Manifesto Developer Blog

Looking for Manifesto 2.0 Testers

Sat, 17 Apr 2010 09:27:45 GMT

Looking for Manifesto 2.0 Testers

Posted by Justin on April 17, 2010|Comments

Want to get a sneak peak at Manifesto 2.0?

Want to help make Manifesto 2.0 awesome?

Deadline to receive Beta 1 is tomorrow night, April 18th, 10pm Eastern.

Follow Manifesto On Twitter!

Sat, 17 Apr 2010 09:23:47 GMT

Follow Manifesto On Twitter!

Posted by Justin on April 17, 2010|Comments

Manifesto is now on Twitter!

Follow ManifestoApp

Manifesto 2.0, New Job, Baby on the Way

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 21:07:25 GMT

Manifesto 2.0, New Job, Baby on the Way

Posted by Justin on December 10, 2009|Comments

Well, its been a really long time since I last posted and in that time a ton of stuff has happened.

Baby

The most important and life changing event of the past few months is that my wife and I are expecting our first child next April. I could not be more excited! So we’ve been really occupied getting the house ready, baby appointments and just enjoying our last bit of time as just the two of us.

New Job

I have never been too public about who I worked for in the past but now I feel is a great time to share what I’ve been doing for the past 5.5 years. Out of college I decided to work at a start up, called Massive Inc. The basic idea of what we did was dynamic advertising in video-games. I was around the 13th employee there and saw the company grow a ton and get acquired by Microsoft in May of 2006. After that I spent the next 3 years helping Massive become part of Microsoft and continue to grow the technology that we started building 2006. Everyday I got to work with languages that I love(C++), cutting edge platforms(Zune, Xbox 360, etc…) and more importantly, some really amazing people.

My time at Massive and Microsoft was truly an amazing time. I met a ton of great people and learned more than I could have ever imagined when I signed on in May of 2004. It was really a great experience. Having said that, it was time to move on and dig into something new and gain some new experience and perspective.

That something new is Barnes and Noble. I won’t get into too much detail about what I do there right now, but its quite easy to see where B&N is putting all of its chips in. Its an amazing opportunity and I’m really excited to be working there

Manifesto 2.0

Moving onto a new job has gotten me back into the groove of writing code which includes Manifesto.

Today, I’m proud to announce that a limited set of testers received the first test build of Manifesto 2.0.

The build that went out today was called ‘Alpha 1’. Alpha 1 is more of a preview than a full release. It isn’t feature complete but it has a ton of changes under the hood that is going to enable Manifesto to do some pretty cool things in the feature.

As 2.0 begins to come together, I’ll be expanding the group of testers, so stay tuned!

- Justin

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Manifesto 1.0.6 - What took so long?

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 15:05:55 GMT

Manifesto 1.0.6 – What took so long?

Posted by Justin on September 02, 2009|Comments

Ok, now that Manifesto 1.0.6 is finally for sale on iTunes, it is time to clear the air about what happened.

All software products have bugs. All developers have written bugs.

Manifesto 1.0.5 was shipped with a bug that would cause it to crash after the iPhone OS issued a low memory warning. The crash was not in Manifesto code but rather in a class called UISegmentedControl. The input given to that class came from UIImage. Without getting into too much detail here, it was quite obvious that it was a bug in UISegmentedControl and / or UIImage. Neither of which were written by me.

Regardless of who owned the bug, I let it slip through my testing and Apple did not catch it. So we are both at fault for letting it get into your hands and render Manifesto useless for the past few weeks.

So why did it take 3 weeks for 1.0.6 to make it into your hands?

This is where there is zero shared blame. It all falls on Apple.

Why?

Apple has need to control every little bit of what goes on in the App Store. It’s their baby and like a crazed parent, who is dead set upon having their talented son make it into Major League Baseball, will do anything to make that happen…at any cost, even if the kid has to suffer. This becomes a slippery slope really quickly and that is what’s happening with the App Store. Manifesto is not the only victim, check out here(Warning foul language).:http://www.joestump.net/2009/08/pass-the-lubricant-as-were-getting-fucked-by-apple-too.html

So what did I do wrong with 1.0.6?

Very simply, the release notes that I submitted along with Manifesto 1.0.6 that get displayed in iTunes basically mentioned that there was a bug in the iPhone SDK.

I got a call from Apple a few days ago and was notified that this was the reason why Manifesto was not yet approved.

Since Manifesto is important to me, I agreed(even though I really don’t) with the representative from Apple and changed it. As you can now see Manifesto 1.0.6 is for sale.

Needless to say this has left a very bad taste in my mouth.

I doubt Apple will change as they have no real competition at this point. It is really a shame as this is the same slippery slope that once plagued Microsoft 10 years ago and they are just now starting to recover.

To me, this is a huge crossroads for Apple. They can pick to go the way of the old Microsoft and become the company that is too arrogant to realize its faults and shortcomings. Or they can do what has brought them to this point which was to listen to their customers and developers.

Without customers and developers, you can’t have a successful product or platform. The iPhone is both a product and a platform and without the Apps the iPhone is not the success story that it has been.

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The Waiting Game

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 07:35:33 GMT

The Waiting Game

Posted by Justin on August 26, 2009|Comments

There is no doubt that the iPhone App Store has been a huge success.

There is also no doubt that the iPhone’s success has been greatly helped by the apps developers have made for the iPhone. Without the developers and their apps there are no “There’s an app for that” commercials which have been so successful in marketing the iPhone.

Despite all of this great success, the app store isn’t perfect. Right now is not the time to enumerate all of those imperfections but I will single out one because it is currently a huge point of frustration for myself and many of you.

The Waiting Game used to be a quick event and would last about 3 days until Apple approved or rejected your application. As of this writing, Manifesto 1.0.6 has been in Apples hands for 16 days. The only communication I had from Apple since August 10th was the following:

Dear Justin,

Your application, Manifesto, is requiring unexpected additional time for review. We apologize for the delay, and will update you with further status as soon as we are able.

Thank you for your patience.

Regards,
iPhone Developer Program

That was August 10th, almost a week ago. I replied to the email immediately asking for any type of estimate or reason and received no reply. I emailed them again on Monday and have yet to receive a reply.

It goes without saying that I’m a huge fan of Apple and for the most part I do not have a problem with the black box that Apple is. It provides great drama with the speculation and rumors, which in the end turns into great marketing. When you’re a big company you can afford to do this but even lately Apple has been under a lot of criticism for that very reason.

If you’re a small developer, the black box approach doesn’t really work for a variety of reasons. With the amount of competition on the app store, users assume the product is no longer being worked on and will move on to a competitor.

In an effort to keep Manifesto competitive, I’ve been recently working on quick releases to address fixes and add new features. However, its extremely frustrating to have finished a feature or a fix 2 weeks ago and have it yet to see the light of day on the App Store.

This is especially frustrating when its a high priority fix for a crash that affects all users. Granted I wish I never shipped a version with a crash like this, but if Apple didn’t pick up on it, what are they doing when they review these apps? I’m not exactly sure what they are looking for, nor has Apple been clear about that. I do think its crazy that an app that has been in the app store for almost a year needs 14 days to review when the only change is to fix a crash. At this point any updates to Manifesto should just go right to the App Store without any approval. If Apple had published strict guidelines they could then hold the developer responsible for submitting a violating app and greatly reduce or eliminate the approval process.

These long lag times are starting to feel like my day job(large software company) which is exactly the opposite of what I thought developing for App Store would be.

In the scheme of things, I’m not the only developer frustrated by this and I’m not sure Apple has much incentive to change it because there is no real competition to force them to do so. Maybe the Palm Pre, Android, or Windows Mobile will get to the point that they can compete and make Apple strive to make the store better…

I would love to hear what you guys think of the App Store in general, so let your opinion be heard in the comments below!

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Manifesto 1.0.6 on the way!

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 07:24:47 GMT

Manifesto 1.0.6 on the way!

Posted by Justin on August 18, 2009|Comments

Two weekends ago I got a few emails from concerned users about crashes they had been seeing in 1.0.5. After some help narrowing down the issue, I submitted a fix to Apple on Monday, August 10th.

Lately, its been taking Apple about 10 days to approve application submissions. So before the weeks end, 1.0.6 should be in your hands.

Interested in what happened? Read about it after the jump…

So what happened?

I’ve been having a bunch of problems with my phone for the last month or so and I chalked up this particular crash to my phone being on its death bed. It turns out that this particular crash was not related to my phone.

The problem stems from a bug in either UISegmentedControl or a static method in UIImage that is causing the crash after Manifesto receives a low memory warning. Low memory warnings are pretty common whenever you view an article summary that has a lot of pictures or view the full website. Manifesto deals with the warning properly but something in UISegmentedControl or UIImage is not.

I have not had a chance yet to see if this bug in the iPhone SDK / OS still exists in the upcoming 3.1 release, but if it does I’ll get in touch with Apple about it.

So, if you’ve been experiencing crashes, rest assured that the fix is already on its way!

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Manifesto 1.0.5 For Sale!

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:25:59 GMT

Manifesto 1.0.5 has been approved by Apple is now for sale in iTunes!

Definitely check out the release notes and known issues.

If you find any issues or have suggestions for a future version, go here.

Enjoy!

Justin

Manifesto 1.0.5 Submitted To Apple For Review

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 22:10:09 GMT

Manifesto 1.0.5 Submitted To Apple For Review

Posted by Justin on July 30, 2009|Comments

I wrapped up final testing on 1.0.5 tonight and the final build has been submitted to Apple!

Its a nice mix of new features, minor tweaks and one major fix.

Check out the release history for more details!

If you have any suggestions or bug reports, definitely give the new feedback tool a try!

I’ll update this thread once its finally pushed to the App Store…

-JT

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Welcome to Manifesto's New Home!

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 11:46:09 GMT

Welcome to Manifesto’s New Home!

Posted by Justin on July 29, 2009|Comments

It’s been a long time coming, but Manifesto now has a proper home on the web instead of my personal blog.

So what can you expect from the new website?

Constantly updated Tour of the most current version of Manifesto
Release notes for every release so you know exactly what’s new or has been fixed
Easier mechanism to seek support and report bugs
Developer Blog

These new things will come online over the next month or so.

More later on the next release of Manifesto, but for those of you questioning if it was still in development, the answer is a resounding yes.