iTunes Sync SupportDecember 1, 2011
Since danielbigham.ca is my support URL for my mobile apps, I should have posted any/all support help instructions here several days ago, but I'm just getting to that now.
If you are having trouble connecting  | There is an ugly bug in that if you exit the iTunes Sync PC app by right clicking on it and selecting "Exit", and then you open the app again, the PlayBook won't be able to connect. This is because the .NET program calls a native library that listens for an incoming TCP connection, and there is no way for the .NET program to tell the native library to stop listening, so the program doesn't exit properly. Therefore, if you can't connect, log off of your Windows session and log back in again -- that will kill iTunes Sync and it will start again automatically when you log back in. (So make sure you don't try and start it a second time after logging back in) Or, alternatively, ensure iTunes Sync is running, and kill it forcefully using the Windows Task Manager, then start it again. |
| Ensure that your Windows Firewall has an exception to allow iTunes Sync to talk on your local network. When you started iTunes Sync for the first time, it likely caused a Windows dialog box to be displayed asking if you want to "Unblock" the program and allow it to talk on either the local and/or remote networks. Hopefully you clicked "Unblock". If not, these Windows Firewall exceptions may be missing. |
If not all of your songs are getting sync'd | The primary cause for this is that if your iTunes music is DRM (digital rights managements) protected, then it can't be used by mobile devices other than Apple products. To check this, right click on one of your non-sync'ing songs and select "Show In Windows Explorer". If the file extension ends with ".m4p", then it's DRM protected. Fortunately, Apple allows you to pay an additional 40 cents to free your music forever. The relevant URL for that is: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1711 |
| Another common cause of this is if you are trying to sync music that wasn't purchased and which doesn't have proper meta information. What I mean by this is that each purchased iTunes song is tagged with information about the name of the song, who the artist is, and what the name of the album is. The iTunes Sync program uses this information to put the songs in proper Album/Artist folders, and to name the song files appropriately. If your songs are missing this information, such as if they are .mp3 files that were created by some means that did not add this information, then the iTunes Sync program currently doesn't touch them. You can verify whether a song is missing this information by going to your music folder, then iTunes, and looking in the "iTunes Music Library.xml" file, and searching for the song name. There should be XML tags giving the song name, artist, and album. If not, you have discovered why iTunes Sync isn't sync'ing the file. I would like to think about this some more and update the program so that it can do something sensible with these files rather than ignoring them. |
If your virus checker is preventing installation | Be rest assured that the PC program doesn't have a virus. I uploaded the EXE to a website that runs it through virtually every virus manufacturer, and none of them flagged it as being a problem. You could try disabling your virus checker during installation of the PC program. |
If the download link on the web page doesn't seem to be workingDoes the program run on Mac? | Not yet, but I hope to do that. The description of the application refers to the program as being for Windows PC. I will edit the description to hopefully make this clearer. If you would like a refund, developers unfortunately don't have any means to do that, but if you contact App World Support, they may be able to help. |
Slightly Sunnier Days For The PlayBookNovember 24, 2011
A couple of months ago I wrote a post about the news that only 200,000 PlayBooks were sold that quarter, and how things were looking pretty rocky.
Fortunately, the feeling of things has picked up a bit recently.
The biggest help has been discounts to the price of the PlayBook, which at first were $200 off, and are now $300 off. I seem to be reading things indicating that stores are for the most part completely sold out, and that RIM has even started selling the devices directly from its website. My guess is that this will lead to a lot of PlayBooks getting out into consumer hands, which is great. (especially for developers)
Next, is the announcement that BBX phones will have the same resolution as the PlayBook. It still remains unclear how easy it will be to port PlayBook apps to BBX phones, but it is starting to sound pretty easy, and that's exciting because it means that most of the work developers have been putting into PlayBook apps will pay dividends down the road. Music to my ears.
Another change is that, as time has rolled along, more apps have started popping up. I wasn't sure this would happen given the glum mood a couple of months ago, but it has. A bunch of EA games have been published, Duke Nukem showed up recently, and a couple days ago a really beautiful game Machinarium appeared. I can't imagine any of these will get much return on investment, so it's hard to say whether this will be of long term significance, but still, having some good content sprouting up lightens the mood.
I have published some new apps as of recent. Since I create really light weight, simple apps, one would only expect them to be drops in the bucket, but I think that two of them are pretty solid additions to the PlayBook repertoire. The first was Picasa Sync, which allows you to wireless keep your PlayBook up to date with your best photos. It got covered by BerryReview, was a featured PlayBook app, and all around I think was a notable addition to the PlayBook app selection. I have since publish Flickr Sync and SmugMug sync, and just last night significantly upgraded Picasa Sync to allow selecting which albums to download if you so desire. Another app that I published recently, which I hope is about to be approved (fingers crossed) is iTunes Sync, which allows you to keep your PlayBook up to date with your recent music purchases, sans wires. This is a really really nice feature to have, something that I always wished mobile devices did well, and if I am successful at delivering that to the PlayBook, I think that's another significant up-tick.
So it has been exciting not only to see positive signs, but to feel like, without much effort, I have been able to make real contributions to the community.
Featured AppSeptember 30, 2011
I was treated to a surprise this morning when I peeked at my app sales: It was only 8 AM and my Baby Names app had already generated $20 of revenue, whereas typically it would be between $0 and and $4 for that time of day. Nothing like that has happened before, so I wondered to myself what could be going on... a couple hours later, it was up to $30, then $40. Obviously something was up. I discovered that my app was was a featured application on
BlackBerry's app world page. Of the 40 or so apps, it was the 40th one. To my amusement however, the last app shows up to the left of the first app, slightly dimmed, whereas apps 2-39 aren't visible at all unless you wait on the page for the carousel to slowly rotate through.
By the end of the day I've earned $50, and the extra revenue has caused my app to show up on the PlayBook "Top Purchased" section of App World, which is cool too. Interesting to know that the 20th highest grossing app on PlayBook brings in around $50 of revenue every day. (I'd bet the equivalent spot on the iPhone's charts brings in > $2500/day)
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