I usually shy away from discussing politics online, and but it looks like I opened a can of worms on myself on Twitter this morning after I said “A worthy petition, but I wish it were better worded” in response to this petition. Here, I set out my thoughts in more than 140 characters.

For those not familiar with the background, Charles Arthur of The Guardian has a good article about the current proposed changes to British copyright law.

Earlier today I received a phone call from an Apple representative. He was very complimentary about Eucalyptus. We talked about the confusion surrounding its App Store rejections, which I am happy to say is now fully resolved. He invited me to re-build and submit a version of Eucalyptus with no filters for immediate approval, and that full version is now available on the iPhone App Store.

Since my previous post, I’ve been so pleased with the overwhelmingly positive articles, blog posts, comments and tweets - and also the emails from those of you who felt so strongly about the issue you wanted to contact me directly. They were all much appreciated. Thanks for all the support. It’s been a roller coaster of a weekend!

Update

The situation has now been resolved. Read more in my later blog entry.

Original Post

If you’re wondering why Eucalyptus is not yet available, it’s currently in the state of being ‘rejected’ for distribution on the iPhone App Store. This is due to the fact that it’s possible, after explicitly searching for them, to find, download from the Internet, and then read texts that Apple deems ‘objectionable’. The example they have given me is a Victorian text-only translation of the Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana. For the full background, a log of my communications with Apple is below.

I think the sentiment expressed in this strip is the single main sapper of my productivity when coding. Whenever I approach something that I haven’t yet nailed down the implementation details of, I become almost paralysed, trapped in a negotiation with myself on what the “easiest”, “best”, “cleanest” way to do it would be. There should be a term for it. “Implementation Anxiety”?

[With thanks to Sanjay Samani for the Calvin and Hobbes snap]

John Gruber’s latest post, “Private”, calls Erica Sadun to task for her invention of a distinction between “private APIs” and “unpublished API’s”.  I completely agree.  The distinction is nonsensical.

On technical grounds, of course, it’s a valid distinction, if not a valid characterisation.  Her “unpublished” APIs are APIs that are available in public frameworks, but not documented in the headers.  Her “private” APIs are APIs in private frameworks (i.e. those with no headers, installed in the “PrivateFrameworks” directory, as opposed to the “Frameworks” directory).

“The Application “Application Name” was not installed on the iPhone “iPhone Name” because it could not be verified.”

For web-posterity, a small thing I discovered: If your iPhone app beta testers are getting this error (probably along with an “ApplicationVerificationFailed” message from iTunes in the console), it’s possibly because you used command-line ‘zip’ to compress your app file, and it clobbered the symlinks within it, rendering the signature invalid.

If want to use command line zip to compress signed iPhone apps, you need to use the -y flag to get it to preserve symlinks.

In which a semi-automated system for the versioning of iPhone applications is detailed. Said system ensures that the reader’s apps are always correctly versioned, and his users’ iTunes applications are never confused by an update of his beta builds.

Versioning your iPhone applications properly ensures that your app updates go smoothly, and also that when you make a beta build testers never get into the frustrating state where iTunes refuses to accept it because of versioning conflicts, leaving them to have to delete the older version, and its settings and documents along with it.

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. We are the hope of those boys who have so little, who’ve been told that they cannot have what they dream, that they cannot be what they imagine. Yes, they can.”^[1]

I shy away from discussing politics online. I’m aware how hard it can be to convey nuance, and I’m also naturally one of those infuriating people who can see good intentions an both sides of most political arguments. That’s not to say I don’t have political opinions, I just don’t like coming across closed-minded; someone who is so sure of their own opinion that they would be willing to trample those of others.

In which a category allowing the creation of UIImages from Unicode characters, suitable for use as Tab Bar icons, is created, but a state of mild displeasure at the implementation of said category is engendered.

[If you just want code, with none o’ that darn readdin’, there’s a zip at the end of the post]

Adding a ‘test’ tab to my in-development iPhone app, I had a dilemma. My troublesome aesthetic sense was telling me that, despite being seen by no-one but me, it needed a good looking icon. My sense of efficiency, though, was telling me “No! Don’t spend the time to create an icon for something no-one will ever see!”.

Em’s sewing machine has been in a state of disrepair since it arrived here in her suitcase from California. Today, we finally got around to taking it apart to see what was wrong (after searching in vain for a repair manual online - it seems that sewing machine manufacturers have not yet entered the Internet age). Turned out to be a simple problem (one of the belts had slipped off, no doubt during baggage “handling”).