I Don’t Typically Do This

John Gruber:

Well, so much for my speculation. A reliable little birdie has informed me that it was indeed AT&T that objected to Google Voice apps for the iPhone. It’s that simple.

It most certainly has to be the case that there is a clause in Apple’s contract with AT&T that gives AT&T the right to force Apple to remove apps from the App Store. My only question is: Why does AT&T have the right to force their will on the international carriers? If I recall correctly, AT&T forced NetShare off the App Store and AT&T required that Skype’s voice chat be accessible over WiFi only. What if a foreign carrier wanted to allow its customers to have these features?

Apple is pulling Google Voice apps from the App Store because they supposedly duplicate existing iPhone functionality. I generally feel pretty bad for these developers who have spent money and effort building apps only to have them arbitrarily pulled by Apple. This string of takedowns, however, hits especially close to home because I fired up Xcode last week to start working on my own Google Voice dialer.

Luckily, I didn’t get far, but the takedowns did get me thinking again about how any significant development effort can be invalidated at Apple’s whim. I’m not planning on giving up iPhone development, but Apple’s behavior makes it increasingly difficult to justify making iPhone development more than a hobby.

clint:

Gmail Notifr

I’ve been using it for a little bit and it’s definitely an improvement beyond Google’s official notifier—most notably in its support of multiple Gmail accounts.

Gmail Notifr is a RubyCocoa application that lives in your menu bar and has the following features:

• Support multiple accounts! (new in version 0.3.0)
• Support Google hosted account.
• Check mail at a specified interval.
• Growl & sound notifications.
• Small & fast.
• Sparkle automatic updates.
• No background daemon processes installed as Google’s official notifier.
• Open Source & free!

I’ve been using the official Google Notifier for my main Gmail account for a while now. I tried this out because of the multiple account support, but stopped using it because of the nasty icon and the need to drill into menus to see email titles.

Instead, I created multiple account “support” in the official notifier by making two copies of the Google Notifier.app, and changing the bundle identifier and the hue on the unread.png image file.

bingoparaphernalia:

Newton Poetry via BB-Blog - Apple.com in 1983

Link to Photo

Springwise:

Prospective diners who want to experience a Charlie’s Burgers dinner must first apply for an invitation, a process that involves filling out a survey about their interest in food. If they’re lucky, they’ll then be sent an e-vite to the next Charlie’s Burgers event. Neither the identity of “Charlie” nor the location of the event is disclosed, however; rather, on the evening of the dinner, invited guests are directed to a public spot—such as a newspaper box—to pick up directions.

Sounds like fun.