COMING SOON!

On November 22 (just 4 days after the actual pepper spray event happened @ UC Davis) I submitted my original version of the CPSEC (Casually Pepper Spray Everything Cop) App for review to Apple’s App Store. After 19 days and 2 “This App requires Additional Time for Review” emails it became apparent to me that in it’s current state the CPSEC App was not going to see the light of day in the App Store.

Common sense and experience should have told me that submitting an app that contained a copyrighted image was not going to fly but in my haste to beat out the competition I went ahead and submitted anyway. Well, I learned my lesson the hard way and after loosing a lot of time I resubmitted the app using stock images. I believe I did a really good job creating the substitute images. Take a look at the main example below:

App Description:

Now you can create your own pepper spray cop mashup photos without expensive graphic design software

** Features **
- Over a dozen different poses
- Accessories
- Different spray types & catch phrases
- Facebook & Twitter Sharing

Add the infamous pepper spray cop to any of your photos or even take a new one and drop him in. Then share your creations with all your friends on Facebook & Twitter. *Notice to iPod Touch Users: You CAN still use this app (even without the camera!) No problem, you just can’t take any new pics but YOU CAN do Everything else iPhone users can.

Will my changes be enough to pass Apple’s rigorous review process? That remains to be seen. Will users still want to use an app to create Casually Pepper Spray Everything Cop Mashup Photos without using the original images? That remains to be seen as well.

Stay Tuned!

In response to such overwhelming interest I came up with the Peanut Butter Jelly Button! App. It has all of the great features of the original PBJTime! Fans Rejoice !!!

Here’s the Review:

Speak EZ (keyvisuals.com)
Price: Free

Description: Remember the Speak N’ Spell? Remix DJ does,
and they’ve done a virtual version for the iPhone/iPod Touch.

Pros: A wide selection of phrases, plus the alphabet and numbers 0-9
for your to trigger.

Cons: The buttons are a bit small, and response sometimes lags.

But for free, it’s not much to complain about. You also can’t circuit bend it
like a real SnS; but, that’s what xternal effects are for.

Verdict: You win.

Yay!, Apple must be reviewing my app I thought. But then the email body contained the unfortunate “Your application review process will require additional time.” #fail.

I’m really not sure how these changed state emails are going to provide developers with any helpful information. Previously our app status would have shown In Review and we would have had to wait until it was either accepted or rejected. Now we can see if the our apps are waiting for review or actually are in review sure, but how does that help me? Knowing that my application state has changed isn’t a huge relief to me either. What knowledge have I gained? I still have to wait until it is either accepted or rejected and now I have an additional step to add to my anxiety.

As you can see from the these screen shots the Status History doesn’t provide much helpful information either. It would at least be interesting if we could see which App Reviewer was looking at our app. Instead it just says Apple. No kidding, really? Can you imagine seeing inspected by number 7.

I guess it’s a good sign that Apple is trying to provide more information to developers regarding their cryptic review process but we are far from a perfect system.

(Issue #71, page 98)

The text of the article is below:

RemixDJ: Spice up your set with these free samples

” The iPhone is so much more than a phone that you can now even integrate it into live electronic music. This simple app aims to provide DJ’s with a bevy of samples to use while playing a set. The audio quality is excellent and the simple trigger button means there is no lag between button pressing and the sound being played, so you be sure you don’t mis-time your triggers. All of the samples are royalty-free, so you can use them in all of your endeavors – even if you’re already a superstar DJ and playing in front of thousands of people. There’s nearly 200 sounds available, so there’s plenty of choice and variation. This app is very honest; it doesn’t pretend to be anything other than what it is. If you want to get a boat-load of samples for free and use them for fun or even public performance, then it’s perfect.”

Verdict 4 stars Best for: DJs

Wow, just wow! My apps have now been downloaded more than 2 Million Times by people in over 50 countries.  Back in April I broke the 1 Million Mark which I thought was completely amazing. Now I have more than doubled that accomplishment. THANK YOU to all who have downloaded and enjoyed my apps! This definitely encourages me to continue creating fun & useful apps.

The stats are courtesy of Pinch Media Analytics. The service is free and provides a ton of useful information. Pinch provides stats such as: Total unique users, Total sessions, Total jailbroken users, Total cracked users, Total Time Spent Using the App, Device Type, OS version and More. If you are a developer and you are not using any type of analytics package then you are just foolish.

Below are the three main apps which helped me to break 2 Million Unique Downloads:

iCandyPix, iCandyPix 2 and the 3.0 Version of Peanut Butter Jelly Time (which was the first version of PBJTime to have analytics embedded) were all released after I broke the 1 Million Mark. Unfortunately for me all three of these apps were FREE soooo I am NOT a millionaire. Don’t feel too bad for me though, most of my free apps are ad supported and have earned a good amount of revenue.

Just for fun here are a few more stats on these three apps:

Peanut Butter Jelly Time has been used 2,224,168 times, out of those 17,961 were run on a jailbroken device. The total time users spent playing with PBJTime comes out to roughly 16 years 149 days 13 hours 18 minutes 52 seconds.

iCandyPix has been used 2,548,390 times, out of those 97,650 were run on a jailbroken device. The total time users have spent using iCandyPix comes out to roughly 10 years 358 days 11 hours 23 minutes 33 seconds.

iCandyPix 2 has been used 442,829 times, out of those 15,723 were run on a jailbroken device. The total time users have spent using iCandyPix 2 comes out to roughly 1 year 338 days 16 hours 21 minutes 15 seconds.

(Please NOTE: The Peanut Butter Jelly Time App is No Longer available due to a disagreement between myself and the supposed originator of PBJ Time.)

Keyvisuals has teamed up with ill Will PReSS to bring the Neurotically Yours Series to the iPhone & iPod Touch. Neurotically Yours is a hugely popular flash cartoon series animated by Jonathan Ian Mathers.

Writers Block, the first official Neurotically Yours App is a mini-comic that was never released. It chronicles the very early days of the relationship between the goth poet Germaine and her pet squirrel Foamy.

Neurotically Yours : Writers Block is available now for FREE!

Here’s another gem from their website . . . “Apple has chosen to allow a multitude of ridiculous, worthless, poorly-represented applications through its “strict” screening process, nearly all written by mediocre programmers with a dream of getting rich quick.”

So what does Appulous do with these ridiculous, worthless, poorly-represented applications? They distribute them to anyone who wants them for free. Wait, what?

I guess piracy is the greatest form of flattery ?!?!

I also found a torrent for this same app ( damn, it must be popular!) . . .

Even cooler, after I did a little more searing around I found that the article had been translated into two different languages (one which I think is Chinese and the other I’m not sure but seems like it may be middle eastern) and posted on different foreign blogs.

Just in case the links go down I took screen shots (below)

Original Article

Chinese Translation of the article

Unknown Foreign Language Translation of the article

I had my 15 minutes and I didn’t even know it.