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iPhone devsugar: App Store approval in...one hour?
Approximately one hour after uploading his new application update to iTunes Connect, Bristol-based iPhone developer Rob Jonson of Hobbyist software got the surprise of his week: an official Apple green light. His latest update to his VLC Remote application had been approved and was ready for sale. VLC Remote allows you to control a Mac- or Windows-based VideoLAN playback client from your iPhone, basically duplicating many of the features you'd get from a standard Apple Remote. His update wasn't complicated. "It was a simple problem," he told me over the phone this morning. "One of the buttons stopped working because of a stupid error. I missed a break in a case statement." So he uploaded his bugfix at about 11 PM local United Kingdom time. Just before midnight, he checked his e-mail before heading off to bed. The Apple approval was sitting in his in-box. A recent update, submitted last week, had taken only a day to receive approval. "With 24 hours, I was very impressed. But one hour? I couldn't believe it. Clearly Apple has changed the game." Update: This picture speaks a thousand words. Courtesy of Tom Harris of InsiderApps. This is a different app from Jonson's
Apple adds submission histories to iTunes Connect
iPhone developer Brian Stormont pinged us this morning to share the news that Apple has quietly updated iTunes Connect with a great new feature: Status History. Appearing near recently reviewed items, this option opens a detail table showing how your application has worked its way through the App Store review process, and on to the shelf. Stormont details this update on his site. This option does not, at this time, appear to be universally available. When I checked my personal apps this morning in the iTunes Connect "Manage Your Applications" screen, I was unable to find any Status History links on any of my application listings. However, I was able to confirm this feature with other iPhone developers. Another new feature appears to be that the amber-bubbled status messages have been extended. In addition to the standard "In Review," iTunes Connect now offers a "Waiting for Review" status for newly uploaded material. If you see any further interface changes or new status messages, drop us a comment and let us know. So what does this all mean? In my opinion, this is all great stuff, helping move Apple towards greater developer feedback. No, it's still not the full ticketing system that a lot of us are hoping for but it's definitely a step in the right direction. Thanks, Maior
App Store Lessons: App Emergencies
Bad things happen. Despite all your user testing, sometimes an iPhone app release hits the wild with unexpected results. I recently heard about one application upgrade that passed Apple review, but that crashed when run on handsets that had a previously installed version of the app. Another app experienced data corruption when incoming phone calls interrupted file write operations. So you're a developer, and this happens to you. What do you do? Developer Emanuele Vulcano issued some recommendations in a recent iPhoneSDK e-mail group post: First, brace yourself for user rage. Customers aren't going to be happy even though you're going to treat this situation as proactively as possible. Update your application description immediately. Explain what is wrong with the update and why users shouldn't upgrade. Put the word IMPORTANT in capitals. Submit your bug fix and then contact the escalation/approval team email from the developer help pages. Explain what happened. If your situation is critical, they can speed up the review process. Just take into account any time they'll spend before looking at your e-mail. This situation recently cropped up for TUAW reader and iPhone developer Mahmoud and his app BargainBin. "The 3.0 update made BargainBin the only app to monitor App Store price changes and provide push notifications to each user when the apps they care about went on sale. We were so preoccupied with making sure the push notifications and user watch list worked properly, that we overlooked a critical bug. How critical? Well, every time BargainBin was launched to any screen other than the 'Watch List,' the user was presented a screen that said 'no items' rather than the relevant price changes." Absolutely devastated by this error, Mahmoud and his colleagues immediately worked on a bug fix. "We updated the code in about 15 minutes to fix this critical bug. But now it was back to the submission process." This was an update that affected critical application performance. So after submitting his BargainBin bug fix on August 6th in the afternoon, he sent an e-mail to the escalation team. And he got results. Apple's iPhone Developer Program expedited the review, making a one-time exception to their normal process. By the evening of August 7th, the update went live in the App Store -- less than 30 hours later, rather than the 7-14 days for a normal upgrade review. As Mahmoud writes, "Kudos to Apple. This [should make] a nice change from the 'how broken [is] the App Store approval process' articles." TUAW agrees. Way to go, Apple. Want to read more about the story? Pop over to this write-up over at Mahmoud's company blog.
Aperture 30 day test drive
I'm not a very good photographer, but I take lots of digital pictures which is why I was interested in checking out Aperture, but I didn't want to plunk down $299. Apple has heard my silent pleas and made a 30 day 'test drive' available for all to download.It is available in English, French, German, or Japanese. All features are enabled for 30 days, but the trial does not include the sample images that are available retail version.At the moment the trial page isn't working for me, but I am sure Apple's trained web professionals will get that all sorted out.Thanks, Rob.Update: I was right, they fixed the page quickly. Download away.
