I’ve received a lot of comments on the new version. Although quite a few of them want to downgrade (?). Apparently people do not like the new giggle and audio tracks. I changed them because many people said they didn’t like the original ones. Nobody ever emailed to say what they did like...

So now I need to find a way so that people can choose which sounds they want. I’ll work on this over the weekend. Luckily I didn’t submit 1.1.1 for review yet, so I may be able to sneak those changes in before I release it to Apple.

I just received notification from Apple that version 1.1 of iGotchi has been approved for sale on the App Store. It’s still not showing up as version 1.1 on the store yet, and may take a day or so to appear throughout iTunes.

This version will be followed immediately, by 1.1.1, which fixes a few bugs/annoyances I mentioned in a previous post. Once iTunes Connect allows it, I’ll upload the newest binary.

Also, a new version of iTunes is available. I haven’t tried it or tested it out yet. But hopefully it addresses some application updating issues others have been reporting about on the internet.

Versions 1.1 and 1.1.1 are done. Version 1.1 has been submitted to Apple, but in further testing over the weekend another bug/annoyance was found. So I spent some time fixing that and making one other change. It’s called 1.1.1...

The caveat to all of this, is that once you submit an application for updating, you can’t re-update it until the previous version has been approved. I emailed Apple to see if I can swap out the 1.1 version for 1.1.1, but haven’t heard back. In any case, a new update should be coming out on the App Store in a couple of weeks, depending on how fast Apple reviews the application. From what I hear so far, update reviews are slow. So it may be a while, but unfortunately, I’ve no control over this.

Also, I’m looking for beta testers for future releases. If you are interested (there are some requirements), let me know by sending a message via the Contact Form.

Yes. The title says it all. This version is almost done. It’s in the hands of beta-testers right now to get bug reports and minor fixes. I’ve tested it as far as I can. The release isn’t complete in terms of every feature people asked for, but it’s much, much better than version 1.0.

Best of all this release, now has a bunch of code changes that will make it much, much easier to add in new features. For this release, I focused on adding in one major new element to the applcation. I also spent a lot of time on memory and performance optimizations. This version should be more responsive.

Again, it’s not perfect... but it’s the best I can do given my limited time and development resources. Hopefully others will agree.

Version 1.1 will be free for current iGotchi owners. I plan to send it to Apple in the next few days (unless something goes terribly wrong, or a major problem is found).

I spent part of the day fine tuning the application. There are still some problems, but they aren’t major. Recovered about 3-4 MB of RAM by reconfiguring things. I’ll get more going on this later in the evening after work.

Ok... I spent the entire weekend working on this, and I’m going to probably take a few days off to work on it full time this week.

Memory usage, unfortunately, is a bit of a problem again. But this time it appears it’s something to do with the iPhone OS and not the application. What clued me in was direct probing of memory hardware. It seems the OS, depending on the program lauches may or may not report back enough memory being available and either kills the application or shuts it down sometime during the programs execution. Simply starting it back up in a few seconds, and the program is OK.

Similarly, people have noted that sometimes they go to launch the program and it shuts down, even though it ran fine before. Restarting the device clears out the problem. Again, this sounds like a problem in the OS, though I can’t really prove it.

Another issue regarding version 1.0... people are reporting that they are getting warnings when small amounts of time have elapsed or that the food or water icon disappears before filling up to the top. This is a bug in the program and will be fixed in the next version. In the meantime just try not to get 3 full resets (otherwise you lose your iGotchi and the accrued time). Warnings and Resets will be set back to ZERO in the next update for all users, since this was my goof and not something most people did on their own. My apologies of course.

Why not fix it immediately.... again, this has to do with the development process and the application review process. If I put out a version to fix a minor thing, the app gets in the queue... if I update that again shortly thereafter, the app gets pushed back again to back of the line. I’d rather spend time improving as much as possible in the program than fighting the submission process.

Anyway... the next release is looking better from a code point of view. I’m hoping to get this out “soon”.

More progress... The core routines are mostly finished for the next release and the feature set is mostly locked. I need to do the fine detail work, profiling of the application and test the run modes. That’ll be a few days at least. But it’s getting closer. Although for some people the release can’t come fast enough.

Progress is definitely being made. I spent time last night reworking some of the core code to make it easier to build in new features. One of the things that was a concern before (RAM usage on the device) has been greatly improved. This improves the general performance of the application, but also frees up space when the app is running to add in features I couldn’t have done previously.

It’s not the type of changes that users are requesting, but in the long run it’s necessary to make adding in those changes easier. Being a scientist, I tend to focus on the systems approach, rather just adding in everything all at once. These underlying improvements will make overall development faster and better.

In other news my friend Alex pointed out that on the UK iTunes store iGotchi is number 9 in the Top Paid Apps list. I’m hoping that when this release comes out, people who already purchased iGotchi, but were unhappy will realize that I am listening, and working hard (I only do this in my spare time) to improve the app. I want people to get their money’s worth!

Thanks to those of you who submitted feedback and constructive comments (both on the US iTunes store and via the contact form).

I’ve received quite a bit of feedback regarding iGotchi and have been checking the reviews on the App Store and online. For those of you that purchased the program, I thank you.

I’m currently working on an update for iGotchi that will enable more interactivity with it, and this will be released in stages (the next few updates will be certainly be free for current iGotchi owners). I’m hoping to have the update out in a few weeks (also depends on when Apple starts allowing applications to be updated on the App Store).

If you’ve purchased iGotchi already, please be patient for the updates... they’re coming. But it’ll take a bit more time.