iずかんとiOS5

Monday, October 17th, 2011

It still works.... kinda

(This is a Japanese translation of this blog post)

iOS 5の配達より、iずかんはもっとエラーが出て、ちょっと壊れちゃった。 残念ながら通信を停止しなきゃいけなかったから、もう直せない。 もし手伝いたかったら、この請願をサインください!

やあ皆!

iOS 5がやっと出たね! 楽しみ! もうiPadを完全にアップデートして楽しんでる! いっぱい新しい機能があって、これから来る新しいアプリをよく楽しみにしてる! しかし、実はiOS 5が出る日をちょっと絶望的に待ってた。 なぜなら、iOS 5でiずかんがちょっと割れる事が分かってたから。 今まで、アップル開発の契約のとおり、iOS 5の機能は秘密で、何も言えなかった。

とにかく、アプリの本体はだいたい大丈夫みたいだね。 クラッシュとかは今まであまり見てなくて良かった。しかし、結構大変なバッグが現れたようだ。 もし、どこでもの「並べ替え」のボタンを押すと、普通のようにメニューが現れるが、終了とカンセルのボタンが消えてる。 実はそのボタンはまだあるが、上のメニューの下で表示されていて、もう押す事ができなくなっちゃった。 ^_^;

色々な方々にこのバッグのフィッドバックをもらってきたから、ここで皆に知らせを報告しようと思った。

コード敵にはこれを直すのがとても簡単だが、前に株式会社ポケモンにアプリ配信をやめるようにお願いされたから、そのアップデートが出せない。 :(

これで、とてももうしわけございませんみんな。 これじゃもうなにもできない。 そしてこれからも、iずかんがもっと悪くなる可能性があって、心配してる。 ^_^;

それに、先週の金曜日、ポケモンの弁護士さんと新しいメールがきて、何があったかを次のブログで報告する。今、iずかんをまた配信する事ができないと思うが、おそらく公式のアプリが来るかもしれない。

とりあえず、僕らができるしかない事はただひとつがあると思う。 それはポケモン会社にどれほどポケモン図鑑アプリが人気な物を知らせる事だと思います。 とにかく、ネットで請願があって、もし暇な時があったらサインください。 :)

とにかく、iずかんをよく使っていたら、iOS 5にご注意ください。 そして、アップグレードの時に、iずかんをパソコンにバックアップしてください。 アップグレードではエラーがあったら、削除されちゃうから。 ^_^;

 

iPokédex and iOS 5

Thursday, October 13th, 2011

It still works.... kinda

(日本語版ならこちらです!)

TL;DR iPokédex has become slightly broken in iOS 5. No, I can’t fix it. If you want to help out, register your interest by signing this petition!

Hey guys! :)

iOS 5 is finally out! As I write this, I’m currently taking my iPad through the long backup and upgrade process. As excited as I am about iOS 5 (I can tell you, there’s some AWESOME new stuff in there :D), I’ve actually been dreading this day. Why exactly? Well I’ve known for some time that iOS breaks iPokédex in a pretty epic way. I probably could have mentioned it earlier, but I decided I should wait until the NDA is good and done with. ^_^;

Now, while the app itself is still stable, due to a bit of my dodgy coding and lack of foresight (this was my first major version upgrade as a developer!), an issue has arisen where if you press ‘Sort’, you’ll no longer be able to dismiss the sorting menu. While the ‘OK’ button and the ‘Cancel’ buttons are still being drawn, the code I’ve written that re-positions them to be placed under the scroller view has stopped working (so they’re appearing behind it right now, out of reach). At the moment, the only way to dismiss the dialog is to fully quit out of the app (ie, remove it from the multitasking bar) and start it up again. :(

As far as functionality and usability goes, this is a pretty bad thing, and if I had submitted the app to the App Store with a bug like this in it, it would have most certainly been rejected. ^_^;
I’ve already started receiving emails from users who have upgraded to iOS 5 and have found the error.

Code-wise, this is a VERY easy thing to fix (it’s like 1/3 of a line of code). I’ve already fixed it in the version I carry around on my iPhone. XD
Sadly, however, as I was requested by the Pokémon Company to take the app down, I am unable to distribute this fix to anyone else. :(

I’m really sorry about this guys. The user experience is going to start deteriorating and there’s nothing I can do about it. And I fear it’s going to become more frustrating to watch as time passes, and more emails from users start piling in. ^_^;

Either way, I’m not going to give up until the very end. The lawyer I talked to at TPCI was very kind to me and told me they might take iPokédex over to licensing to see if they might be interested in working something out. I haven’t heard back anything at all on that front in a while now, but as it’s most likely the final avenue, I’m more than happy to wait.

In the meantime, if you’d like to help out, there may be a way for you to do so. :) When Nolan Lawson’s app Pokédroid was pulled, a dedicated young lady named Amber set up a petition to try and convince TPCI otherwise. The petition goes on the record to state that since these kinds of apps are free, and that the information contained within is easily accessible on a multitude of sites, there shouldn’t really be a compelling reason for TPCI to want to shut these apps down. Now, while the lawyer from TPCI explained to me that it’s a pretty open and shut case in that TPCI has simply decided not to allow unauthorized apps, I think the petition is a good idea, if not to simply raise awareness on the amount of interest there is on having some kind of official Pokémon reference app.

At the moment, the petition only has a handful of signatures, so head on over there and sign it!

In any case guys, if you’re a heavy user of iPokédex, I’d recommend hanging off upgrading to iOS 5 as long as you can. ^_^;

iPokédex featured on Kotaku!!

Wednesday, August 24th, 2011

Yeah this is old news. REALLY old news, but I can’t believe I didn’t write a blog post on it at the time. ^_^;

Even still, up to this point, this is blowing my freaking mind. iPokédex managed to get app of the day on Kotaku!!!! ^_^

I’ve been an avid reader of Kotaku for 5 years now and their Twitter account holds a special section in my list of feeds. Never did I imagine that some of my work would actually get so much as a whisper.

In hindsight though, it makes it a bit sader that I eventually had to remove iPokédex. ^_^;

Either way, like before, mad props to Luke Plunkett for reviewing my app. Hopefully there will be more to come in future. :D

So. WTF exactly is ‘fair use’?

Monday, August 22nd, 2011

Objection! (Usage of this image is done under 'fair use'. I'm just saying.)

Well now. Given recent events, I think it’s fair to say that I feel like I understand the intricacies of international copyright law a little more than I did a couple of months ago. ^_^; After my communications with the TPCI lawyer, coupled with some readings from some other sites concerning similar copyright cases, I thought I’d write up a bit of a clarification of how this stuff appears to work.

MANDATORY DISCLAIMER: I am not a lawyer, and the following text is my own supposition. It shouldn’t be taken as absolute truth, and if you see something you know is incorrect, please let me know.

So, the crux of the matter is that ‘fair use’ is a rather convoluted and complicated ‘convienience’ clause added to copyright law, with the original goal of (subjectively) ‘limited’ re-use of copyrighted material without needing to get the original holder’s permission primarily for purposes of  things like critical commentary or research. With the existence of the fair use clause, this basically means that most forms of unauthorized copyright usage go from ‘blatently’ illegal to ‘potentially’ illegal. ^_^;

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On iPokédex getting pulled

Thursday, July 21st, 2011

Well, sadly it’s happened folks.:(

As of last Friday, I had to pull iPokédex from active distribution and leave it offline indefinitely, by personal request of a representative of The Pokémon Company International.:(

I’m really disappointed it came down to that, but sadly, there doesn’t appear to have been any other option.

Since I was slightly busy on the weekend, it’s taken this long to follow up on the matter here, but now I’ll see about putting up what’s been going down since my last blog post.

After receiving the notice from Apple, I immediately followed up by sending this email to the address they provided to me:

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