Feorlen's Other Blog

I’m here with a couple hundred other iPhone people, even more devices and an unlimited supply of beer. Yes, we have been promised beer. I have even been promised vegan pizza. Adobe’s office here is very nice, we are in the atrium/cafe area that has both a cafeteria and coffee bar setup. The NDA situation has been skirted by having a quarantine zone for discussing non-public topics. The overall effect for me is something of “WWDC Lite,” there’s a lot of “Didn’t I see you at WWDC?” going on.

I’m working with two other people on an application to share address book contacts by passing them through a back-end server. It’s not especially elegant or complex but it’s an interesting problem and not too technically challenging. We are all at about the same level as far as Cocoa and iPhone programming goes, which is to say we all write code in other languages but are feeling seriously out of our element. I’ve gotten as far as requesting a document from a URL and after dinner I’m going to start parsing it.
 

Downloaded and compiled the source for the WordPress for IPhone application. Running it in the simulator. We’ll see if this post works!

Next weekend is iPhoneDevCamp, hosted at the Adobe offices on Townsend. It should be really cool, certain other issues notwithstanding. If you are as annoyed as I am about that, you will also enjoy this.

Must learn more about iPhone web apps so I can rewrite my admin interface. It isnt even the lack of flash (can’t see stats chart) but the damn fixed width post edit box. The regular user comment interface is way better than this.

Way back in the dim mists of ancient time, like January, I got an iPhone. I ordered it online and while I waited I picked up a case at MacWorld. So it’s been what, just over five months? Said case, a Marware neoprene thing, is totally trashed. Shoving it in my pocket has destroyed the fabric, scraping it across a concrete bench at the WWDC bash was just icing on the cake. And they only sell it as part of a set with a bunch of other stuff I don’t want.

I need a case with a rubberized finish and some kind of clear cover over the display, as well as a belt clip. One that comes off would be nice, as I only occasionally have a belt-like object to attach it to. If it’s hard plastic, I will drop it. If there’s no screen cover, it will get scratched or worse.

So first I tried a Speck thing, dubious but willing to give Woot a couple bucks for it. I like their laptop case, and how can you argue with something named after a cured pork product? But… no belt clip, hard plastic. I can see it might be nice when I know I’m going to be carrying it around in my purse, but not much else. It was mainly an emergency backup case solution.

So off to the Apple Store I went. They didn’t even have my original Marware case. I ended up spending way too much for a silicone sleeve with a removable belt clip and some cling film screen protectors because it was the only way to get the right combination of stuff.

Apparently I am weird (as if I didn’t know this) because I’m not interested in a phone purse, leather “Executive” case, or something with that damn monkey on it. While it is nice to see a larger range of styles, many very obviously not targeted to male geeks, it was still surprisingly difficult to find what I was looking for.

I figured I might as well get one before I can’t for my old and unfashionable original iPhone. Yes, I could have waited and likely gotten one on sale (and may yet) but I sorta needed a case now. The new one has a rotating belt clip which may end up being a very useful feature. One problem I’ve been having is actually hearing the phone ring, and if I can have it with the speaker up I might have half a chance.

At least this should survive better, as even if the silicone gets scraped up it is still functional. Hopefully it will last long enough until this phone gets retired into software QA and I have whatever spiffy new one comes along next.