I tend not to update my iPhone OS because I like to make sure my apps are backwards compatible. But it seems like OS 3.0 is getting a lot of buzz. Is it more important to test my apps with OS 3.0 or OS 2.2?

I took the last three month off from my day job to do some travelling, work on a couple iPhone apps, and take care of some other stuff. But now I’m back! I’m looking forward to seeing everyone at work again but it also means less time developing iPhone apps and shorter blog posts for a while. Like this one.

This past week, I went to a bunch of WWDC parties. I’m too cheap to actually attend WWDC (it’s over $1000!) but the parties are free and sometimes they have cookies. I met a bunch of other iPhone app developers, saw some neat upcoming apps, and managed to get into the iPhone Launch Party with special guest Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple and creator of the Apple I and Apple ][.

Now, I’ve noticed that Holograms generally gets a pretty positive reaction but it definitely has a certain “geek” factor to it. I figured that if anyone at the party would appreciate Holograms, it’d be Steve Wozniak. So I snapped a photo of him, used my app to turn it into a hologram and showed it to him. Sure enough, he and his wife, Janet Hill, got a big kick out of it! That would have been cool enough but then he asked for my business card and when I gave him one, he gave me one of his. And let me tell you, Woz’s business card is nearly as awesome as he is. It’s a sheet of metal with laser-etched holes for his logo and each individual character is engraved and painted white. Also, the edges are quite sharp. I think I could kill an elephant with that thing.

I had lots of fun at all the WWDC parties but that was certainly the highlight of the week for me. He and his wife are both very sweet people and it was a pleasure meeting them.

Now that the first version of Holograms has been released, I’m going back and working on the second version of Boom Dice. First order of business: make some sort of AI for single player mode. Does anyone who’s played it have any suggestions for strategy?

Woohoo! Holograms was approved for sale on Saturday afternoon and can now be purchased on the iTunes store. If you buy it this week, it’s only $0.99! It’s kind of a quirky app — not really a game or a utility and there isn’t anything else quite like it. So I think sales are going to mostly be driven by word of mouth and positive reviews. If you like it, please post a review on the iTunes store or consider chiming in on this Touch Arcade forum thread. But mostly, tell your friends about it!

Switzerland was fantastic! We had a great time staying with friends in Zurich and visited several other cities around the country. There’s so much to write about the country: the languages, the food, the people, the architecture… But if I had to pick three words to describe Switzerland they’d be “chocolate”, “watches”, and “mountains”.

Switzerland is unusual in that there isn’t a single common language, but three (Swiss German, French, and a bit of Italian) that are used somewhat mutually exclusively by the population. I asked a number of people what unified the country and one guy half-jokingly suggested it was the chocolate. That may have been an exaggeration, but the Swiss are really into their chocolate. Of course, Swiss chocolate is excellent. But it’s also quite pervasive. In the supermarkets, there’s an entire section devoted to just chocolate.

The Swiss also place a great deal of importance on watches, or more generally, time. There are watch stores everywhere (can you spot the $100,000 watch?) and clocks on at least a couple major buildings in each city. Everyone is quite punctual. Even in the Italian region (and Italians are charitably described as being punctuality-challenged), the people are quite punctual. This means that it’s very easy and reliable to schedule long trips using buses, trains, and boats. I suspect this also also influences people to be so very clean and orderly. Or, maybe it’s the other way around.

Finally, I think the mountains play a big part in making Switzerland so … well, so very Swiss. For one thing, you can see the Swiss Alps from so much of the country. But it also has an effect on the weather and the melting snow and glaciers on the mountains lead to some spectacular waterfalls and tons of rivers and lakes pretty much around the whole country. On result of that is that there’s lots of hydro power availble throughout the country and many fountains that just keep on running fresh water all day long, which in turn encourages the populace to walk around a lot more. It’s funny how a thing like geography can influence culture.

I’m here on my last couple of days in Switzerland. It’s been a total blast staying with my friends in Zurich and checking out the other cities. I haven’t gone through all my photos, but I thought this little video might be amusing. It shows a bit of the Swiss Alps and … well, you’ll see. It’s remarkably reminiscent of my earlier work, Mach Attempts a Blue Run. I think there’s an important lesson here about attempting new activities for the first time while simultaneously trying to film it, but I can’t quite figure it out…

I’m still in Switzerland (the fondue is really good here) but I recorded a demo video for Holograms before we left. Hopefully, it will be available on the iTunes store soon. But in the meantime, check out the demo video! Also, I’m trying to decide whether to sell it for 99 cents or $1.99. I did put a lot of work into it but people always prefer cheaper. Any suggestions?

Hey, I’m still visiting friends in Zurich but today’s blog post is about something completely different: go out to the theaters and see Up! It’s opening this weekend. It’s a fantastic film and I’m not just saying that because I worked on it. I guarantee that you will enjoy this film (unless you have a heart of stone). It’s funny, it’s heartwarming, it’s a movie for all ages.