Douglas Purdy

I have been sick the last two days.

In an attempt to trick the virus (or whatever it is) into moving on to another host, I decided to write a “real” iPhone application as a diversion in between fitful sleep.

My brain is mush, so this rationale all makes sense in my happy cold-syrupy head.

I have written iPhone apps in the past, but they have been trivial and they have all run in the simulator.

This app is neither trivial (although that is a matter of degree) or simulator-only (I have an honest-to-goodness Apple developer key now).

I’ll note a couple of things that stick out in my experience below.  I think I am allow to do so now, either because Apple now lets its ISVs talk about the SDK or because the people they would send after me are too busy working on the fallout from yesterday’s news (Get well SJobs.  Really.  I am who I am today and the world is what it is today because of you and Woz).

• Apple has done a great job setting up their developer program infrastructure (the provisioning web site, the tutorials, ordering the developer key, etc.)
• That aside, Apple made me want to throw myself into the Sarlacc Pit about 10 minutes after I got my provisioning done.  The process to get an app signed and deployed to a device correctly is PAINFUL and filled with terror.  Key takeaway — get the AppId and Build settings right or the idea of being digested for a 1000 years may seem appealing.
• Cocoa Touch has bugs.  Who would have thought?
• My love of Objective-C/Cocoa continues to increase.  It is Smalltalk.  It is C.  It is hyper-productive.  It is performant (We need to get this word added to Webster’s).
• I was surprised that I had so few memory management issues.  I only recall one instance were I was doing something wacky with a freed pointer.  That said, my app may leak like a sieve.  I am running an Instruments trace on it right now.  That is a part of this experience that I really like.  It is a very clean app.

The idea for the app comes from Super Ninja of Smallbasic fame.

We’ll see what Apple (and you) thinks of it soon.