My, it’s been a while since the last time we had a new trollish trifle for you to try, isn’t it? Our recent projects do just seem to be wandering off into the weeds in every direction, cha. But hey, here’s one today; yet another in the ever expanding collection of trinkets for those great Wayz guys, it’s … iGoalKeeper!
Just your basic catch the falling balls kind of thing,
but hey, if you’d like a momentary diversion … there you go!
Yes, it’s that time again, time for another chef-d’œuvre from the troll kitchen; and today the main course is something a little different, a step into the world of politics. Specifically, the upcoming Toronto mayoral election. No, seriously, the upcoming Toronto mayoral election. Presenting … iRocco!
Now, just in case anybody happened to miss this before, Galactic Troll HQ is in downtown Vancouver, and that is a long ways from Toronto. We have absolutely no idea what the issues are in the Toronto mayoral race, nor do we have any idea of how Messr. Rossi stacks up against his competitors …
… other than that quite obviously his campaign has the most discerning taste in iPhone developers compared to whomever that competition is! And since we can’t think of any other way other than choice of iPhone developer in which the office of Toronto mayor could possibly affect us, well that’s quite enough to merit The Official Troll Endorsement, isn’t it now?
(If, on the other hand, you need some other proof than “has a troll produce their iPhone app” of the manifest suitability for high office of a political candidate — although we certainly can’t imagine why! — then here is the campaign website for you to figure it out for yourself.)
And we do have a warning for anyone planning something along these lines, specifically that includes a “Donate” page: You know that bit in the agreement, section 3.3.21 to be exact, where it says
Your Application may include a direct link to a page on Your web site where you include the ability for an end user to make a charitable contribution, provided that You comply with any applicable laws…
Now, it says “a direct link to a page on Your web site”. Is it not reasonable, we ask rhetorically, that to take a URL and load it into a UIWebView should qualify as “a direct link to a page on Your web site?” Well …. not so much, it turns out:
Donations are not permitted to be taken within the application, however it is possible to provide a donation link to your web site. This link is required to open Safari to collect the donation. We encourage you to make the necessary changes to your application and resubmit it for review.
Begosh and begorrah! What, we ask, WHAT is the significant difference between “load it up in a UIWebView” and “required to open Safari”? Mutter, grumble. Well, now we know. And hey, at least it wasn’t rejected for anything actually wrong with the code.
So there you go. Should you have any interest in the Toronto mayoral race, Dear Reader, you know what to do!
Oh hey, look what we missed a couple weeks back: The latest little bauble the Trollwerks foundries clanged out for those fine Wayz fellows (no one shows you a better time in Tokyo, we guarantee it), Labyrinth Soccer, is out in the App Store!
It’s a trivial little diversion, but it’s a trivial little diversion that you can actually play between two people with one iPhone, which is something we haven’t seen as much of as you’d think. Is it just us that only really ever plays games when we’re standing in line somewhere with an iPhone-less friend?
A technical note of mild interest is how easy it was to integrate the cocos2d + Chipmunk physics game screen into a UIView-based structure — as a matter of fact, that’s a standard UINavigationBar you see at the top of the screenshot. Good job that cocos2d, and getting better all the time, yes it is!
So yep, here we are again with another shipment from the laboring minions of the Trollwerks empire to all of you out there: and no doubt to your complete lack of surprise, after a one-product break we’re back to displays of conspicuously concupiscent femininity. Introducing Poses Professional,
and its companion free version Poses Sampler!
Yep, that IAP-enabled upgrade of the Poses series that we’ve been mumbling about getting around to any day now for around six months, yes we finally got everything sorted out and guided through approval, which was a bit of a trick with three current app updates, two new apps, and six IAP items between them.
The reason all this needed to be synchronized is that the original three volumes of 368 poses each we’re now making available as IAP items — but you can’t share purchases between apps directly, plus we wanted purchasers of the originals to transfer over their content without paying again. So how we ended up handling that is sharing a keychain between all five apps, and purchasing a volume in either new app or running the original volume apps marks a flag in the keychain for the new apps to download the appropriate content from our servers. And no angry emails or crash reports showing up in the first three days, so apparently it’s all working out well, to our mild surprise. Er, we mean, as we confidently expected.
Any-ways, this is a moderately interesting controlled experiment in pricing, going from high (by App Store standards) priced content to a lower priced paid entry plus a freemium model, and we’re going to be fascinated indeed to see how that works out. So all you photographers out there, you know what to do!
Yes, here we are again: another exquisite troll production up on the App Store today — and, for a change, there is not one single scantily clad female in it! A shock, we know. And although the gestation was rather prolonged, not an instant of that was due to any deficiency on our part, so we’ll count this as another successful troll project. W00t!
So said project was for the GreaterGood Network, a collection of charities like, well, these,
that you go and tap on every day, and then advertisers donate to the various worthy causes. So hey, everybody should go download it right now, because this is something that we’ve put together just so you, yes you, that’s YOU, can make the world a better place. You’re welcome.
Ah yes, we’d forgotten to mention this; there’s another troll program up on the App Store these days! Well, “another” may be stretching it a bit, as it’s a new release of the previously mentioned Anime Clock with new graphics. And these new graphics, of course, are definitely going to break with the increasingly established tradition of troll-written programs featuring scantily clad attractive women, aren’t they? Weeellll, it turns out this version is called Maid Clock, so …
… not so much, no. Yep, even without our active involvement in any way whatsoever, they just keep on coming. But hey, we’re always delighted to do our part to celebrate Japanese culture. Indeed, we do thoroughly recommend that should you ever visit Japan, you do make a point of checking out a maid café or dozen; it is an extremely unusual scene to those of us hailing from a culture which is … well, any that’s not Japanese, really. When we were over there a few weeks back visiting the great people at Wayz that we’ve done a selection of applications for, it was made certain of that we didn’t miss out:
Yes, yes, the life of an iPhone programmer is a difficult and straining one, indeed. Thank you for all your sympathies. But hey, while you’re gearing up to visit Japan … you can always get the clock!
Aaaaaaand another fine troll project just pranced its way onto the App Store today, this one a simple little online video player for the Fashion Network; and why yes, yes indeed — we don’t even have to tell you this any more, do we? — the screenshots feature, surprise! scantily clad attractive women.
Yes, we know our protestations that this is not at all intentional in the slightest are getting increasingly unbelievable with each new attractive female featuring release, but it’s completely 100% true, we just happened to get an email about dashing off a few hours’ worth of video player project at just the exact time we had a few hours to spare, and in short order, here we are. It just happens to work out this way. Weird, huh?
(Unfortunately, this one does not qualify as a successful troll project — one rejection cycle this time, as playing these MP4 fashion videos over cellular broke Apple’s data use policies, whoops. So take notes, Application Rejection Reason #Umpety-Nineteen: do not attempt to play high quality MP4s over the cell network. YouTube, however, that’s cool.)
Any-ways, it’s just a simple list of videos you can play; but hey, it’s free, so if keeping in touch with the latest fashion productions is your kind of thing … here you go!
Why yes, there has been a dearth of posts recently, you may have noticed. And there will be for a couple weeks yet; not because of particularly insanely overcommitted deadlines which is the usual reason you see gaps here, but because we’ve gone out walkies over the Christmas season which we figured was about as downtime as things would get around here in the foreseeable future.
So let’s play “Where’s the Troll?” shall we? Here’s a snap from a couple days back at a vista which is regarded as veritably iconic for the region, so if you’re impeccably well cultured you should be able to identify this right off. Hint: the iconic view of this particular place is generally a shot taken at high tide, so it looks like it’s floating. But at high tide you can’t get a shot of you standing in front of it. Well, we suppose you could swim out, but that would be a pretty funny-looking picture.
So, our no-doubt Well Traveled Readers, where in the world is the Troll, do you think?
Well, it’s been a while since we had news of a successful troll — rejection-free first try acceptance, w00t! — release in the App Store; so why yes, today we have one for you, the first fruits of our association with local whiz kids Appnovation Technologies. Great folks all around over there so be sure to check them out for your Drupal and Alfresco projects. Or iPhone, of course. Like today’s App Store debut, a promo piece for budding Ontarian chanteuse Sarah Melody. Sort of our apology to all you non-Canadians for that whole Celine Dion thing.
Yes, yes, it’s yet another Trollwerks product featuring cute girl pictures. You’re just sorta taking that for granted by now, aren’t you? It’s all pure coincidence, we swear. Any-ways, there’s music snippets with iTunes links, YouTube streaming video, and various social media integration, all wrapped together with full motion video sequences, working nice and smooth even on a 1G iPod touch. So if you’re at all into the bubbly pop/rock thing, or you just want to gaze in awe at our spectacular production work, grab it — hey, it’s free! — and pick up a song or seven to help demonstrate just what a great marketing tool free iPhone apps are, hmmm?
Ah yes, another excellent Trollwerks project has hit the App Store: Destiny Media Technologies‘ Play MPE® Player, the iPhone version of the desktop client for the Play MPE secure music distribution system!
And we’ve been waiting to tell you that news for a looooong time now. “How loooong a time”, you ask? Why, let us tell you how long! The binary that hit the App Store this afternoon was submitted on May 9th. How long is that? That’s 130 days. ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY DAYS. 18 weeks. 3120 hours. 187,200 minutes. 11,232,000 seconds. And not a single word of feedback anywhere in that ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY DAYS except from the trained parrot that Apple has warbling “Your application is requiring unexpected time for review! Your application is requiring unexpected time for review! Awrk! Squawk!” in response to every attempt at opening some kind of communication channel.
Not that we’re bitter or anything, mind you. All’s well that ends well … eventually. But it certainly would be nice to have just a smidgen more transparency to this process wouldn’t it? But hey, it could be worse, they could have actually found something wrong in my code!
Any-ways, if you’re not aware of the Play MPE system already, chances are this isn’t for you; but if you are in it, you want to go get this RIGHT NOW to get at all your prerelease music on your iPhone!
