December 3rd, 2008
What can make an iPhone developer sulk and refuse to program for two hours? OpenGL ES is the answer, and it has nothing to do with OpenGL ES per se.
Largely it’s my fault. I should have done my research upfront. But with all the talk of the OpenGL ES 2.0 standard, I started to assume that it was supported on the iPhone. After three hours of learning about vertex and fragment shaders in OpenGL ES 2.0, and writing a few to render a 2D blob for my upcoming iPhone physics engine (more on this later..) I got stuck trying to make it work on the iPhone itself.
Not surprising really. The hardware in the iPhone only supports the OpenGL ES 1.1 standard, and as such the API has no calls to any vector or fragment program related goodness.
Lucky for me, I was just trying to do some shadows and shading of 2D sprites, so I could kinda fake it using some blending and scaling, but I guess the more adventurous effects will just have to wail until the next iPhone generation or later.
So before you end up crossed armed and sulking as hard as you can at your computer, only do things based on the 1.1 standard, not the 2.0.
Posted in Development, OpenGL ES, iPhone, iPhone SDK, iPod Touch | No Comments »
November 28th, 2008
All in all, independent reviews on iTunes of your applications is a good thing. Although there may be the occasional fellow who has just had a bad day and gives you 1 star because they didn’t read your description properly.
From a developers point of view, the reviews offer a somewhat anonymous way for your customers to give you feedback. It’s a valuable mine of feature possibilities and ‘bug reports’. The problem is, however, that you can’t easily get the whole picture just by using iTunes.
You see, all the review comments are kept contained to the separate stores around the world. So US customers and developers can’t easily see Australian comments and feedback.
Perhaps there’s a better tool out there (if there is I’d love to know about it) but currently if you rely on iTunes to read your reviews, you’ll never be able to read all your reviews at once.
To get around this problem, you’re going to have to be a bit shifty..
- Start iTunes normally and go to Store->View My Account
- Enter your password
- Click on “Change Country”
- Pick another country that will have reviews you can read the language of
- Accept the next screen..
- Accept the license agreement
- When asked for a credit card in that country, hit Apple-Q and get out of iTunes
- Now load iTunes again..
- Ta-Da! You’re now browsing the other country’s iTunes store
To get back it’s as easy as going to Settings->View My Account again and as soon as you enter your password it’ll realize you’ve done something odd and put you back in your native store.
So there you have it. Again, if there’s a better way to do this PLEASE let me know!
Posted in App Store, Regions, Reviews, iTunes, iTunes Connect | 2 Comments »
November 25th, 2008
If you’re an iPhone developer like me, and you’ve been making money but haven’t been paid yet, you’re probably asking the same questions I’ve been asking.
“When do I get paid?”, “When will Apple transfer my money?”, “Does iTunes Connect give me my money in one lump sum?”, “How long should I wait until inquiring about my money?”
Well, I can’t answer all of the questions, but I can shed some light with my experience with the whole deal.
Financial Reports
You must wait for these after the end of the fiscal month. Note that this is not the same as the calendar month, so don’t assume that you’ll get paid earning up to the 30th or 31st. The reports will start coming in about 10 or 11 days after the end of the fiscal month and may take 3 or 4 days before all the reports are ready.
You’ll get a report for each region.
- Australia
- US
- Canada
- UK
- Eurpoe
- Japan
- Rest Of World
Some have noted that they didn’t receive what they expected at all – some in the order of half of what they were expecting. My experience has been good though with differences only ranging in about +/- $5
Bank Payments
If a region reaches US$250 or more owing to you, then you can expect payment into the bank account you entered in iTunes Connect. Because each region is seperate, you will receive one payment from each of the regions that owe you more than US$250.
Payment for me occured in 14 days after the reports were ready, but some have claimed that Apple only pays on the 2nd of the month (obviously not in my experience)
Be warned that your bank may charge you steeply for incoming foreign currency transfers. In my case I was charged $15 PER REGION. So it really adds up if you’re not prepared. Talk to your bank – if you’re rolling in cash they’ll be more than happy to come to an agreement
Posted in Banking, Payment, iTunes Connect | No Comments »