Why there won’t be a GPS Log HD

When you port your App to the iPad, one of the first choices you get is whether to create a separate product, or a fat (i.e. “universal”) binary.

It seems that many folks on the App store, including several apps in the GPS/travel space have gone done the separate-product route.

Perhaps I understand why they did this. After all, it is not trivial to port an App to the iPad (basically your UI needs a complete re-think). For some apps, they have gone so far as to offer a totally new UI, using real life metaphors like “pages” and “books”.

I still think it’s a bad idea. Why? For two main reasons:
1) customers don’t like paying for the same product twice
2) how many people will actually buy both versions anyway?

Yes the iPad version costs you money to make. BUT, it will hopefully get you more customers. New customers who buy it for their iPad.

Historically I know of several products that used to ship with multiple targets. Warcraft 3 is one, and Adobe’s suite is another, both supported both Mac and Windows. Many steam games now support Mac as well (and don’t require re-purchasing).

So my theory is most users won’t buy the App twice. Some will buy it for the iPhone, some will buy it for the iPad. If you have the one binary to support both, a few will run it on both, and find that useful. If you sell it separately, I doubt most people would buy the counterpart, simply because they would use one device more than the other. Furthermore, users that have already bought the iPhone version get that installed to their iPad anyway, which may be enough.

So rather than trying to milk your existing customers to pay for the port, think of it this way: You get new customers (those who have never used your app, and want to use your App on the iPad), you add value to your product (by allowing use of both devices) which may give you an edge. And you’re doing the right thing (ask yourself, do you like paying for the same thing twice?).

I think so few customers will buy the app TWICE, that you actually de-value your product. I suspect that the number of additional people who buy your App because it supports both, will outweigh the number of people who would have bought a second copy, and that both categories of users represent only a small percentage anyway.

And please, don’t try to claim “but the iPad version is different”. I don’t care if it has a fancy book UI, a re-arranged layout, or up-res’d textures. If it performs the same function, it’s the same App.

GPS Log for iPad. Coming soon. Free for existing users.

Will

iPad Simulator crashes if a UIDatePicker is in a UIPopoverController

Just had one of those afternoons, where you waste 2 hours trying to debug some really strange crash in fairly simple code only to find that the API is at fault.

I have a UIDatePicker which I present in a (custom) UIAlertView used on the iPhone.   On the iPad it makes sense to use a UIPopoverController.

However on use, it would crash about 20% of the time on the first showing, and 100% of the time on the second with various errors like:

*** -[_UIPickerViewSelectionBar lastClickRow]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x5570c80

and

*** -[_UIOnePartImageView lastClickRow]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x5576b70

and

*** -[NSCFString lastClickRow]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x6081770

Basically it’s just sending “lastClickRow” to junk…
And now… what cost me 2 hours but you get for free (hey why not check out GPS Log ;)

The workaround:  Set the UIViewController’s .view (to the view containing the UIDatePicker) AFTER you call presentPopoverFromRect on the UIPopoverController.

No visual glitches with the workaround.

Thanks A  ._.

I could file a bug report… but I can’t stand that the iPhone bug reports are hidden, i.e. I have no idea if 100s of others haven’t already filed the same one and I may just waste my time.  Already kinda regretting the waste of time on this issue.

Why is there no iPhone to iPad tethering?

So I have an iPhone.  It’s always in my pocket.  It has a 3G connection.

I can share the 3G Connection to a laptop.

So why the hell can’t I share this connection to an iPad? Even a Jobs-derided “Net Book” can use the iPhone’s 3G connection.

What’s worse is that this is not only technically feasible, but it’s been done!  What a slap in the face.

So now we have to buy another data plan? Even if you’re willing to pay it’s not (currently) easy to find Micro-SIM 3G plans in all countries.

Thanks Apple, thanks AT&T :-/

Porting to iPad

Some useful resources for the task:

• iPad Programming Guide
• Thanks to Ray Wenderlitch for his excellent iPad porting tutorial
• Info from Apple on how to configure the universal binary:

Follow these steps to build a universal application that will run on both iPad and iPhone:

• Set the Base SDK build setting (in the Architectures section) to iPhone SDK 3.2.
• Set the iPhone OS Deployment Target build setting to iPhone OS 3.1.3 or earlier.
• Set the Targeted Device Family build option to iPhone/iPad.
• Make sure that your Architectures build setting uses both armv6 and armv7
• Set the Active SDK to iPhone Device 3.2, select your Distribution configuration, build (select the Build button) your application, and submit it for App review.

• Weak-linking the UIKit Framework
• setting the frame of a UIPopoverView