iOS and Mac developer
I apologize for the lack of posts recently, as I’ve been more interested in writing code than blogging. Most of my work has been on some enterprise projects, but I’ve also made an update to Sugar Rush.
I submitted Sugar Rush version 1.2.1 today, which lets you earn real world bonuses with Kiip.
I’ve submitted Sugar Rush 1.2, which adds support for a new Halloween candy pack, as well as internal changes to support multiple themes or candy sets. Also, if you bought donuts, you now have two varieties with even more power.
The Halloween pack gives you a new spooky background, candy corn, pumpkins, and candy apples. You can pick the theme from the main menu screen. Each theme has its own leader board in the game center to keep the scoring fair, since the amount of candies & their distribution frequency differs in each theme. If you also bought donuts, they will remain available in all themes.
I’ve had a few questions about how to implement Twitter & FaceBook sharing, so here’s how I did it.
ShareKit provides an easy drop-in solution for posting to Twitter, FaceBook, Instapaper, Tumbler, and many other services. However, in many cases you don’t need all of the features and simply want to post a status to FaceBook or Twitter.
It takes only two lines of code to simply share an item to Twitter, FaceBook, or most other supported services:
These are the specific methods for Twitter & FaceBook:
- (IBAction)tweet:(id)sender
{
SHKItem *aTweet = [SHKItem text: @"Share this text"];
[SHKTwitter shareItem:aTweet];
}
- (IBAction)facebook:(id)sender
{
SHKItem *post = [SHKItem text: @"Share this text"];
[SHKFacebook shareItem:post];
}
When you call shareItem: it will display the login & authentication prompt and show the item to be shared.
The most difficult part is setting up your application on Twitter or FaceBook with the correct permissions and obtaining the proper API keys. Read the instructions in SHKConfig.h carefully for details on how to set up your application and enter the API keys there.
I have my own branch of ShareKit at https://github.com/mike3k/ShareKit which fixes a problem related to iOS 5 and gets rid of most of the compiler warnings.
Sugar Rush 1.1 is now available and it’s now free. Current users who upgrade from version 1.0.5 won’t see ads, but new users will see a small unobtrusive ad when no special powers are in effect. If you prefer, you can purchase an upgrade that removes the add. Premium items will be added for sale in the future. You can now buy donuts, which give you a big energy boost. Soon we hope to have a Halloween candy pack available.
I’ve submitted Sugar Rush 1.1, which is a major update.
Our sales have been pretty low, but our free promotions, including the one last weekend, have been wildly successful (18,000 downloads in a single day). Therefore, I’ve made the difficult decision to move to a “Freemium” model, and I’ve made an effort to avoid pissing off existing customers.
Here’s the deal: Nothing will change for existing customers. If you upgrade from 1.0.5, you won’t see any ads, although you will still be able to purchase other premium items. New customers will see ads, but will have the option to pay $0.99 to get rid of the ads. The ads will work the same way they do in the current free version (which will be removed from sale), occupying the bottom of the screen when no bonus power is in effect. Unlike the current free version, there will be no limitation to the game.
You will also be able to purchase additional premium content. The first new item is donuts, which give you 3x the jump boost of cupcakes and occur much more frequently. You just have to buy it once and it will remain available. We will also be offering holiday themed packages and other items in the future.
Note that version 1.1 will require iOS 4.0. Anyone running iOS 3.x will need to continue using 1.0.5.
I have a major update planned for Sugar Rush later this month.
I just submitted a minor update, version 1.0.5, which fixes some problems with the settings not being saved and updates the settings format in preparation for in-app purchase in the next update. Version 1.0.5 is the last version that will support iOS 3. The next update will require iOS 4 or later. I’ll post more details about the major changes coming after version 1.0.5 is approved.
I have submitted Sugar Rush 1.0.4 and Sugar Rush Free 1.0.4. This update fixes a bug where the balloon sometimes didn’t appear when floating and adds 3 new achievements for conserving jump power and for collecting all 4 bonus powers in a single game.
For some reason I don’t understand, iDjembe, which is my least interesting and lowest-rated app, is outselling my other apps, including Sugar Rush. This is not good because the low ratings brings down my average app store ratings, despite Removr & Sugar Rush’s much higher ratings.
Last week I tried to kill iDjembe by quietly raising the price to $1.40. That did stop iDjembe sales, but at the same time it brought down the sales of my other apps. Rather than kill it, I tried the opposite by making it free. That experiment seemed to work, and I’m now getting 700-800 free downloads a day, so I decided to keep it free and use it to help sell my other apps.
To go along with the pricing change, I submitted a minor update to iDjembe, version 2.1.2, which updates the info screen with the description & app store link for Sugar Rush, and makes the info button a little more prominent with a cute sugar rush player icon.
This is a minor bug fix release that makes it compatible with iOS 5. It remains compatible with iOS 3.1.3 or later.
After Sugar Rush Free was approved, I discovered it was using the wrong leaderboard name to submit scores to Game Center. I just submitted a quick update (version 1.0.3) which fixes it. Hopefully it won’t take too long to approve.