TOKYO (MacHouse) – It’s been a while since we sent a software title to Mac App Store. The bug-infested new iTunes Connect system has made a lot of software developers unhappy including us. Anyway, we have managed to submit a new Mac software title to Mac App Store some 10 minutes ago. The new title is called OrganizeX Essential.

The road was tough and brutal just as in the weathers of Alaska. The day has finally come for those who still use OrganizeX to organize accounts. We are now switching to a Cocoa application that has been developed from a scratch with Objective-C. This new version comes with many new and improved features. Oh, yes… It allows the user to import account data from OrganizeX 2.

OrganizeX Essential is the third installment of a desktop application that lets you organize various types of accounts including bank accounts, e-mail accounts, web accounts. You can create any number of categories (groups) and accounts. Create a security account so that you can enable or disable 19 options, telling the application exactly which action requires a security login. Don’t give a simple 12345 password to each account. Or you can get one account hacked and lose them all during this casual hacking era. Use Dice to create and give a random username & password to each account.   Continue reading →

TOKYO (MacHouse) – Last week, Apple, Inc. updated the developer side of the online store system. It’s called iTunes Connect. Presumably, the new system is supposed to support new features like Hand-off and the app bundle that were discussed during the special event of June 2nd, 2014. What followed the last major system update has been a total fiasco that both affects iOS and Mac OS X users.

It was about 2:40 AM (U.S. PST), Friday, Sept. 5th. We tried to send a software update for TextAround2 to iTunes Connect before a reviewer finds a bug. When we logged in, we noticed major changes over the iTunes Connect system. The web interface looks like that of Microsoft‘s Windows Store. And it’s ugly. It’s terribly difficult to use, which shouldn’t be surprising as we know their existing applications including TextEdit, Preview, iTunes (multimedia application), QuickTime Player have become useless or difficult to use. Apparently, the company cares more about looks than usability. When we deleted the very first software submission of TextAround2 in order to send a new software update to the iTunes Connect server, there was no turning back. Personally, I spent some 60 minutes or more to submit a new binary to the server for review. I felt so dumb because I couldn’t locate the submit button. It turned out that Apple system engineers have totally blew it such that the submission button never appears. For those who have successfully sent an application binary to the iTunes Connect server are also likely to receive an e-mail message stating that they submitted an invalid binary. Also, a message goes around that says

Your app XXX has been reviewed, but we are unable to post this version. For details, or to directly contact the App Review team, visit the Resolution Center in iTunes Connect. Do not reply to this email, where XXX is the software product name.

It’s Day 5. As of today, there is no solution, no explanation, no apology of any simplest form from the big software company. Of course, company’s developer forums (at least for iOS) are flooded with questions and concerns.

As for our software products, two titles have been affected by this iTunes Connect fiasco.

1. TextAround2 (new software submission)
2. Image2Go2 (update to 2.2.0)

Until Apple fixes its system, we will not be able to issue software updates. We fear that we won’t see the day light this week.

TOKYO (MacHouse) – Yes, we are back to software development after sending the main machine to Apple, Inc. If you remember our last public announcement, it was supposed to be a simple fix for light burns that were found on the lower side of the iMac display. And we wanted to send this 2013 iMac to Apple before its one-year warranty expired. In fact, it’s his one year birthday today. It’s nice to have a one-year warranty to fix broken parts. And an Apple tech guy actually fixed something that we didn’t asked for. They said they detected an unusual noise coming out of the power supply unit. It’s very nice of them to run a diagnostic test to see everything is all right. The scary part is that we could have ended up with another broken iMac if we had not sent it to Apple with unnoticeable burns. If you remember what happened to us exactly one year ago, we had to send a 2011 iMac to Apple for repair. And they discovered that an internal speaker (just one of them) and an internal DVD drive were broken. That’s why we ended up buying that 2013 iMac in the first place.

Anyway, we submitted our first software title of the month to Apple’s Mac App Store a few hours ago. This new software release is called TextAround2. TextAround2 is the second major release of a desktop application that lets you create a text image along a circular path. It’s been developed from a scratch with several new features. You now have an option of laying a text image on a circular path or a horizontal path. The user no longer has to manually create a color gradation map. The application comes with a built-in library containing more than 100 color styles. The second release also lets you generate a bunch of text images in rotation for the purpose of creating an animation movie.   Continue reading →

TOKYO (MacHouse) – We hereby announce that our software support hours will be reduced, starting on Aug 29, 2014. It’ll start at 02:00 AM (PST), 10:00 AM (London), 01:00 PM (Moscow), 06:00 PM (Tokyo), 07:00 PM (Sydney), 05:00 AM (New York), 06:00 AM (São Paulo). While software support hours are reduced, we will not be able to fix software and send updates to Mac App Store. Our reduced software support hours are expected to last till Wednesday, September 3rd.

It was almost one year ago from today that one of our machines experienced a terrible hardware issue. A defective video card was the cause, and Apple, Inc. fixed this 2011 iMac model with free of charge. But that wasn’t all. Apple hardware people told us that the internal CD drive and one of the audio speakers also malfunctioned and that the motherboard would have to be replaced. There was a sign that there was something wrong with this machine. There was a huge burn on the right-hand side of the display, exactly at the spot where the internal CD drive is located inside. And we were forced to buy a new machine.

The picture above comes from that new machine we purchased on September 3rd, 2014. 2014? Really!? Yes, that’s not a mistake. It’s not even one year old. When I was developing Blinders, I saw noticeable burns on the lower side of the display. Not again… So we are going to send this machine to Apple, Inc before its one-year warranty wears out. It is only this machine that has a developer certificate, which is required to send software updates to Mac App Store.

Sadly, this isn’t the first Apple product that didn’t last for three years without a repair for us. Only one of our five hardware products from Apple has survived without a repair for more than three years.

TOKYO (MacHouse) – We suddenly came back at the beginning of this month after a short summer break. So far, we’ve released three software titles. And we submitted the 4th software title of the month to Mac App Store several hours ago.

Drawing the background pattern of an NSView or a UIView object with a uniform color is too simple. If you are developing OS X applications, you can use NSGradient. Or create a CGGradient object with the CGGradientCreateWithColorComponents function to realize color gradation for iOS applications. But how do we translate colors and their relative positions that we visually select with the mouse in the graphic user interface into Objective-C code? Gradiest offers a simple solution to creating color gradation maps and then translating corresponding color values and positions into lines of Objective-C code. You have an option of generating a mutable array (NSMutableArray) with color values and positions as dictionary keys (NSMutableDictionary) or generating float arrays that can be easily used with the CGGradientCreateWithColorComponents function to create a CGGradient object for iOS applications.   Continue reading →