If all goes well, Distant Suns will be available for the iPad the day of launch, this coming Saturday. I received the official blessing from Apple yesterday. There is one last hurdle to go through, but I don’t expect any problems. This will be the sixth platform Distant Suns has been on. Click on each picture to get a better view.

Okay, okay, so why yet another column on beginning iPhone programming when the net is gravid with similar articles? Well, when I was asked to start a semi-irregular column by the kind folks at www.iPhonenes.com the general topic would be from an app author’s point of view. So I really need to start at the very beginning (from which I understand is a very good place to start). It was just about two years ago when the first version of the SDK...

Distant Suns 2 has now made it as a “Staff Favorite” in the Appstore. This is the second time, the first being only about 3 or 4 days after release in October, 08.

I can’t tell you how I got these photos, but they come from a “trusted source” who claims that these could be of the much rumored “tablet” that Apple will introduce tomorrow. First off, sorry for the poor quality of the photos. But they obviously are of some new device in the Apple labs. The size is said to be about 8 1/2 x 11 inches. The screen seems to be flush with the left and right edges, while it leaves a...

Apple just approved Distant Suns 2.1 for sale. I did receive one note reporting an installation oddity, but he said a relaunching the app cleared it up. I am investigating though. This just in: (imagine teletypes in the background). If you experience an exit on startup, what is happening is this: I only recently learned that the iPhone has a watchdog timer that limits the amount of time it takes for an app to load. If it goes too long (15 or 20...

In 1987, Steve Jobs introduced to the world the wonderful and somewhat puzzling NeXT “Cube.” It was designed as the computer for the college student who could also afford a $6000 machine with no floppy drive.  For all of the ridicule and head scratching the machine provoked, it pioneered a number of great technologies. Perhaps the most well known of these powers every Mac and iPhone now being made today: OS-X. One of the other less successful...