Edit: after thinking about it more, I’ve completely switched positions. We, as a community, need to push back and let our feelings be known to Apple now before things get worse. I’ll leave the original post unedited below.

- Davey

It seems that, lately, there’s been a large amount of controversy spreading around the Mac and iPhone developer community, mostly stemming from Apple’s recent decision to ban a few apps from the App Store. 

Well I, personally, think we all need to take a step back for a minute and take a deep collective breath.

First, the three events that have everyone up in arms all happened relatively recently, and Apple really hasn’t had time to figure out what exactly to do. No matter what it may seem like on the outside, Apple is really just a bunch of people who sometimes make rash decisions without fully considering the ramifications. You can safely bet that there is a huge conversation going on right now about what to do, the results of which will probably be revealed soon.

Second, with Apple, it always seems like it gets worse before it eventually gets better. Remember when they offered us the “sweet” solution of web apps for the iPhone? We all know now that was only a stop-gap solution until the App Store could be figured out, but at the time it felt like the end of the iPhone developer world.

Third, although many of us are scared at what comes next, and some have even considered a change to the new Android platform, we should (again) take a step back and realize these are hasty responses to issues that we still know very little about. There’s no need to immediately abandon the iPhone ship because of a few denied apps. Really! Not just yet, anyways.

I am at least as angry (if not more, for reasons I can’t go in to) about the news of Apple denying apps that “duplicate functionality” as anyone else. But I also know that we all need to wait and see what emerges in the coming months.

Then, and only then, should we make a decision.

- Davey

This is long overdue, but here’s a first look of iFlash touch running on an iPhone. Please don’t take this as an indicator that it will be released soon, because it is still far from complete, but do know that I’m actively working on it!  :-)

Anyways, enough talk. Here it is!

Nothing too exciting yet, but it’s a good start (especially considering how my original sketch for this screen looked). You’ll notice that the Deck Library is going to be built right into iFlash touch, so anyone, whether they have iFlash on the Mac or not, will instantly get access to over 2,500 decks. Pretty awesome!

I’ll be revealing more screenshots as development continues, so stay tuned!

- Davey

I have been living in Portland, Oregon now for all of 2.5 days, but what an astonishing time it has been. I’m now doing an internship at Panic, Inc., a small (10 people) Mac software company located in the heart of Portland. I’ll talk about Panic in the future, but right now I’d like to pour out my thoughts about the city itself.

For me, this is the first time I’ve actually lived in a city, and the experience is, well, very different! There are so many types of people here, ranging from the “hipsters” (saw the term on Yelp.com, heh), to the tourists taking pictures left and right, to the beggars asking for money on seemingly-random street corners. It’s both awesome and scary, but it sure makes for some fun people watching :-).

The transition from suburbia to a city obviously carries many challenges, but what I wasn’t expecting is how awesomely convenient it is to live in the middle of literally everything. Within 10 minutes, I can walk to endless restaurants, book stores, coffee shops, companies, parks… basically anything I’d ever need.

I’ll repeat this again, since it still blows my mind. I can walk to all of this, without breaking a sweat. Whoa.

Anyways, more to come in a future post. It’s time for me to continue my hunt for an actual place to live!

- Davey

I’ve decided to merge Loopware/iFlash’s blog and my personal blog under the same davidmcgavern.com umbrella. However, I’m still keeping the two separate if you only want to read one or the other :-). Here are two links you can use if you only want to read either the Loopware blog or my own journal:

Loopware blog posts

Journal blog posts

Thanks!

- Davey