If we don’t find anything tragic in this build, we’re gonna submit the current beta (Release Candidate 2) OF Snowferno to the App Store.
I searched the App Store for “hell” and came up with a slew of gory and disturbing games, which we’re certainly not. As long as that concept is okay for the store, I see no other reason we would be denied. But, still we’ll have our fingers crossed. It’s our first app, our baby!
In the meantime, the Leaderboard is completed and live. I’m actually quite proud of my own scores. (In spite of the fact that I knew *how* to solve most of the puzzles, you still have to *do* it. It’s more challenging than it seems!) And here’s another trailer:
Update 3 (6/19/09 3:45p): It’s a feature, not a bug. I hate that…
Apple – Support – Discussions – Double contacts? … shows people with similar symptoms. Why I had trouble getting iTunes to disable local syncing, I now don’t know — but I will no longer be spooked by the option to enable local syncing remaining visible. And I will notice the new text which used to say “Over-the-air sync settings can be changed on your iPhone” now says “You can also choose to sync contacts/calendars with this computer.”
I guess Apple removed the either/or restriction on MobileMe syncing. I suppose this could allow you to sync with a home-based MobileMe account while also syncing with a work-based desktop account.
Update 2 (6/18/09 5:46p): I think I’ve fooled iTunes. It’s not “fixed”, but here’s what I did to get back on track:
I created a blank new Calendar and a blank new Address Book group.
I deleted all mail accounts on my phone, along with all their data.
This left a bunch of calendars and contacts *still* on my phone, so
I unchecked “Sync Mail Accounts” (for now).
set my phone to sync Calendars and Contacts to those empty groups I just created, and checked the corresponding Reset buttons. (The idea being that I reset all my data to nothing, the only way I could find to erase just the Calendars and Contacts.)
Then, after the Calendar/Contact sync finished (erasing all Calendar/Contact data on the phone), in a separate sync I re-added the Mail Accounts.
I ejected the phone and disconnected the USB cable.
On the phone, in the Settings for my MobileMe account, I turned on Contacts, Calendars, and Bookmarks sync. I also had to launch the Contacts and Calendars apps to initiate the data being pulled in from the MobileMe cloud.
After that all finished and I had the correct data on my phone, I deleted the blank Contact group and blank Calendar from my Mac (sync cable still unattached) to verify the Push connection was alive and working.
Only once the blank group and calendar disappeared from my phone via a true MobileMe push did I then reconnect the cable to my phone for another sync. iTunes does not show the MobileMe override for Contacts and Calendars, but at least it knows enough and disabled the local syncing.
Let’s hope they address this, altho a quick scan of the Discussion Forums and other online notices seems to suggest I’m the only one on the planet having this issue. Lucky me!
Update 1 (6/18/09 3:09p): Apple Discussion forums are back online. Weird they would go offline right as the download started. Saving bandwidth, or what else…
Original Post
I’m 2 hours into my upgrade and having problems.
Also, why are Apple’s discussion forums (http://discussions.apple.com/) closed? Is it to squash the possibility of an onslaught of negativeness about anything that goes wrong?
My specific problem is that my phone shows MobileMe sync is enabled, but iTunes’ “Info” tab does not agree. As a result, iTunes resyncs my entire Contacts and Calendars every time, despite MobileMe push sync being enabled. I also end up with two sets of Contacts and two sets of Calendar events — one for On My Mac and the other for my MobileMe account.
Notably (or not?), after the upgrade finished, my phone was renamed to just “iPhone”. Developing…
The website for our upcoming iPhone game collaboration with Ben Britten is now live. Check out snowferno.com for details, screenshots, development blog, and hear some clips from the soundtrack.
You’ve heard the saying — but where did it all begin?
Who was that snowball, and what exactly was it doing in Hell?
Snowferno is a new take on the classic marble roller game – set (very) loosely in the 9 rings of Dante’s Inferno, with 20 puzzle challenges & starring the original “Snowball-in-Hell”.
Programming and artwork are by Ben. Mike and I are writing the music and designing (most of) the levels. We are nearing a beta release and hope to hit the iTunes App Store early July.
As I wrote previously, Rogue Amoeba’s just-released iPhone app “Airfoil Speakers Touch” is a slightly baffling piece of software with limited use in practice. I don’t think much of the criticism it is getting on the iTunes App Store is their fault tho, and the upcoming 3.0 SDK features may let Rogue Amoeba finally create what users think this app will do (and what they really want — Airfoil for iPhone!). But, for now, it’s baffling.
As a composer embarking on scoring my first iPhone game, however, I now see a tremendous use for this. Our audio system has great studio speakers, but iPhone music has to be optimized for audibility over the tiny phone speaker as well. Instead of the laborious “export, mp3, copy to iTunes, sync, iPod play” routine, I can simply hijack Live or DP and beam the audio to my phone. Tweaks made on-the-fly are immediately heard.
A phone call will still interrupt the audio with no option to resume, and I still can’t control the host from within the app… but it did just make my workflow much simpler.
Rogue Amoeba has announced the release of Airfoil Speakers Touch, a free companion app for their cross-platform audio streaming tool Airfoil. This app gives any iPhone or iPod Touch the ability to receive streaming audio from an Airfoil app on your local wi-fi network. It’s a free dowload on the iTunes App Store. Airfoil is required and a free demo can be downloaded from Rogue Amoeba. Licenses (which remove the 10 minute time-limit) are $25.
A while back I wrote about my 4-part solution to stream audio across a network and still have your listening count. It’s oddly become one of our highest traffic posts, currently ranking #7 in a Google search for “airfoil iphone“.
My hunch is that most people want a way to broadcast *from* their mobile device to another person’s audio system — a wireless patch cable.
With this app, you still can’t stream *from* your iPod Touch/iPhone in the same way that Airfoil does — it is receive-only. (I guess it would be good for like an office-wide “radio” station (see update below) or something?) Also, since you only receive audio while the Airfoil Speakers Touch app is open, you can’t use Remote to change the song at the music source either.
But maybe if you had one phone running Remote controlling an iTunes streaming thru Airfoil to *another* iPhone receiving…..
Get 'Airfoil Speakers Touch' from the iTunes App Store
I think we’ll have to wait for some of the features coming in iPhone 3.0 before streaming off the phone will be possible. I’m sure if *I’m* getting the Google hits on this, Rogue Amoeba surely is as well and will be on top of things.
UPDATED: I’ve played with this a little more now, and I can’t see much use for it. Perhaps if you were stuck with a crappy PC that had no sound card or no headphones jack, this would give you remote wireless headphones via the phone. And because you have to launch the mobile app before Airfoil can broadcast to that destination, my idea of joining a “radio station” wouldn’t be possible. Using this app out-of-reach of the Airfoil source would just get annoying. Third, a phone call properly silences the incoming music, but that results in audio reverting to the host computer’s speakers… hope that’s okay in your quiet office! Oh, and it doesn’t automatically reconnect (yet?) when the phone call is over.
I love Rogue Amoeba’s apps, but Airfoil Speakers Touch feels like they are just cutting their teeth on the iPhone SDK for when bigger and more useful companion apps become possible.
Our pal Ben has coded apps that help Spiderman fly and that help cure cancer. Now he’s tackled the iPhone, coding his first app for the Lycette Brothers.
It’s called “Snow Dude“, and it’s available today from the iTunes App Store for $1.99. Check it out!
