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OS X Mountain Lion

OS X Mountain Lion has hit the shelves on the Mac App Store and it’s off to a very good start.

So where are the updates for Yoink, ScreenFloat and flickery?

For all of my apps, I’ve submitted updates to the App Store at the beginning of July but they’re still “In Review” or worse, “Waiting for Review”. Here’s the run down of what’s working or not working on OS X Mountain Lion.

Yoink

Yoink works perfectly fine in the currently available version (2.1.1). The upcoming update is a bugfix and minor feature release.
Nothing really changed for Yoink in OS X Mountain Lion that would break the app.

ScreenFloat

ScreenFloat has some minor issues. It works well, but you’ll notice that the “Launch ScreenFloat at Login” checkbox in the preferences is enabled although it shouldn’t be and will crash the app when clicked.

Another issue is with running ScreenFloat with the Dock icon enabled. Floating shots will not follow you to fullscreen apps or spaces. I’m currently looking into that. In the meantime, you can disable the Dock icon and it will work.

flickery

flickery is the most troubling. Not because of OS X Mountain Lion (some minor issues aside – like, the “Nearby” search doesn’t show up – it works well).

The troubling part is that flickr is shutting down their flickrAuth authorization mechanism by July 31st. Yes, that’s very soon and there’s no update out yet for flickery.
I’ve requested an expedited review by Apple for it and I hope they grant it.

If they don’t (and still, if they do, there’s a chance), it might take longer than July 31st for Apple to review the app. What that means is that authorizing flickery to work with your flickr account will not be possible. Also, although flickr doesn’t explicitly state this, it’s inferred that anything done over the flickr API with an old authorization token (an authorization token is what an app receives from flickr when the user authorizes the app to work with their flickr account) will not work anymore. So browsing, uploading, really anything you can do with flickery, will not work.

Please be aware that the upcoming update does include the new OAuth authorization and will make flickery work again with flickr. Until it is reviewed and released by Apple on the App Store, please have a little patience. I know it’s not ideal, but at this point, I’ve done all I can do.

Concluding,

aside from some minor issues with ScreenFloat and flickery, everything basically works on OS X Mountain Lion. For these issues, updates are currently “In Review” or “Waiting for Review” by Apple and should be released soon.

As for flickery, I’ve requested an expedited review and I urge you one more time to consider having a little patience 🙂 Trust me – it troubles me more than anyone.

Thank you for your time,
Take care,

Matt 

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Hi, everyone.

I wanted to try something new, so instead of a blog post, I’ve recorded this ~6 minute podcast for your listening (dis-)pleasure.

Here are the relevant links and time codes in case you want to jump to a specific section:

00:00 – Intro
00:25 – New website (http://www.eternalstorms.at)
00:47 – Yoink (http://www.eternalstorms.at/yoink)
02:46 – ScreenFloat (http://www.screenfloatapp.com)
03:21 – flickery (http://www.flickeryapp.com)
04:06 – GimmeSomeTune (http://www.gimmesometune.com)
05:09 – New apps (http://www.eternalstorms.at)
05:39 – Outro

I hope you enjoy it 🙂

Podcast-download (best viewed in QuickTime Player or iTunes for chapter selection)

Take care,
Matt

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As the release of OS X Lion comes closer and closer, you’re maybe wondering if Eternal Storms Software is ready for the new cat.

Yes, all my software available on the Mac App Store will be ready for Lion.

NewImage
flickery

flickery is, in its current version (1.9.24), not ready for Lion, but the update to make it compatible with it (1.9.25) is in review, so once it’s reviewed, it will be ready for Lion.

Screenfloat 3 dragged
ScreenFloat

ScreenFloat is ready for Lion as of version 1.1.1! I’ve tested every aspect of the app and everything seems to work just as expected.

GimmeSomeTune 3 dragged
GimmeSomeTune

As you might know, GimmeSomeTune is not yet available, but I wanted to let you know that I’m writing it for Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6 and OS X Lion. I’m constantly booting into Lion to test if what I’m working on is running on Lion just as well as on Snow Leopard.

 

A good website to keep track of software that is (or is not) compatible with Lion is roaringapps, it gives you a great overview of lots of software and its status regarding Lion.

Take care,
Matthias

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gimmesometune

One 180 turn plus another 180 turn means – we’re back where we started.

A few months back, I said GimmeSomeTune would make a 180 turn by using Gracenote as its source of information (lyrics, song info, artwork).

Although I really wanted this to happen, for all the reasons I mentioned in that previous blog post, it doesn’t seem like it will happen. I’ve contacted Gracenote numerous times and never heard back. Either they’re very, very busy or they just don’t care and don’t want my business. So be it.

So be it!

I’ll do what lots of other apps (including GimmeSomeTune) do – turn to websites that have the according information available. I’ve done it before, I’ll do it again – only better. I’ll use several sources for lyrics and artwork, many of which you, the users, have suggested – thank you for that. I have several sources for lyrics and artwork, so if one service goes, there’ll be a backup service I can turn to.

Truth be told…

I really was looking forward to using Gracenote, because they do offer a great service.

When it became clear that Gracenote couldn’t be bothered to at least write me a “buzz off” e-Mail, I looked into other options. I still have no clue what Gracenote is charging, but it can’t be more than what the others are. It is really hard for an indie developer to use these services and not go hungry while doing so.

Who knows, maybe I’ll get an e-Mail from Gracenote some time this lifetime, then I may reconsider.

Status right now

So what’s the status of GimmeSomeTune right now?

Well, I lost a little time due to my work on Records (which is currently exclusively available through the MacBuzzer bundle) which had to be done for the bundle, so there’s that.

That being said, artwork, lyrics, last.fm and song recognition are all working right now, and beautifully, might I add. It’s almost magical.

Now you might ask, great, so when’s the release, because what’s there left to do?

Everything else. The interface, the popup window, keyboard shortcuts and testing, testing, testing (especially for song recognition, which is quite tricky).

One more thing on iPod last.fm scrobbling

In the blog post I mentioned before, I promised you last.fm scrobbling for tracks you played on your iPod. Turns out it’s not that easy to do.
I will try to implement it for the 1.0 release, but if it takes too long, I’ll move on to other things and get back to it when I’m working on a later update.
Sooner or later, it’ll be in there. But I don’t think it’s that important for a 1.0 release to spend a lot of time on it if I want a timely release (which I, and I assume most of you, do). I hope you understand.

 

As always, I’m open for suggestions and feedback, so please leave a comment, contact me on twitter (see below) or write me an e-Mail. Whichever you prefer is fine with me 🙂

Thank you for your time and interest,
Matthias

 

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