In our description of Shotgun Free / Pro we wrote that you need to “pump your iPhone or iPod touch back and forth to cock”. This is perfectly legitimate and non-vulgar use of the word “cock”, but unfortunately iTunes displays it as needing to “pump your iPhone or iPod touch back and forth to c**k”. Thanks iTunes, thanks.
We’re also not the only ones to be hit — see below
James and I were interviewed by a reporter from Macleans Magazine a few weeks ago, and the article is now on their website (on the front page, I might add). It’s — all things considered — a rather positive article, and it has a hilarious picture.
Macleans Magazine is one of Canada’s top news magazines and has been
called the Time Magazine of Canada.
Check it out:
http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/07/02/i-can-turn-my-phone-into-a-shotgun/
Apple made headlines at their Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) this year with a 5 x 4 grid of 30” monitors displaying icons for some 20,000 iPhone apps. When someone would download a particular app, the icon would pop out and send a little ripple through the icons around. From afar it looked like rain.
The icon for Shotgun Free seemed to pop out every couple of seconds, which was incredibly validating. James and I would just sit and stare at it, saying “PING” every time.
See the picture from afar and the video of Shotgun Free attached.
Nolan Bushnell from Inc.com wrote an interesting blog post today about how innovations are often adopted into the market through toys. Or rather, when people see something new and innovative, they treat it like a toy, and thus the innovations are easier to integrate into the market through toys. I sometimes feel strange that our biggest success, Shotgun Free, is essentially a toy, but now I’m worrying a little less about that. The accelerometer is new to the mass market, and so people are still wow-ed by it. At first they were wow-ed by tilt and shake, but now that those are old hat, we’re helping them get used to the fact it’s a powerful tool that can detect full gestures.
Inedible Software was recently mentioned in TIME Magazine, and there’s a quote from yours truly. Check it out:
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1900503,00.html
James and I submitted to Apple today Shotgun Free V1.3 and Shotgun Pro V1.3. The major change in both is the addition of an Achievements page that allows users to track the number of shots they’ve fired, their fastest fire, their fastest 5 fires, their most number of fires in 15 seconds, and their most number of fires without a misfire.
I’m excited to see how it’s received. I’ve certainly been having fun with it. We expect to see it on the store in about 7 days, which is what we’ve been noticing from Apple recently.
A few people experience sound issues with our applications, and so I figured I’d write a blog post to which I can refer people.
There are two extremely common reasons why people don’t hear sound:
1) They are on an iPhone and they have the silent switch turned on. The reason this can be so confusing is that the silent switch overrides the volume controls, and so even if the volume is all the way up, if the silent switch is on then we won’t play any sound.
2) They are on a 1st iPod touch, which has no speaker. Both generations iPhones and the 2nd generation iPod touch have speakers (though the 1st generation iPhone’s speaker is exceedingly quiet), but the original iPod touch does not. Sound still can be played, however, through headphones, computer speakers, a car stereo, etc.
While those are the two most common problems, there is on more that is common enough to write up. If you’re on a 1st generation iPod touch and are trying to listen to Shotgun Free or Shotgun Pro through some sort of output device (headphones, computer speakers, car stereo, etc.) there might be a setting you have to turn on to hear sounds. Namely, the setting is “Play sound effects through headphones” and it can be found at:
Settings -> General -> Sounds -> Sound Effects
So, I hope these tips are of help to people. If there are any sound issues that someone has found that don’t match one of these, we’d love to hear about them so we can try to figure them out with you.
Shotgun Pro finally cracked the Top 10 today by taking the #9 spot. Woo hoo!
Shotgun Pro has been out for a few days now, and it’s been climbing up the charts. We watched it for the first few days going up Entertainment, and then two days ago it hit the Top 100. I woke up two days ago to #78, I woke up yesterday to #57, and I woke up today to #27. Now we’re at #21, which is great because the phone has a Top 25 list. How high will it go? I don’t know, but we’re watching with bated breath.
