Wonderful change, thank you apple!
When I logged in to iTunes connect this morning, I noticed a message about being able to get crash logs for my application(s)! This is absolutely wonderful! Before you had to either rely on a debug log or a user manually finding and emailing you the crash log(s) when they happened, which was a bit annoying...
Here's a bit more info on the iPhone app crash logs on TUAW.
Users are prompted to upload the logs when they sync with iTunes and now we finally get to see them as developers!
I think apple should provide a new category of apps: Top 20 most/lease crashy apps or something like that... though I'd hate to find myself on that hall of shame :(
Of course since ooTunes Radio 2.0 came out, there's far far fewer crashes... I hope they posted all the crash logs so I can actually statistically see that (or not...).
Anway, thanks Apple, and I'm still waiting for the email about ooTunes 2.0 being accepted and available ;)
Monday, May 4, 2009
Sunday, May 3, 2009
ooTunes Radio iPhone Review
Well, this last week has been phenominal since the release of ooTunes Radio 2.0. From the start (Apple never actually notified me that the update was accepted... still waiting for an apology from them on that), to now (over 2,000 downloads later!) things have been a bit unexpected. It's currently at the number 14th most popular paid Music application in the US app store. Some people might say "so what?" but to them I say... I've gotten there with absolutely no paid advertising, almost exclusively word of mouth advertising and google web searches, a ton of help and suggestions from friends, customers and beta testers, and a lot of late late nights... To this day, as far as I know, I've had ZERO reviews of ooTunes on even any smaller (or possibly even personal blogs!??).
So, since it's been out for almost 3 months now, and the Outstanding 2.0 update has been out for a week now, and I've even TRIED to get someone to review it this time... (to be fair, there are a few people who say a review is in the works :/), I've decided to capitalize on the google search traffic that apparently has nowhere to go until SOMEONE posts a real review... so here is my totally unbiased review of ooTunes Radio 2.0.
It's AWESOME, especially when you look at where it came from. 4 months ago, I'd never written a single application in Objective-C (the programming language most used for developing iPhone apps). I wrote it in my spare time (such a thing used to exist for me I think). I did it ENTIRELY without using a real iPhone (I have an iPod touch thanks to both the most expensive Christmas present I've ever received, as well as the longest lasting). In fact, I did it almost entirely without using the iPhone OS Simulator since about a month into development, it just stopped working on my computer... go figure :(
So, keeping that in mind, the first released version was far from perfect... the start was even more rocky when I found out about 2 hours before the app was accepted for sale, that I'd have to remove one of the cool features! (Note to others with no business experience... get something in writing BEFORE you decide to use a 3rd party's services...)
Also, many of the reviewers were angry because they had assumed that the ooTunes Server was included in the $4 iPhone purchase... so beyond bugs, it also had a bunch of negative reviews in iTunes for that... I quickly changed the description to use ALL CAPS and ******'s galore to make it so any rational individual who glanced at the description should grasp the features that required the server and those that didn't.
So, I realized that I'd catered a bit to those who were willing and able to buy and run the ooTunes Media Server and left some of the features of the plain old iPhone app lacking... so with version 2.0, I concentrated on making the app the absolute best radio player in the store... and it turned out, even better than I could have hoped! I knew as I was finishing up beta testing that this version was going to go somewhere (the earlier versions had a couple of short stint's on the top 20 music apps, but nothing lasting...)
So here we are, ooTunes Radio 2.0 is NOT the last word, by any means. I have a huge list of additional features to add, improvements, customizations to settings additional audio formats, etc. I'll be working more on the next update as early as this coming week, as long as I can get to it between providing the VERY BEST customer support anyone could ask for, and taking my son on an outing to celebrate him not peeing the bed for 3 consecutive nights! (You rock Herbie!).
So, was this really a review? No. But it was long, and it was pretty positive, so I'll rate this post 3 stars (out of 5).
And if you happen upon this while searching for a review of ooTunes Radio, why don't you tell someone at a REAL website that you'd be interested in seeing a review, I'd assume there are other people who listen to user's feedback :)
P.S. Buy ooTunes..
So, since it's been out for almost 3 months now, and the Outstanding 2.0 update has been out for a week now, and I've even TRIED to get someone to review it this time... (to be fair, there are a few people who say a review is in the works :/), I've decided to capitalize on the google search traffic that apparently has nowhere to go until SOMEONE posts a real review... so here is my totally unbiased review of ooTunes Radio 2.0.
It's AWESOME, especially when you look at where it came from. 4 months ago, I'd never written a single application in Objective-C (the programming language most used for developing iPhone apps). I wrote it in my spare time (such a thing used to exist for me I think). I did it ENTIRELY without using a real iPhone (I have an iPod touch thanks to both the most expensive Christmas present I've ever received, as well as the longest lasting). In fact, I did it almost entirely without using the iPhone OS Simulator since about a month into development, it just stopped working on my computer... go figure :(
So, keeping that in mind, the first released version was far from perfect... the start was even more rocky when I found out about 2 hours before the app was accepted for sale, that I'd have to remove one of the cool features! (Note to others with no business experience... get something in writing BEFORE you decide to use a 3rd party's services...)
Also, many of the reviewers were angry because they had assumed that the ooTunes Server was included in the $4 iPhone purchase... so beyond bugs, it also had a bunch of negative reviews in iTunes for that... I quickly changed the description to use ALL CAPS and ******'s galore to make it so any rational individual who glanced at the description should grasp the features that required the server and those that didn't.
So, I realized that I'd catered a bit to those who were willing and able to buy and run the ooTunes Media Server and left some of the features of the plain old iPhone app lacking... so with version 2.0, I concentrated on making the app the absolute best radio player in the store... and it turned out, even better than I could have hoped! I knew as I was finishing up beta testing that this version was going to go somewhere (the earlier versions had a couple of short stint's on the top 20 music apps, but nothing lasting...)
So here we are, ooTunes Radio 2.0 is NOT the last word, by any means. I have a huge list of additional features to add, improvements, customizations to settings additional audio formats, etc. I'll be working more on the next update as early as this coming week, as long as I can get to it between providing the VERY BEST customer support anyone could ask for, and taking my son on an outing to celebrate him not peeing the bed for 3 consecutive nights! (You rock Herbie!).
So, was this really a review? No. But it was long, and it was pretty positive, so I'll rate this post 3 stars (out of 5).
And if you happen upon this while searching for a review of ooTunes Radio, why don't you tell someone at a REAL website that you'd be interested in seeing a review, I'd assume there are other people who listen to user's feedback :)
P.S. Buy ooTunes..
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