Atta Boys, 4 bags-full

The purpose of this document is to give thunderous applause to some very =
patient folk.  But, before I crank up the volume, I would like to share =
with you a small amount of history.

I am within a week of finishing my Universal app, "Love Song to America" =
whose purpose is to support all our military veterans from World War II, =
Korea, Vietnam and up to and including Iraq and Afghanistan.  Every last =
one of them, living and deceased, are true heroes and deserve all the =
applause and support we can generate.

The on-going process of submitting and re-submitting and =
re-re-submitting my mobile app to the App Store has been very, very =
painful and I wanted to share a glimpse of it.

I have found that all the rules in the App Guidelines manual are to =
describe all the official DO's and DO NOT's.  The unspoken list of DO's =
and DON'Ts are what I am concerned about.  As a strictly hypothetical =
example, it is entirely possible that a unspoken rule is to never, ever =
have need to use the More Nav Controller in a UITabController app.  It =
is clear that no written rule stipulates that, but politically its use =
may be politically Incorrect.

When I submitted the app the first couple of times (without a TabBar =
Item pertaining to Military Support Agencies), their response =
essentially stated my app was nothing but a glorified web page.  They =
were almost correct, but I countered that there are books and =
movie-equivalents of books.  "Gone With the Wind", "Ivanhoe", "Sound of =
Music", and "Secretariat" come to mind.  Did I forget "Cinderella" and =
"Snow White"?  They said, in effect, "Nice Try".  Their official comment =
was "Make Love Song more interactive".  "Okay, specifically how or what =
do you recommend?"  "Mr Love, just make it more interactive than it is". =
 What's wrong with this picture?

I just can't deal with this, so I scoured the web and found similar =
experiences of many, many other developers.

I finally talked with a real human in the App Store and it was like =
prying wisdom teeth, but I FINALLY extracted his suggestion about the =
Support Agencies so veterans on the road could find out phone numbers =
and names to contact in case disaster struck.  That idea was really, =
really awesome so I incorporated it =85 my mind was literally wrapped up =
in Protocols and Delegates, I didn't see the forest.  But, I had to =
literally browbeat him to extract the idea.  What's wrong with this =
picture?

In addition, I tried and tried to get an App Store rep to tell me how to =
de-pixelate all my images (one of their complaints leading to =
rejection).  Give me the name of a specific piece of software and I'll =
try to use it (praying that it wasn't PhotoShop =3D $$$).  Literally, =
silence.  I then called directly the Apple Business section for =
Developers, talked to some young man who apparently took pity on me and =
essentially said "go to this web site and beg".  The web site was =
Apple's Dev Support forum. I did that, and the flood gates opened and =
that is how I met lots of human beings with a heart.  Now, that 8-minute =
phone call to Apple Business, what a God-send =85 spent hours with the =
App Store =85 but just a few minutes with Apple Business and Manna from =
Heaven. Do I have to ask what's wrong with this picture?

Manna in the form of:

Sandy McGuffog <[email protected]>
Bill Kunz <[email protected]>
pbear <[email protected]>
Kevin Messina <[email protected]>

All these guys displayed the patience of a million saints.  Of =
extraordinary note is Kevin who came to the table with 20+ years as a =
programmer and has his own Digital Video Studio.  Kevin taught me so =
darn much about his-res graphics and even more about Xcode.  For =
example, he talked about png-crush (I'm embarrassed to ask, so I'll look =
around for its meaning).  He taught me about making the project settings =
independent of a particular directory, in short, not hard-wiring the =
location.

Let's hear a ear-splitting round of applause for these 4 guys =85 I =
didn't hear you =85 oh, come on, you can do better than that!  That's =
better.




John Love
Touch the Future! Teach!