Friends, family, customers, and co-workers have all asked me when I’m going to develop an iPhone application. For a time, my answer was, “when I come up with a good idea.” Now my answer is, “when Apple changes its attitude.”
Continue readingXTabulator 2 Released
So I finally did it. I pushed the big red Deploy button and released XTabulator 2. Okay, there is no big red Deploy button in reality, but there’s one in my head. And I pushed it. And damn, did it ever feel good.
Continue readingOn the Tweetie 2 Debacle
This week, Loren Brichter (author of Tweetie, an ADA-Award-Winning Twitter client) touched off a firestorm of a debate when he announced Tweetie 2 for the iPhone would be a paid upgrade. The price? All of US $3. Jackasssery ensued.
Continue readingZiplight Superfluous, Josh Saddened
It was inevitable. The Ziplight spotlight plugin has been rendered superfluous by a built-in Archives.mdimporter that ships with OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard). Since OS X 10.4′s release, so many asked “why on earth didn’t Apple include the ability to search inside zip files?” The answer may shock you.
Continue readingAmazon’s Kindle 2
After complaining bitterly about its price and insisting I’d need the largest model for ocular comfort (I have vision problems), I found I couldn’t stop thinking about the advantages of having a Kindle. I was spurred on by a recent discussion with coworkers about the device. So I dug in and did some real research.
Continue readingWhy Use XTabulator?
A well-known player in independent Mac developer circles recently told me he didn’t get why you’d use XTabulator over Excel for CSV, TAB, etc. I thought I’d share (the relevant parts of) my tongue-in-cheek response.
Continue readingSnow Leopard & Consistency
Even after using it for months, I’m still noticing things on Snow Leopard that make me wonder if 10A432 really should have been the GM release. I think a little bit more polishing should’ve been done before release. My list of (mostly nontrivial) bugs are still “open”.
Continue reading(Re)Introducing XTabulator
You might be familiar with XTabulator. It lets you sling CSV, TAB, and other tabular data files around, massaging these inherently structureless data files to your own needs.
Continue readingPrivate APIs & the Skanks Who Love Them
I was talking to a friend of mine when I mentioned a third-party developer’s custom UI toolkit. When I mentioned it, my friend said matter-of-factly, “I’ve heard it uses private API.” Instantly (as often happens), a little scene played out in my head in response.
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