Xcode gives this very informative error message when an iPhone enabled for development is being updated in iTunes.
iPhone
LOLCats 1.2 Available
LOLCats 1.2 is now available in the app store. The major change in this version is support for Zooomr as well as Flickr. This will be the last update, unless a critical bug is found.
This application will be superseded by the Official LOLCATS application, which will get content from I Can Has Cheezburger and several related sites. The official app will also be free.
I see that another LOLCATS application was released today, which sells for $0.99. That one is NOT authorized by ICanHasCheezburger.
iPhone spreading around the world
MacBlogs has posted an iPhone World Map that will be continuously updated as Apple secures contracts with iPhone carriers around the world. One pleasant surprise is that Senegal is getting the iPhone with Orange as their carrier. It might even be available before Ashley Maher’s trip there next month, when she’ll be bringing Jimi M’baye a Mac Pro for Studio Dogo.
LOLCats 1.2, with Zooomr Support
I just submitted LOLCats 1.2, which will most likely be the last version. The major new feature is Zooomr support.
I’ve shifted my attention to the Official I Can Has Cheezburger app, which will use RSS feeds from that site & related sites. Most likely I will pull this application when I release the official one.
I’m also working on a more advanced Flickr browser (LOLCats was a proof of concept for it).
TouchCode Rocks
TouchCode is a set of iPhone open source projects that fill in some features that are missing from Cocoa Touch. The most useful part is TouchXML, which is a drop-in replacement for Cocoa’s NSXML* classes.
I was able to get the unmodified ObjectiveFlickr code working by simply doing a global search & replace of NSXMLDocument with CXMLDocument, NSXMLNode with CXMLNode, and NSXMLElement with CXMLElement. The result is less ugly than using NSXMLParser.
For the Official LOLCats application I need to handle RSS feeds, which I found to be exceptionally ugly with NSXMLParser. With TouchXML it’s easy. I can get an array of items with something like this:
NSError *err = nil;
CXMLDocument *doc = [[CXMLDocument alloc]
initWithContentsOfURL: [NSURL URLWithString: @"http://feeds.feedburner.com/myfeed"]
options:0 error: &err];
NSArray *nodes = [doc nodesForXPath: @"//item" error: nil];
Flickr Frameworks on the iPhone
I spent the weekend modifying ObjectiveFlickr to work on the iPhone, which was mostly a matter of changing the response handling code that depends on NSXMLDocument. I was pretty much able to plug in my MCFlickrParser class, which I use in LOLCats, to create a NSDictionary structured very much like the XML document.
Yesterday I was informed about FlickrKit, which already works on the iPhone. FlickrKit seems more advanced, but it’s also a lot larger than ObjectiveFlickr. I created simple Flickr browsers using both frameworks. The FlickrKit version is 704k, while the ObjectiveFlickr version is only 148k. I’ve only tried it on the simulator and the performance seems about the same for both.
I will probably stick with OF for this project, since I would like to support Zooomr as well as Flickr and OF already seems to support Zooomr.
LOLCats & App Store frustration
After reading the reviews of LOLCats in the App Store, I’m seriously considering pulling it. That application has become a nightmare for me.
Some asshole put up an inappropriate image which they tagged LOLCATS, causing the application to display it. Even though that image has been removed, every single review mentions it. The application has NO control over what images are displayed – it simply uses tags. If someone uses the wrong tag, it will display their image. Remember, I DIDN’T TAG THOSE IMAGES. Don’t blame the application, complain to the person who tagged that image inappropriately.
LOLCats 1.1 is available
UPDATE: Minutes after I posted this, I got a notice from Apple that the update has been approved and is now ready for sale.
Apple still hasn’t approved my update to LOLCats. Still no response from Apple for the second update, which I feel is pretty urgent, since it reduces the possibility of inappropriate images appearing, which I’ve received several complaints about.
I’m now getting close to another update, which adds Zooomr support.
Meanwhile, I’m working on a second Flickr-related application. I had expected to share a lot of code with LOLCats, but it turns out I’ve only reused one class, my Flickr parser.
For this app, I need to support Flickr authorization, so it seemed easier to rewrite Flickr’s ObjectiveFlickr code, which already supports authorization. However, ObjectiveFlickr depends on XMLDocument, which isn’t available on the iPhone. I’m replacing the response handling code with my Flickr parser class. When it’s finished, I’ll release the Flickr-related code (not the entire app) as open source.
On a fun note, I purposely added the LOLCATS tag to this photo of Midnight to make it to appear in the application. As a result, the number of hits on that photo are about 100x the average for my similar photos.
My sales numbers
Inspired by John Casasanta’s blog post, here are my sales figures for LOLCats. Since this is a free application, the figures are fairly high.
| Day 1 – Jul. 31 | 2393 |
| Day 2 – Aug. 1 | 6801 |
| Day 3 – Aug. 2 | 5909 |
| Day 4 – Aug. 3 | 5420 |
| Total: | 20523 |
I would expect a paid application to sell about half that amount.
LOLCats 1.1
I just submitted LOLCats 1.1, although it will probably take a few days before the update becomes available.
New in this version:
- You can now choose sort order: interestingness, relevance, or date. Date works the same as the previous version.
- Purges cached images on low memory warning
- Displays an alert if no network connecton or Flickr is unreachable
- Bug Fixes
Sorting by interestingness or relevance should avoid bringing up some of the inappropriate images a few people reported, although new images don’t appear as frequently. If you prefer, you can still view by date, which will work the same way as 1.0 did.
I’m now working on another Flickr-related application, as well as discussing the details of the official LOLcats app, which will use the RSS feed from icanhascheezburger.com instead of Flickr.