollment process:
Thank you for submitting your information.
While we process your information, please visit the iPhone Dev Center to download the iPhone SDK and access a wealth of technical resources. Please note, the iPhone Developer Program will initially be available to a limited number of developers and will expand in the coming months.
Next Steps
You will receive notification of your enrollment status. Enrollment ID: xxxxxxxxxx
No additional information was provided. No channel for posing questions about the progress in letting developers into the program was provided. No means of determining if you would even be accepted into the program before June. Nothing. Apple is dead quiet about the status.
The lucky few developers who have already been selected by Apple are all under NDA, just like everyone else who is trying to join the program. This means there is little if any information being shared by these developers regarding what Apple may be telling them about the June launch of the store.
Apple is asking us to all download the SDK and begin developing our applications using the iPhone Simulator. They are asking us to blindly trust that once we invest significant time and resources into developing these applications that we will someday be able to test them on actual devices and eventually be able to sell them in the store.
Back on March 6, 2008 Apple indicated that the number of developers in the program would expand in the coming months. It is now roughly one month before the application store is projected to “go live” and many developers still do not have the ability to test their applications on actual devices.
Apple is asking all independent software developers to risk a lot of their own resources while the developers remain in limbo. We don’t know if/when we will have the opportunity to test our applications. We don’t know if/when we will be able to get more details from Apple regarding the store. We don’t know if/when we will be able to submit applications to the store for sale.
And, to rub salt in the wounds of developers everywhere, a few days ago Apple reminded all of us that the deadline nears for submitting your iPhone applications for consideration in the 2008 Apple Design Awards held at this WWDC this summer.
You might say “So what, just submit the applications you build with the iPhone Simulator”. That would be a perfect solution but for one small problem. In the release notes for the SDK Apple mentions that some portions of the SDK code cause crashes on the simulator. They offer two methods to work around the issue. First, you can forgo using the Interface Builder tool and place your controls on the screen manually. Second, you can just do your testing and debugging on the actual device. That would be the perfect solution except we cannot load applications onto the device because we have not yet been accepted into the iPhone Developer Program.
Steve, please level the playing field for independent software developers everywhere who want to develop applications for this fantastic new platform you built. Continuing to ask independent developers to sholder so much risk and uncertainty is not what we expect from the company that asks us to Think Different.
Method Swizzling in Safari on Mac OS X
May 9, 2008 | Comments Off
Recently I have been working on an extension for the Safari web browser. The biggest challenge when developing an extension for Safari is determining how to hook your code into Safari.app. Most browsers these days provide hooks to allow development of extensions, but Safari does not.
A technique that many people use to add functionality to Safari (and other Cocoa applications) is called Method Swizzling. If you want to learn more about this technique there is a terrific article explaining all the details on the CocoaDev site.
When applying the method swizzling technique you may find that the linker complains about unresolved classes and won’t link your bundle. This issue usually crops up when you try swizzling a method that is in a class you learned about by running class-dump or by using FScript. If you run into this problem bring up the project properties in Xcode and add -undefined dynamic_lookup to the Other Linker Flags section.
Without this extra flag your plug-in will not link, and you will be stuck in the mud! Thanks to Aaron Harnly, author of Letterbox, for pointing this out to me in an e-mail exchange.
Protect Sensitive Data on your MacBook Pro
March 13, 2008 | Comments Off
One thing I am always nervous about is storing sensitive data on my MacBook Pro. Over the past few years it seems like there are stories popping up in the news about some organization loosing sensitive customer data when a laptop is misplaced. As someone who makes a conscious effort to have only one computer, I am concerned about storing my banking and tax information on a portable computer.
After searching for quite some time I finally settled on a solution that has been working very well for me. My criteria were as follows:
- Data must be encrypted.
- Storage device must be removable.
- Data access should only be permitted once a suitable password has been entered.
- Password must be required to access data after MacBook Pro comes out of sleep mode.
To meet my goals I am using a piece of software called Knox in conjunction with an ExpressCard/34 solid-state disk. I am currently using a Lexar ExpressCard/34 SSD with an 8GB capacity since that is what the local computer store had available at the time, about six months ago. Today it is possible to get a 32GB card from TRANSCEND, so the capacity is ever increasing! 
The card I store my sensitive data on is the Lexar 8GB ExpressCard SSD. It fits in the ExpressCard/34 slot on the left side of my MacBook Pro and is makes for a very convenient place to store all of my Quicken and TurboTax data files. Using Knox I setup the entire Lexar card as an encrypted filesystem.
Generating a GDB Log File for Xcode Debug Sessions
February 2, 2008 | Comments Off
If you would like to capture a log of everything that GDB displays during a debugging session you can do the following:
$ defaults write com.apple.Xcode PBXGDBDebuggerLogToFile YES
The statement above will turn on logging to a file. Now, you need to set the filename for the debugger output file. Use the following statement to accomplish that.
$ defaults write com.apple.Xcode PBXGDBDebuggerLogFileName /tmp/gdboutput.log
This will create a file in the /tmp directory called gdboutput.log, containing everything you see in the GDB command window during your debugging session.
Both of these commands need to be typed into a Terminal.app window. You only need to do this once, as your machine will remember the settings.
