Why is your app down?

The first applications I made for 1 App A Day in May was "Who wants to be Rich". It was a fun quiz game that took less then 1 day to make. It was a lot of fun and I had a lot of people using it. I also had a lot of people posting questions. Well that only lasted for 16 days because I got an email from the copyright owners of Who wants to be a Millionaire and it basically stated that I was infringing on the copyrights and had to take the game down. It also stated that I had to destroy all the code and take down any links pointing to the game. I did that immediately because I didn't want to get into any trouble. ( there are still links from other sites that I have no control over) I replied to the letter stating that I have taken the game down and that I wanted to resolve the issue completely. That was a week ago and I have not herd from them since. I am hoping that this is behind me and I can continue to make fun apps and games for the iPhone. As far as the game, I do not mind destroying the code seeing as it was very easy to build and it is nothing special. Sorry to all of you that liked to play the game. It was a good one. Please comment on how you feel about this issue.

On to some more happy news, It is day 22 and I am scrambling for ideas. It has been a very frustrating month. Between work, family and apps, I have not had 10 minutes to myself. Although it has been hard, I will probably miss it when it is over. Here are some stats.I have had 130,000 unique visitors to the apps and I got 2 Staff Picks on Apples Site. Al thought I had to take one of them down :-)

Enjoy the apps and I would like to hear any comments on how I can improve them because I will want to go over each app next month.

1 App Day in May has begun

1 App A Day in May is 2 days in and going great so far.

May 1st I made a game. Who wants to be Rich? I usually don't make games so it was a nice switch. My partner (wife) and I had decided that we would post each app into Apples web app directory and so we posted the first app. The next day, it was up and it was nice to see that it got a Staff Pick. I definitely want to make more games so I am open for ideas, we still have 28 or 29 days ahead so there is plenty of time to get creative.

May 2nd, day 2 was Brush Timer. The way I see it is that I want one of those smart toothbrushes that tells you where to brush and for how long. I can't really afford a good one but why do I need to buy it when I can just make one using this great gadget (iPhone) as the brain. I hope everyone gets a lot of use out of it. I use it every day and my teeth have never been cleaner. My dentist would be proud.

Due to popular demand, I will be making some great apps that will incorporate Flickr and/or Twitter.

I just want to put in a good word for Barry Velasquez, a great programmer that has created a cool list tool. Check out a list of my may apps at Kalisty.com.

I still use Podcaster.fm everyday and it seems that about 3,000 to 5,000 other people use it daily as well. I am still having problems with server unavailable messages. I have not looked into the problem for a few weeks and I think it will have to wait for the rest of the month. Sorry but I just don't have time. I did find a small bug with sharing and so I upgraded that feature to send out a nice formatted email.

Goodbye for now

Check Now!

Recently we have got Podcaster to s stage that is almost at final release no bug version. One thing we wanted to work on was the "checking for new podcasts" section. We recently put a "crawl now" link on every podcast episode list. This link will allow you to check (at most) every 15 minutes for new podcasts. Hopefully this will allow most of you to get a podcast item as soon as it comes on. We also got the blue dot (new podcast) to show up properly. We are still making updates and if you have any features you want added, email us and we will consider it.

Podcaster Updates

We have been working hard to really finish Podcaster. We have added a slew of new features. We will review those later but first I would like to talk about the "Deleted Podcast Fiasco".

Some of you might have noticed that today, Buzz out loud and some other podcasts have gone missing from your podcast list. That's because of a bug that has been fixed. Buzz out loud and other podcasts are working and will not be deleted in the future.

Updates to Podcast Directory.
We have made several changes to the podcast directory that make it more user friendly. First, you will notice that when clicking on a podcast, you are taken to a new page that shows you the podcast details. You have the option of listening to the most current episode and subscribing. We also added the ability to load more top podcasts. If you scroll to the bottom of the list, you will see a "Show 25 More" button. You can also see the language of the podcast when viewing details.

Our crawler has been updated to crawl hourly. We also have been able to crawl several podcasts that did not work before.

We also made several changes to the podcast details page. The one you might notice is the last updated on date. This is the last crawl date.

Soon we will have a stable version and we can finally bud it version 1.

Diggnation Podcast

We have had several weeks without Diggnation on Podcaster but that's all over. Diggnation is now fully operational.

For anyone adding podcasts to Podcaster, try to get something that works natively with macs.

We also launched a new interface. I think it looks nice. I would love you hear your opinions on it. If you want more features, just email me or post comments here so every can talk about it. Until next time, keep listening.