Yahoo! ID Login Update

It's been a while since I last mentioned some recent changes with the way new Delicious.com users log into system so I thought it was time for an update.

In short, I am in the late stages of implementing this change and should be submitting to Apple soon afterwards. Apple say that 75% of apps are approved within two weeks currently. If you are unable to use Yummy at the moment and would be willing to beta test an early version, please let me know.

You may be asking yourself, it's just the login screen -- just one lousy screen -- why is this taking so long?

Good question.

I'm sure you don't care about what goes on "under the hood" so let's just think about the user interface. The log in screen in Yummy 2.3.1 looks like this:



You enter your Delicious.com username and password, it validates them and downloads your bookmarks. Easy.

This is not how the new Yahoo! ID scheme works. Instead what happens is that you get sent to a Yahoo! web page where you enter your username and password and then get send back to the application, in this case Yummy. At no point does Yummy ever actually see either your username or password. There is all kinds of clever stuff going on behind the scenes, including cryptographic hashes and digital signatures, to make this happen. If you're interested in the details it's called OAuth.

That's to say that it's not just a matter of taking your credentials and asking Yahoo! to check them, which is how it works with the old system.

And then, every time you want to talk to Delicious.com Yummy has to make sure that you are still entitled to talk to Delicious.com.

But even that is not all.

Yahoo! didn't just replace their old scheme with the new one. Instead some users need to use the old scheme and others need this new Yahoo! ID method. So firstly I have to make all of Yummy work with both methods and then I have to make a user interface where you can either enter a user name or do the Yahoo! OAuth shuffle. But not both for the same user. And try not to make users have to enter the same information twice. I mean how annoying would it be to enter your Yahoo! user name only to be told that you had to enter the same information again a minute later? This only happens once, but it's your first impression of Yummy.

So if you're stuck with a copy of Yummy that you're unable to use because you have a Yahoo! ID, I apologise for the wait but this is a big and unplanned change. But the good news is that an updated version should be available shortly.

Yahoo! ID Login

I have just learned that Yahoo! have just made a significant change to the way that new users are required to sign into Delicious.com.

In short, new users need to log in using their Yahoo ID rather than a username and password that is unique to Delicious.com. Unfortunately they also changed the way that third-party clients, such as Yummy, need to authenticate users.

This means that if you have one of these new Yahoo! ID Delicious.com accounts, you will not be able to log in to your account with Yummy. I am working as fast as I can to provide an update that will work, but the new scheme is not adequately documented and there's still the App Store review process gauntlet that needs to be tackled. This means that even if everything goes well it could be a couple of weeks before an update is downloadable.

If you're an existing user I have better news: Yummy will continue to work. But if you are given the option to "upgrade" your account to use a Yahoo! ID, please say "no" until you have an updated version of Yummy.

My apologies if you are affected by this change but, unfortunately, it is entirely outside my control. Yahoo! provided no advanced notice which is frustrating to say the least. I would imagine that most other third party developers have also been affected.

Yummy 2.3.1

There's a new release of Yummy on its way to your iPhone or iPod touch. It's a minor release and contains the following three changes:

• Fix occasional keychain error on sending bookmarks to Instapaper and Read It Later
• Fix send to Twitter with no shortening service enabled
• Add tinyurl and to.ly support

I added the last item when it looked as though tr.im support was going to be very short-lived! None of these affect Yummy Browser so that stays on version 2.3.0.

www.cut

This isn't directly Yummy related but I thought you might be interested. I have just launched a new, free iPhone application, called www.cut. It uses a bunch of code that's already in Yummy but also has a number of its own tricks. Find the description below and its web page is here.

This isn't one of those immersive applications that takes hours to figure out and weeks to master. Instead it's a small but useful utility that shortens URLs for you so that they can be emailed, Twittered or Facebooked without worrying about character counts or line breaks messing up the link.

www.cut -- we like to pronounce it "dub cut" -- keeps out of your way as much as possible. For example, if there's a URL on the clipboard when it starts it assumes that's the one you want to use and immediately asks your configured shortening service to begin its work. When complete it automatically sends it straight back to the clipboard, so you might not even have to press a single button!

Of course you can also type the URL manually. If you want to email a message you can do it without leaving www.cut.

www.cut currently supports six shortening services:

• is.gd
• bit.ly
• tr.im
• cli.gs
• tinyurl.com
• to.ly

The ones that support it allow you to log in so that statistics about your links can be gathered.

Simple but effective. That's www.cut.

Half Price Promotion

Just a quick post to note that Yummy is still on its half price sale! On Tuesday the price goes back up to $1.99 (or its local equivalent).

Shiny iPhone Review

It's always nice to get a good review, even more so when it's unsolicited and unexpected! Thanks to Justin at Shiny iPhone.

Yummy 1.0 Anniversary

The founder of LinkedIn said "if you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late." I've been involved with the launch of a number of products over the last fourteen years and I agree wholeheartedly. It was as true the first time I was involved in an internal business application back in the late nineties as it was one year ago today when I submitted Yummy to Apple for approval.

Back in August 2008 Apple were being a little quicker with their review process and it took only about a week before it went live and available for sale on the 2nd September.

I said that I was going to give away a number of copies to celebrate and, indeed, I have. This time, however, I am going to take a slightly different approach. You can now find Yummy available for half price and it will stay that way until the 2nd. Grab it while you can -- this is only the second time that I've ever reduced the price so it could be a while before I do so again!