Numeric Keypads

I'm starting work on another app, but I need a means of entering currency values (Let the user enter $2.00, for example). 

There's three numeric keypads available on the iPhone. Let's have a look and see how well they suit out needs.

First up is the standard iPhone keypad. Looks nice, large keys, but as far as I'm aware, this isn't available to me as a developer. It's also got the letters under the numbers, which is not too much of a problem, but is extra noise, has extra symbols we don't need (*, #, +) and has no means of entering a decimal.

Second up, we have the second page of the standard text editing keypad. I've discounted this almost immediately as the numbers are too small and there's too many extra characters we don't need.

Next.

Finally something that looks promising. Except it doesn't when we look closer. Sure it has nice big buttons and it's available for use, but we still have no decimal. There's also no clear way to signal when you're done entering the value.

So, I thought it would be a fun exercise to build my own.

First Week's Sales

For anyone who's interested; Resistance sold 37 copies this week across 9 countries and received a five star review on the US store.

I'm Stoked

Just checked my first days sales - I've sold four copies! Made my day :)

With the current exchange rate, that's a profit of about AU$8.40 (US$1.40 [AU$2.154] * 3 +  €0.97 [AU$1.95]).

Thanks to those customers and hope you like the app. 

Localisation (Localization)

Hooray! My app is up on iTunes for sale. Looks good, but I see three problems.

The first seems to stem from my decision to select Australian English as the main language. When I view the app in the US store, it contains no description at all. Fixed by cutting/pasting the description to all English speaking locales, and then removing a lot of 'u's from colour.

Problem two: below the description are two links; David Phillips Website and Resistance is Futile Support. I didn't know I had a website. Oh, I don't. The link leads to localhost. oops. Fixed (I think) be removing the default http:// from this field.

Problem three: The requirements section lists iPhone 2.1 Software Update as required, but this will run on 2.0. I assume 2.1 is listed as this is the target I used to build the binary I submitted. Not going to worry about this one.

For anyone interested, here's a direct link to the app on the iTunes Store 

Approved

Just got an email from Apple. The app has been approved and is now ready for sale.

From what I've read elsewhere, it takes about 24 hours for an app to make its way from here into the actual iTunes Store.

Waiting

Managed to get everything off to Apple this morning; the app is now in their hands with a status of 'In Review'. Now I wait...

Being an Australian resident, I also need to supply proof of being registered for GST (Goods and Services Tax). 

There are five similar apps on the AppStore currently, 2 free, 2 for AU$1.19 and 1 for AU$3.99. I am pricing mine at the tier 2 price of AU$2.49 (US$1.99). 

Preparing For the App Store

The app is complete.

Now it's time to get it off to Apple for review. All I need to do is write a few paragraphs about it and then upload it to them, right?

No.

First I have to do a Distribution build, which involves signing the app with a different certificate, setting up a third build profile and then getting it all to work.  This took me all evening and more; some bits took a lot of fiddling to get working, and then the build would succeed, but inspection of the log showed it wasn't being signed with the new certificate. In the end, however, it got it all working.

Now all I need to do is upload it.

Um... no.

Now I need to supply a 512 x 512 icon (what! that's not an icon, that's a poster), and a url for a support website for the app.  I don't have Photoshop, but I do have a trial version of Acorn. I try a few ideas, but they all look embarrassingly bad. I give up and head to bed.

As for the website... I'm not game to spend much money as I don't think there's a huge market for this type of app. I think I'll be please to sell a dozen copies, not because it's bad (it's not), but because it doesn't have the same sexiness as a game or some of the other types of apps.

I think I'll see if I can get away with setting up another blog and using that for support.

Again, my friend Matt has stepped in and offered to try his hand at designing a poster. His idea was something like a Borg ship shaped like a resistor. That's his initial idea at the top of this post. I like it.

So, all I need now before I can submit this app is a poster sized icon, and a support site. And a price.