Obligatory “Here’s my iPhone” post

Since you should never actually touch my iPhone, I figured I’d give everyone a look into how I use it and what I use it for. The following are screenshots of my two interesting home screens accompanied by a brief rundown of their contents.

All app links direct you to the publisher’s website.

Home Screen 1

1. Cha-Ching Touch

A companion to the desktop client, used for tracking transactions and budgeting. Both platforms are still under pretty heavy development and can sometimes be buggy, but it’s a nice little piece of software. However, I still go broke far too easily. Decent icon.

2. Ego

Stats at a glance from multiple web services. Awesome little app. I mainly use it to monitor my Mint installation for this site and Google Analytics stats for several others. Extra points for this one: the website tells me I’m important. Good icon.

3. Tweetie 2

Mobile Twitter client. I have no experience with version 1, but I’m thoroughly enjoying version 2. It’s a real joy to use and takes a great approach to certain features. Good/boring icon.

4. Mint web-clip

Shortcut to the iPhone optimized layout of my Mint installation. Web stats tracking at its slickest. I made the switch from Google Analytics to Mint a month ago and I’m loving it. It fits my compulsory need for immediate self-gratification far better than GA could. Throw in the “apple-web-app-capable” meta on the index.php page and pretend it’s a native app. Good icon ruined by the default gloss setting.

5. RedLists web-clip

“What?!? RedLists has an iPhone-optimized layout?!?!” Why, yes it does! PERFECT icon.

6. Things Touch

Standalone to-do app that pairs well with the desktop client. This comes in handy when/if your life gets hectic. Or, in my case, if you’re putting off writing a paper. [A] great piece(s) of software, Great icon.

Home Screen 2

1. Myspace

Better than going to myspace.com. Ugly icon.

2. Facebook

Better than going to myspace.com. And actually, pretty well executed. Ugly icon.

3. iTunes Remote

Better than walking four feet. Good icon.

4. Last.fm

Better than the radio. Decent icon.

5. FourTrack

Better than Voice Memos. Ridiculously fully-featured multi-track recording app. 16 bit, 44.1khz, bounce to 2-track, metronome, and it acts as a web-server you can visit on a desktop browser to download tracks individually. I don’t think it has been updated seen I’ve bought it, but it’s already got enough to satisfy. Ugly icon.

6. Decibel

Better than going deaf. A simple decibel meter. Good icon.

7. Fuzzle

Better than Connect Four. A very addicting puzzle game. It’s even colorblind friendly! Icon used to be way better.

8. Rolando

Better than most games. This game used to be $10. Now it’s $3, and it has a sequel. There’s no reason you shouldn’t have this game. ! Icon makes you want to hug your neighbor.

9. Ramp Champ

Better than going to myspace.com. I bought into the hype on this one. The audio/visual is amazing in this game, I’m just not sure yet if I like playing it. I don’t even really like skee ball in real life. Regardless, it’s a very complete and well put together game. Cool looking icon. Still doesn’t make me think of skee ball.

10. Eliss

Better than what you’re doing right now. Excellent concept for a game that can truly only be played on a multi-touch device. Outstanding music and graphics. It gets incredibly hard about halfway through the game. I assume it’s about halfway through because that’s as far as I got. Icon makes me think of a nipple.

11. Canabalt

Better than actually escaping a robot alien invasion. Story, romance, fighting, awards, running, and jumping. Everything you’d ever want out of a game. Decent icon.

12. Convertbot

Better than doing math. This thing is too much fun to be used as little as it is. Good icon.

13. Chipotle

I have yet to use it, but it reminds me that I’m probably hungry. It also helps me forget that chipotle.com is ONE HUNDRED PERCENT FLASH. Ugly icon.

14. iOctocat

An open source Github front-end for the iPhone. Approximately 1.6x better than visiting github.com to check on activity. Good icon.

That’s it for now. I fancy my self as an app connoisseur¹, and I try to keep the screen count low. It’s exciting to see the iPhone grow as a development platform, even if I never get involved in it.

¹ Defined: wait until somebody else goes crazy over it, then buy.

I just rolled out some “enhancements” to the theme of this site. I felt like the sidebar was getting crowded, so I added some navigation to the top of the page and eliminated some messiness.

“Links”, “About”, and “Contact” actually load in the content of their respective pages. Hopefully this makes my website look less pathetic due to the small amount of content.

“Music” and “Tags” show content from the sidebar, which is hidden if JavaScript is turned on. It all degrades pretty nicely.

The biggest challenge was achieve appropriate behavior of the resizing and hiding of header content; most notably when loading one set of information into the header without closing the box first. It’s all handled in the nav.js file using jQuery. I know there are quite a few redundancies in there, so if you’ve got an idea on a better way to achieve these results, fork the Master Plumber Chyrp theme which is entirely available on GitHub. Either way, I’m going to sit back and enjoy the fruits of my labor by continuously clicking menu items.

I also recreated the sidebar background with a tighter wire grid look. The old one’s sloppiness had been bugging me for a while. The background is a recycled use of this image: which I created for another project.

I hope it’s all pleasing to your eyes. Mine are tired of looking at it.

Rails Rumble 09 Judging

Well, Operator didn’t pass the expert judging for Rails Rumble 09. Only 22 apps did. We did get some nice feedback, though, and there are some things we’ll definitely keep into account as we continue development. Here are our judge comments:

Private Alpha? How are we meant to judge it when it’s not open.

- Zach Inglis

I was really bummed when I read this. Mostly because nowhere in the Rumble rules does it say “Your app must be open for user registration and give them all the goodies they want”. The demo was fully functional, and it accomplished everything we wanted. There’s no way of knowing if he even played with the demo. Operator is powered by Twilio, and requires an account with them to work. Matt and I footed the bill for this, purchasing a number and paying per-minute for test calls. I’m willing to bet money that no one would have signed up for a Twilio number just to test our service. On the other hand, perhaps it wasn’t the best idea for us to build Operator with goals of winning something in RR. I also could have really used a question mark at the end of his question.

The visual design on this app is wonderful, though things do feel a bit spaced out and overly large sometimes. I’d prefer to see more calls on a single page. The phone interface worked nicely and showed up on the site instantly. I was hoping to see a way to classify messages as completed, or a way to integrate with other issue trackers, but I assume those are planned features. All in all, a very nice app.

- mojombo

My favorite feedback. He was positive and provided some suggestions. Most of all, he CALLED THE PHONE NUMBER. I can’t tell if any of the other judges did. This means he actually used the application fully. If he does that, he can say whatever his heart desires and I’ll respect it.

The visual design is a bit “large” in places as Mojombo says (I think Mojombo’s scores should double up as I seem to share all the same comments, lol). However, this is a great technical achievement given the time frame.

- Peter Cooper

Very nice guy. I talked to him on IRC a bit after he gave us a score. I would have liked some more in-depth suggestions, but these judges had to go through a whole bunch of apps in very little time.

This is damn cool and I’d love to see the code and learn how it works.

- gilesgoatboy

I guess this is pretty self-explanatory. We got an average rating on appearance from him, which I could have used a little explanation/suggestions on, but life goes on.

Last night when I was checking an outsiders collection of app scores, we sat at the number twenty spot. Today on the list posted for public voting, we don’t sit there. It was a wise move by the judges. I think the public wants to play with something they can fully use.

On the other hand, KC locals Microbrew Certified Partners (awesome name) made the cut with their app Lowdown, which Matt and I will definitely keep using. It’s pretty darn slick, so go sign up as a voter and give them some votes.