Archive for July, 2010

Flash a Flashlight

Thursday, July 15th, 2010

One of the things I noticed with the iPhone 4 was that the flash could be turned on like a “torch” when you were shooting a video.  I immediately thought of using it like a flashlight.  But being busy, and thinking that all the flashlight apps would be updated to use this new feature I initially left.  A few days later I decided that I may as well try my hand at a flashlight app seeing as there were none in the iTunes store.  A short big of coding later, I had a basic version working.  I was not 100% happy with it as you could see the “camera” aperture image open.  But it worked.  I wanted to get iAds built in as it is pretty easy to do that, but did not have time and want to be one of the first apps available to use the flash.  I submitted the app and the following day the first led flashlight app appeared.  7 days later my app was approved along with about 10 other flashlight apps.  I had some traction on day one, and six reviews, so I was quite happy.  Unfortunately on day two the app basically disappeared from review and was now with all the other flashlight apps.  There are few flashlight apps that are now in the top 25 of utility apps that get all the attention and so now will be downloaded more, and hence will get more attention.

I have still not managed to figure out that magic formula to get an app noticed.  I decided to go ahead anyway and build in the iAds as planned and submitted the update to Apple.  I changed the icon too, hope that will make it more noticeable.

You can download the “Flash a Flashlight” app here.

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Thoughts on iPhone 4

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

I have now had my iPhone 4 for nearly two weeks and wanted to give my feedback.  At first I thought it was just another iPhone, slightly smaller, with a nicer display.  But I have to admit that I have been using it even more so than I had my old phone.  It took a while to get everything sorted out like getting my SplashID passwords migrated and my complicated setup for email and shared calendering working.

But here is what I love about the new iPhone 4 and that is the multitasking, which I had mentioned in my first post on the iPhone 4.  I love being able to switch between email and browser.  I do not use push email, as I get mail at all times of the day and night, so first thing I do in the morning is start the mail app and then I switch to the browser to read the news while the mail app downloads mail.  I know you could do this in the past, but I switch back and forth between the mail app and the browser frequently as the email often has embedded links, but now the browser loads much faster and does not refresh the page.

I also find that I am taking way more pictures with the camera and short video clips.  The picture quality is great and I always have my cell phone on me.  I look forward to the day when they offer optical zoom on an iPhone camera.

The speed of the phone is also great, so loading reference apps makes it so much quicker to look up things immediately and then because of the multitasking going back to the app is all that much faster.  I still think that the user should be able to choose what apps to run in the background.  Every now and then I do a clean up of apps that I know I will not use for a few days.

I have not used Facetime again, maybe I will if my wife gets an iPhone 4.

The antenna issue is not an issue for me,  I have seen the signal strength bars go down, but I do not seem to hold the phone the “wrong way”.  If I do notice low bars I change my finger positions, but it is never an issue for calls.

Syncing with iTunes is also going much quicker, which is an added bonus as that means my phone will be backed up more often.

All in all a great phone, you should buy one.

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