Today marks the release of Air Depth, an equivalent air depth calculator and my first app for iPhone and iPod touch.
Aimed at divers using Nitrox gas mixes, Air Depth can be used to calculate the Equivalent Air Depth1 of your mix, allowing the use of air based tables for planning your dive.
Get Air Depth from the App Store.
Version 1.0 of Depth Gauge, an operating depth calculator for iPhone and iPod touch, has been released.
Aimed at technical divers, Depth Gauge calculates Minimum Operating Depth, Maximum Operating Depth, and Equivalent Narcosis Depth1 for a specified breathing gas mixture and maximum partial pressure of oxygen2.
Get Depth Gauge from the iPhone App Store.
UPDATED: Apple is taking a good long while to approve this update, in the meantime I’ve added Spanish localisation.
New versions of Depth Gauge and Air Depth are in the publishing queue at the iPhone App Store.
New in this version:
UPDATE: I’ve seeded new versions of each app.
So today version 1.0.1 of Depth Gauge was rejected by Apple. Why? Because it contains a disabled slider control. A control disabled on purpose and for good reason. A control included and displayed to the user for good reason.
According to the rejection letter, Depth Gauge was rejected for two reasons. Firstly, it doesn’t do what it claims in the release notes. This is, of course, utterly wrong. It does exactly what it claims.
Secondly, apparently you aren’t allowed to disable or automatically update slider controls. Say what? No, the HIG doesn’t mention that. No, no other documents I can find mention that. Oh and the SDK explicitly supports both things. Which you’d expect, seeing as they’re useful features particularly in the way I’m using the controls.
By far the worst aspect of this is that version 1.0.1 has been in the queue for about three weeks, for only cosmetic changes. That’s right. This functionality was in the original version. It has already been approved.
So what’s a poor boy to do? Send a nicely worded, if mildly abrasive, email to Apple and in the meantime, try to come up with a work around that doesn’t confuse users.
Air Depth and Depth Gauge 1.0.1 have finally gone live on the App Store. The biggest change is that both now share a lot of code (in preparation for Depth Gauge 1.1), however the visible changes are:
Depth Gauge 1.1 is almost ready for publishing. I’m just waiting on one last piece of localised text and for the resurrection of my Mackbook Pro. The big change for 1.1 is the inclusion of Air Depth, allowing you to use both tools from the one application. The free version of Air Depth will of course still exist and could be considered a lite version of Depth Gauge.
A little research by Arstechnica revealed that a significant portion of the iPhone community—around 45%—have not yet upgraded to iPhone OS 2.2.1. In light of that, the next release of both Depth Gauge and Air Depth will be compatible with all versions of iPhone OS 2.x.
UPDATE: Both updates are now available on the iPhone App Store.
I’ve submitted a new version of Depth Gauge to the iPhone App Store. Other than being recompiled for OS 2.x backward compatibility, this update brings an enhanced version of Air Depth’s EAD calculator. The Depth slider’s range is now tied to the MOD of the gas.
Version 1.1 of Air Depth has also been submitted. Other than recompilation for backward compatibility, this is a cosmetic update.
Things are busy here at the moment. Firstly, I have a new scuba diving app in progress for iPhone OS. With the back end work done and wrapped in a nice set of unit tests, I’m finishing off the interface, which requires a lot more thought than either Air Depth or Depth Gauge. Secondly, I’m working on a large rails app for a friend’s business, which is keeping me busy and hopefully fed for a while.
On a marginally related note, if anyone has a line on some research or film related diving work, paid or volunteer, let me know. I’d like to do some grunt work underwater for someone.
UPDATE: A reply from Apple
I had a rather long and messy discussion with Garret Murray on twitter today, after he expressed some concerns regarding apparent discrepancies in App Store developer payments. I think the confusion can be put down to two issues:
The only official word is that developers receive 70% of App Store profits. Without any further details, many developers make the reasonable assumption that this equates to 70% of sales. After all, Apple made a big deal of covering all the costs for us. Unfortunately, a quick look at your monthly financial statements scuttles this idea.
Tier 2 pricing is $1.99 USD in the US, and £1.19 in the UK. So, we might expect the following payments in our financial statements:
$1.99 * 0.7 = $1.40
£1.19 * 0.7 = £0.83
What we find is a UK payment of only £0.72. Bastards.
Sales taxes are applied to the price of goods and services. They are collected by the seller and remitted directly to the government, having no relationship with the seller’s income tax obligations.
There are two ways to apply sales taxes. They can be included in the list price or applied at the register. For example, Europe and Australia include the tax, but some states in the US apply it at the point of sale. However applied, when considering profit margins and pricing the seller only cares about the base price. That is, the price not including sales taxes. How the final sale price is displayed is a semantic issue and the result of local laws.
My educated guess is that Apple withheld sales tax (VAT of 15%) from the UK payment. A quick calculation confirms this as a definite possibility, assuming tier prices already include any applicable sales taxes. That is, the tier price in this case is 115% of the base price.
Base Price = Price * 100/115
= £1.19 * 100/115
= £1.03
£1.03 * 0.7 = £0.72
This satisfied me. However, Garrett wondered if Apple is reducing the price in other regions to absorb the sales taxes. I doubt it, but we really don’t know and that’s the biggest issue. There doesn’t appear to be any information available on exactly how tier prices were converted from USD.
My guess? When the tiers were priced, Apple used the current exchange rate to convert $USD to £ then added 15%. Of course, without word from the mother ship, we have absolutely no way of verifying this. If Garrett’s right, the tiered pricing model is fundamentally broken; charging different relative prices in each region.
Personally, I think Apple should release details of the pricing model and include a specific break down of developer payments in our monthly financial statements. However, I don’t expect to find a story dissimilar to what I’ve described above.
I received a message from Apple today, in response to an earlier post of mine. I’ve reproduced it bellow:
Hello
Your assumptions on UK VAT are correct; the iTunes Store sales prices in the United Kingdom are VAT (Value Added Tax) inclusive, as are any other goods sold in the UK. This is required by law, not by Apple policy. You can refer to the government tax website www.hmrc.gov.uk for an understanding of VAT laws. Every customer in the UK expects that VAT is included in their price, so this is not unusual for them.
To the contrary, USA customers are used to seeing sales taxes added at the time of checkout, and not included in the sales price of an item. This is how the iTunes Store reflects taxes—the same way customers are accustomed to seeing it as they would in any other store in the USA.
This is address in the FAQs on iTunes Connect, as well as explained in detail to anyone who emails iTStax@apple.com.
Kind regards,
[redacted]
iTunes Royalty Accounting
UPDATE 2010-06-25: Air Depth 1.3.1 is available. No more crashing on iOS3.x. Thanks for your patience.
UPDATE 2010-06-24: Air Depth is currently in Review. Hopefully that means it will be available within the next day.
Version 1.3 of Air Depth contained a crash bug related to an iOS4 framework. I’ve already submitted 1.3.1 to fix the issue. 1.3 was approved in 12 hours, so I hope 1.3.1 is approved within a similar time frame.
The issue manifests on iOS versions less than 4. iOS 4 is released on 21 July. However, 1.3.1 will fix the issue for all prior iOS versions if you don’t intend upgrading to iOS 4.
Sorry for any inconvenience.
Finally, crashcard has been released in the App Store.
Unfortunately, car accidents do happen. CRASHCARD guides you through the collection of important information during these stressful times, granting peace of mind and simplifying insurance claims.
A little Dropbox syncing, notes app I wrote for myself is now available for everyone else.
If you’re using rvm or anything else that specifically wants gcc on Lion. Install Xcode as usual, but also do this:
Build it
http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/gcc/
From within the source directory:
mkdir -p build/obj build/dst build/sym
gnumake install RC_OS=macos RC_ARCHS="i386 x86_64" \
TARGETS="i386 x86_64" SRCROOT=`pwd` \
OBJROOT=`pwd`/build/obj DSTROOT=`pwd`/build/dst \
SYMROOT=`pwd`/build/sym
sudo ditto build/dst /
ln -s /usr/bin/gcc-4.2 /usr/local/bin/gcc
UPDATE: Version 1.0.3 has been released.
UPDATE: Version 1.0.2 has been released.
UPDATE: Version 1.0.1 has been released.
I’ve finally released my new gas management program for iPhone & iPod touch. Gas Manager helps you choose and blend custom gas mixes for diving. It includes partial pressure blending (with fudge factors), top off and best mix, as well as MOD, END and EAD calculations.
