The new version of the Law Guide & Dictionary, our law app for the iPhone, is slightly delayed for uploading. Unfortunately Apple makes many things difficult and uploading apps to the appstore is no exception, thanks to Apple’s requirement that anyone uploading code to the appstore must own a Mac. It’s not ideal for developers and customers but it’s the Apple way.This particular effort was particularly humorous. So what does it take to upload a few megabytes of iOS code so that your app will make it into the appstore? In order to complete what used to consist of hitting an upload button, one is required to download the 4.3 gigabyte iOS developer’s kit (yes, that’s 4.3 GB!) for install. After downloading the dmg file (which takes hours) and installing the package, there is then a process you need to learn just to submit your app to the appstore. As a result, my apologies to iPhone and iPad users, but Apple’s shenanigans are the reason why your ability to download a great update to the Law Guide and Dictionary app for the iPhone is currently delayed, unlike the one for Android phones and tablet devices.
UPDATE: Unfortunately the wait for the iPhone app may be delayed even longer. Our equipment has been using Apple’s 10.5.8 operating system. After spending several hours uploading an old version of Apple’s iOS SDK just for the sole purpose of uploading our app, we were just informed that Apple requires us to update our laptop to 10.6.6 – which we can’t do, especially if it requires us to spend more money to upgrade the OS. Clicking the “update system software” button states that no updates are available at this time. We’ve been told that our iBook 4G laptops shouldn’t use anything higher than Snow Leopard. If it’s going to be this much trouble, then it’s quite simple — Apple, we’re not spending $600 just to buy more hardware we don’t and shouldn’t need. It’s going to take us a few days to have our developer or a service upload the binaries for us. They will make the money and we’ll continue to support the Android OS as our primary development platform.