Second Anniversary

Two years ago today, on 2nd September 2008, Yummy 1.0 first hit the App Store. A big thank you to everyone who has downloaded a copy.

I was going to commemorate the occasion with version 2.5, unfortunately my laptop had other ideas.

I made the final build and shut the lid while I ate dinner. Afterwards, I just got the spinning beachball of death. No access to any of the files; no way to submit the new version to iTunes.

The good news is that I have installed a replacement disk and am well on the way to restoring my MacBook to its former glory. With luck, version 2.5 will hit the App Store not two years after version one but two years and one week later. (Nearly 90% of updates are being approved within seven days.)

Inside Yummy

If you'd like to learn a little more about how much work goes into Yummy and the kinds of design decisions that go on behind the scenes you might like to read a series of blog posts I wrote on my personal website. The one paragraph summary is:

"Last year Yahoo! announced, with no notice, a significant change that had far reaching consequences for all third party applications including my iPhone program, Yummy. This is a five part series of posts that discusses how I dealt with it."

You can read it here: Delicious Debrief, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5. Enjoy.

Next up

As I'm sure you've noticed, this year Apple have been updating the iPhone (iOS) platform much more aggressively than they have in previous years. And, honestly, the changes from 2008 to 2009 were pretty significant so that's saying something! Just in the last few months there has been the iPad, iOS 4 and the iPhone 4. All three updates require changes for applications to support then fully.

Yummy currently works on all three devices and operating systems but does not really take advantage of them in any way. That's what the next version of Yummy will do.

It was originally going to be the iPad release, and before the iOS4 announcement I had got a long way down that road. By iPad version, incidentally, I mean that it runs on the iPad, taking advantage of the significantly lager screen, uses iPad gestures where it makes sense and operates in all four orientations. It does not have any iPad specific features. Because there are no additional features I have decided not to charge extra for it. All users of the existing paid version will get the update for free.

However, I can't release that right now. Yup, not won't but can't. One of the recent changes on the App Store is that all new apps now must be built for iOS4. Unfortunately this isn't just a matter of rebuilding it as there are a bunch of changes that are required to deal with the multi-tasking and other under-the-hood changes. So before I can release the iPad version I also have to update for iOS4.

Of course, this was already part of the plan I'd just intended doing it straight after the iPad version.

In summary, the new version of Yummy is progressing well. I don't like to commit to dates, but, all being well, it should be out before the end of August. The "headline" new feature is iPad support. There will be lots of little new things for iPhone users too though probably nothing of the same magnitude. That will have to wait for the following release.

Finally, if you are interested in trying a pre-release version on your iPad please drop me an email.

New look blog

Unless you read this blog using an RSS feed you will probably have already noticed the new theme. I think it's a bit prettier than the old one. The side bar is a bit wider and the main body a little narrower. Hopefully all the posts will still fit in the new format...

There are still a few design elements that don't quite match, the obvious being the header. I will update this shortly but -- teaser alert -- it will have a new, updated Yummy logo/icon. More about this later.

Multitasking on iOS 4

If you've just downloaded the new iOS (the new name for the iPhone operating system) you might be eagerly anticipating how some of the new features affect your favourite applications, such as Yummy.


One of the headline features is multitasking. This encompasses a number of different but connected features.


The most obvious aspect is "fast task switching." This is where you can double-tap the the home button and return to exactly the same place in the application as when you left it. Since version 2.0, launched at the beginning of last year, Yummy has had the ability to remember where you were the last time you ran it. This isn't going away in the new version of the OS! 


People who are used to multitasking on desktop computers such as Windows and Macs might be expecting a little more than this, though. For instance, you might be expecting Yummy to be able to refresh your bookmarks in the background so that whenever you launch it they're fully up to date.


Unfortunately that is not possible.


When we talk about multi-tasking on iOS4 Apple limits exactly what kinds of features applications can have. Apple allows VoIP apps (like Skype), GPS loggers, and music apps. What they don't allow is periodic Internet access. I'm sure that this restriction is in place for the best of reasons -- to maximise battery life -- but it does mean that I cannot implement this useful feature.


I will update Yummy to take advantage of some of the features of iOS4 at some point but, unfortunately, multi-tasking is not really one of them. I hope this explains why.

iOS 4

Today I've been trying out Yummy (and www.cut) on iOS 4. iOS, in case you haven't been following the news this week, is the new name for the iPhone operating system.

The good news is that I have not found any problem yet so on the 21st when it becomes available in iTunes you should not experience any problems.

Error 414

I tried Yummy on a new iPhone today, a new 3GS. Unfortunately I immediately found that when I tried to sync I got "Error 414." The quick solution to this is to switch to a different network. In my case, while on Vodafone UK I got this message every time but when I switched to my local WiFi connection the sync went smoothly.

So, what's going on?

Well, 414 means "request too long" and comes from a small change that I made in the last version of Yummy. Most users of Yummy have a 3GS yet I have been optimising for my other iPhone, an original, first generation handset. This despite the fact that newer phones have both more memory and a faster network connection.

Since version 2.0, Yummy has batched requests for URLs into groups of fifty. This was always a compromise between CPU, memory and network latency. For version 2.4.1 I decided to increase that number to 150 for those with the faster and more roomy devices. In my testing it resulted in significantly faster downloads.

I have not completely got to the bottom of this and do not know how common it is. Can you please let me know if you have seen this before? And if so, what network do you use? I don't want any users to see this error but I'd like to find out how common it is before rushing out a fix because, basically, the solution is to make it slower for everyone.