This is ZX81.org.uk

I nearly posted a rude one-liner on Twitter about it. I was sat here in front of my laptop, browsing iTunes and slightly miffed that I’d submitted my iPhone application a week ago and that there had been no sign of movement since then.

Then I received an email from Apple with the good news. So yes, as I type this I don’t see it, but apparently Yummy is now “ready for sale” and will be making its way to the App Store very shortly. (I assume it’s a gradual process and that some people may be able to see it now.)

Full news on her own website, but today B said her “Affirmation of allegiance” and gained British Nationality. She was a little unhappy about having to pledge allegiance to the Queen so I’ve made a minor edit to the original picture.

I commented that a lot of our government clearly have not had to make such a pledge themselves. If they too had to respect democracy and freedom I think we’d be hearing rather less about 42 days in gaol without trial and ID cards. (End of rant.)

As many readers know by now I am in the late stages of developing and releasing an iPhone application. This is the first time I’ve ever really been involved in the launch of a consumer product and while there’s nothing here that is likely to surprise any marketing guru’s, I’m finding it an interesting process.

I talked about pricing previously, but today I want to talk about the competition.

I downloaded the SDK¹ shortly after the original announcement. The first version was fairly primitive, with little to no support for the drag-and-drop style of development used for parts of Mac OS X programs. I played around a bit, compiled a few demo applications but didn’t really get very far. Too hard, I though.

• Corsica, France’s Isle of Beauty – Seems that the NYT loved Corsica as much as I did.
• Comedy producer dies in accident – Very sad. “Geoffrey Perkins … created the game Mornington Crescent in I’m Sorry Haven’t a Clue. He also produced the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, one of the most successful radio shows ever made.”
• Announcing Yummy for iPhone 1.0 – I finally announce what my iPhone application, Yummy, does.

• Ofcom considers termination charges – Does anyone consider it a problem that we don’t get charged to receive calls on a mobile phone in the UK? Thought not.
• Man’s ‘pants’ password is changed – Not sure what to conclude from this other than it’s funny. Banks have no sense of humour? Don’t bank with Lloyds?
• US made to wait for Quantum of Solace – I would like to see the release of QoS pushed out by six months in the US as revenge for making us wait that long for Ratatouille last year. Not that I’m bitter or anything.

Today is a big day for me. A few minutes ago I uploaded my iPhone application up to Apple’s servers, the first step in making it available to users in iTunes and its App Store.

You possibly have two questions. First: what does it do? Secondly: when will it be available?

I know, I have been deliberately vague when talking about it online. This is partly because I didn’t want my thunder stealing by pre-announcing, but mainly because it’s only been in the last week or so that I’ve been sure that I was going to publish.

Somehow the idea of replacing the head of Hellboy with that of the last Deputy Prime Minister and MP for Kingston upon Hull, John Prescott, amused me. Even the slogan kind of works.

• US made to wait for Quantum of Solace – I would like to see the release of QoS pushed out by six months in the US as revenge for making us wait that long for Ratatouille last year. Not that I’m bitter or anything.
• How Sick Are Patients? – How the US is patenting DNA and licencing it back to the third world countries who discovered it.
• Dave Packard’s 11 simple rules – Interesting insight into the original principles of management at HP. Now it all seems to be redundancies and “cheapest is best.” And don’t get me started on my work laptop…

This originally started as a question on Apple’s support boards:

With the current AppStore model (which seems to be a money machine for developers) I do not understand why anyone would give away their applications. At least charge $0.99 and get something back for your hard work.

So, why do you give away your apps?

With the caveat that I have not actually submitted anything yet…

My motivation in writing an application was entirely for the pleasure of doing it. If I never do anything with it once it’s “finished” my goals have been achieved. So my only objective in pushing it to the AppStore is for other people to get some benefit from using it too. There is little incremental cost in doing so and zero cost means that it gets the widest possible distribution.

• Why Norwegian is the easiest language for English speakers to learn – I would have loved to have learned more of the language when I was there. The natives fluency in English really didn’t help!
• Did we say you can read that? – “What the Police appear to be saying is that you can be given the all-clear as a bona fide researcher of terror material in the morning – then re-arrested the same evening for the same offence.” And not only that, but you need to prove your own innocence. This is wrong on so many levels.
• Eight ways the iMac changed computing – I never owned one of the original iMacs (indeed, before OS X I was never likely to buy a Mac) but this was the beginning of the new Apple, one that resulted in me buying three Macs and various other Apple products. My bank account would probably have been more healthy without it!