Last night, I hit a slight snag with Starfield 3D. Apparently, Apple is very particular when it comes to the wording in IAPs (in-app purchases). Mine was originally called “Remove Ads” because it … well, gave you the option to remove ads.

But technically, the IAP didn’t remove ads, it gives you the option to remove ads (although it does set that option when you buy it for the first time). So I changed it to “Enable Option to Turn Off Ads” and then the app was approved. Moral of the story: be very accurate when describing your in-app purchases.

Anyways, it’s finally approved! So if you’ve got an iPad, get Starfield 3D for free now! If not, check out the demo video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5PcaBCNrFo

Starfield 3D is still “In Review” with Apple, but I’m hoping it’ll go live some time this week. In the meantime, check out the demo video!

It’s no secret that babies are expensive. There’s diapers, baby food, baby clothes, baby snot sucker … the list goes on and on.

But what if I could make having a baby work for me? I mean, just look at him. He’s cute, he’s friendly, and people instantly gravitate towards him wherever he goes. There has to be some way to monetize that.

And then it hit me: advertising! People instinctively tune out when it comes to ads, but who can resist a baby? Combine the the two and you have advertising that people can’t ignore! Genius. So I had his arm tattooed with the logo from my website. Sure, it was a little tricky finding a tattoo artist willing to work on a baby, but it was totally worth it.

It’s been a busy past few days what with the baby and my wife needing me at home but I managed to eke in a couple hours of development after everyone went to sleep and Starfield 3D for the iPad has now been submitted. With any luck, you’ll be able to try it out next week!

I am very close to submitting Starfield 3D to the App Store. I just need to work out this one linear algebra problem, which I’m a little too tired to figure out right now. But in the meantime, I added another feature.

I need to use the iPad’s compass to orient the stars and everything and during debugging, I had a vector pointed to where the iPad thought north was. But it turned out to be such a handy feature that I’ve kept it in as an option. So you’ll be able to use Starfield 3D as a compass, too!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiUBLUkbjWI

I don’t know what the baby’s first word is going to be, but I know what his first sound effect is….

I’ve added another feature to Starfield 3D, a horizon effect that is visible if you point your iPad to the north. So now you can use it as a compass, too! That is, if Apple accepts this upcoming app submission.

The penny on the left features the familiar design that I have known my entire life. Imagine my surprise when I found the penny on the right recently in my pocket.

What the heck?! They changed the penny?! Why did I not hear about this? Did this happen while I was out of the country? It’s quite surreal to discover that something like this suddenly changed on you. What other things have I not noticed happening in the past year?

On a completely unrelated note, there sure is a lot more stuff in this house nowadays. It’s as if I’ve got a baby now or something…

One of the things I’ve added to Starfield 3D is an audio visualizer. It’s this blueish spiral thing that responds to sounds coming into the microphone. I’m calling it the “wormhole”.

The earthquake in Japan has been on my mind a lot. I don’t have much useful to say about it beyond the sentiment that my heart goes out to the people affected by it, especially my friends and family.

But I was reminded of the gulf oil spill, which was another large scale disaster with wide regional impact. It was heartbreaking to see so much devastation. But this past Thursday, we were in Louisiana and I had some crawdads for dinner. In a small way, it felt like it was symbolic of the gradual recovery of that region.

So I have hope that Japan, too, will recover like the crawdads of Louisiana. Well, except for this one, which I ate.