[NEW] Director: Orientations are no longer supported. Only Portrait mode is supported. Use a ViewController to rotate the EAGL view.

What exactly does this mean? A little more digging found this post and the subsequent response which cleared it up for me.

How to configure your app's supported orientations in cocos2d 2.0.0:

If you're using the cocos2d templates in XCode, you'll want to open up RootViewController.m and look for the following:

Simply uncomment out one of the three lines by folliowing the comments, and your app will automatically only support those orientations. Simple as pie.

Stuck on any part of iOS, cocos2d, or general Objective-C development? Leave a note in the comments and I'll try to address any issues in future posts.

For fun, not profit - Jason Morrissey (Alien Blue) from Jason Morrissey on Vimeo.

 Version 1.0.1 includes the following updates: 

* iOS 4.3 compatability 
* Location selections should no longer display a blank list due to rate limiting. 
* Friends List and Location Select now have "Pull to Refresh" functionality. 
* Users who have logged out of their Alkatracks account and wish to share a drink anonymously can now do so without the drink being logged to their account. 
* Users sharing anonymously should no longer receive an authentication error.

Direct Download Link [iOS App Store]

This caused the first "Whoops!" moment that I encountered with Alkatracks being live. Yesterday morning, Foursquare was unavailable for a few hours, but the only notification I had was that users were not able to list nearby venues. A little digging revealed that they were receiving a rate limiting error from Foursquare. I investigated further and realized that while there was nothing I could do to reduce occurances of this without pushing an updated version to the App Store approval chain, there were quite a few changes over at Foursquare's API since I had last touched it in mid-2010.

Foursquare has moved to what they dub "v2" of their API recently, and there is no better time than the present for me to move Alkatrack's codebase up to their current API. Alkatracks v1.0.1 is currently in the App Store review queue, and with it will come a much more reliable implementation of the Foursquare venue search.

For those of you out there in dev-land that want to use these new features in your own iOS apps, it's as simple as cloning the (official?) foursquare-api-v2 repo from github [github.com]. You may also be interested in foursquare-oauth-iPhone [github.com]. If you'd be interested in a quick tutorial on getting an app up-and-running with Foursquare authentication and checkins, etc., please leave a comment and let me know!

It's my pleasure to announce that Alkatracks, my latest and most time-intensive app, is now available on the App Store worldwide (or should be soon depending on the country).

The premise is basic: Tell the app what you're drinking and (optionally) where you're drinking it, and it will automatically share it with your friends on the app, on Facebook, and on Twitter. You can also keep track of what you've been drinking, what your friends have been drinking, etc.

It's all completely free and will be updated with more features as I have time. You can grab a copy off of the App Store using the link below:

Alkatracks on the App Store

1. Dual core processors are a must-have in a cutting edge device. I'm glad to see them coming to iOS devices.
2. Having cameras on the iPad is not as huge to me as having them on smaller devices like the iPhone. I wouldn't carry around a camera that was the size of a tablet, so I really can't see using the iPad as one. I also can't see using it for Facetime as I already don't use that feature on my Macs or iPhone.
3. Thinner and lighter = better. One of my main complaints about the original iPad was the heft while reading on it or watching video.
4. White plastic seems like it would change how your eyes adjust to watching video. I think I'll stick with black bezels.
5. HDMI video out seems like an antiquated feature in an era with AirPlay and wireless technologies. I'll never use it.
6. iTunes Home Sharing coming over from the AppleTV is great since it will defeat having to sync media over manually (at least while on the local network to your iTunes machine).
7. Personal hotspot is a non-starter for me, assuming use costs extra on your phone bill.
8. iLife apps are cool to play around with, but I doubt I'll use them seeing as I rarely use them on Mac.
9. I'm not sure if I want to get the AT&T model which will be on the same network as my iPhone, or the Verizon model so that I can get coverage with one device when I can't with the other (but at the slower Verizon speeds).

As a developer:

1. "We're in a position where most of our revenue comes from these [iOS] products." Nothing new there, but I think that's a key indicator of the future of Apple and technology in general. People want mobile devices and touch devices. Anyone coming into the development industry would not be wrong to focus on those markets and technologies.
2. iPad's 90% market share is a little difficult to maintain. It will obviously drop as real alternative tablets start coming out to compete, but by how much? I don't see the iPad losing its top spot in market share. I still think that iOS is the place to be, with Android a (close? distant?) second.

Here's the new icon as it stands now (on an iPhone 4 display). Simpler, cleaner, and just the Goozex monster all by his lonesome. What do you think?

The old icon, for comparison:

• iGoozex is currently on hold indefinitely since Goozex.com's API is not functioning. This has been an ongoing issue and I hope to have iGoozex back in the App Store as soon as the API is at a point where developers can use it again. Unfortunately this is affecting every developer working with the feeds.
• The Go series updates are still a work in progress, unfortunately having been put on hold temporarily while I work on some freelance projects. I do not have an ETA on the updates although a late summer release is my target.

Thanks again to everyone who purchases and especially those who report bugs and features requests. Keep 'em coming!

Firstly, both titles are currently on sale for $0.99 (regularly $1.99) through Saturday, April 24, 2010. You can grab one or both through the following links: Hiragana Go and Katakana Go.

Additionally, title updates are in the pipeline. I'm currently working on some major new features for the series. These include custom sets (only review the kana you need to work on), quiz mode, and some minor functional improvements. More on these as we get closer to an official release.