LookSee 2.6 came out at the end of November and for the foreseeable future this will be final release.

The project will be on hold indefinitely, a bit like Tiger Woods’ golf career!    .. I need to focus all my time and energy on the new Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2010 release and get to grips with this. Along with the major feature upgrades one would expect, I’ll be expanding my horizons into the .NET world a little bit more and getting to grips with the new SDK.

So for now, it’s been fun, but not necessarily the end of the iPhone development life.

Kristof Kowalski | kristof@kowalski.ms

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This update was relatively quick, for Apple’s standards. Just under two weeks from upload to approval, so looks like things are improving. It’s no where near the one week approval it used to be back in the day, but at least it’s not the three months I waited before.

This 2.1 release addresses the page jumping issue when zooming in/out of a PDF file and also a small crash when you cancelled the Feedback email.

There will b a 2.5 release out shortly and then it’s onto the big mumma, version 3.0.

Enjoy.

Kristof Kowalski | kristof@kowalski.ms

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It’s been a busy several days, especially so since version 2.0 was released. This was a massive step forward in functionality but with that there is sometimes the odd defect gets through. Once 2.0 was released and some feedback was received, I had the 2.1 update on there a couple of days afterwards.

In that time version 2.5 has been coming along quite nicely. This is to tie up some lose ends and features that did not make it into the 2.0 time frame. Some more quality testing needs to be done on this release and it’s pretty much done, which I’m thinking the update will be up in a couple of days.

Version 3.0 has already started and I have to say this is the grand daddy of updates. This is finally where I want LookSee to be as a complete product. It’s quite an ambitions step as to the features that will come in but I’m sure it can be done. Can’t really mention anything yet but rest assured that it will firmly place the App up the top in terms of features.

Kristof Kowaklski | kristof@kowalski.ms

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Version 2.0 was approved last night, so happy days!

Grab your copy at;

http://itunes.com/apps/LookSee

Giddey up!

Kristof Kowalski | kristof@kowalski.ms

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LookSee 2.0 is done! This is a massive step in functionality and in general usability. This is where I wanted LookSee 1.0 to be, but my eyes were bigger then my belly. The App has some wicked new features which I’m excited about and I’m sure you all appreciate why the upgrade took this long to perform.

Just on Snow Leopard a little as well. I have identified an issue with LookSee 1.0, 1.1 and on 2.0 which I need to fix. Seems when you transfer several files at a time LookSee crashes. I’m going to investigate this and have a fix rolled out shortly.

In any case, LookSee 2.0 is feature complete with one last bug to fix!

Kristof Kowalski | kristof@kowalski.ms

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Just an updateon LookSee first of all.

Apple has rejected the 1.2 update because of a couple of incorrect icons and the language translations somehow not work working on their copy. How and why is a mystery to me. In any case, it’s taken 7 weeks for this to be finally rejected and enough is enough.

Version 2.0 is almost done. Putting the finishing touches on it and hoping to have it complete at the end of this week. I will update the manual and then send it over to Apple once again, with all their suggested fixes included.

It’s so frustrating dealing with Apple sometimes when they nit pick at issues like this, where in the past the App has passed on the same criteria.

So stay tuned, 2.0 is around the corner and it’s massive upgrade!

Kristof Kowalski | kristof@kowalski.ms

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So here we are, it’s the 25th of August and yep, LookSee 1.2 is stillllllllllll sitting in review. I posted the update into the App Store on the 20th of July, so if you do the math it’s over a month now.

This is absolutely ridiculous that previous versions of LookSee took a week to get approved and published in the App Store. Version 1.2 is not a massive rewrite of the application, yes the PDF viewer was re-written from scratch and some extra features were added but nothing that warrants more than a month in the review process.

When I worked in Microsoft or for that matter any customer related position (Compaq, Olivetti) it was always hammered into you to keep the customer informed. With Apple it’s a stone wall of silence and that is absolutely pathetic.

Numerous emails have been ignored and there is no simple method to complain to them. It’s just one of the most infuriating situations to be in because you are basically helpless to do anything! Whoever is running the App Store Approved process in Apple should have their head examined, if any of their internal KPIs state it’s roaring success you have got to be kidding me. Yes they get 5000 odd new App submissions every day, but your processes and infrastructure have to scale to meet those needs.

Apple just needs to communicate with the end user, us developers, more. The process should be more transparent then it is. Either this or go back to Customer 101 training!

</rant>

By the way thanks to Apples lag on getting this release approved, version 2.0 is a week away from completion. Just hope that doesn’t take 6 months to approve as there are massive feature improvements.

Kristof Kowalski // kristof@kowalski.ms

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Version 1.2 is… still sitting in review with Apple! GRRRR! How long does it take? Come on fellas… Chop! Chop!

So in lieue of this, version 2.0 is progressing very nicely. I think version 2.0 is where I’m starting to think LookSee is actually coming the App I wanted it to be. The 1.x versions are faily simple and straight forward, nothing to0 massively exciting about it. Version 2.0 is an altogether different beast, finally incorporating some of the more advanced features. Here’s a little sample of the main Home screen in version 2.0.

The development is coming along smoothly which is good to see. With LookSee I’m looking to make this the best App in which you guys n’ gals can take your files with you, anwhere and view them anytime. I won’t get into version 3.0 details for now, but it’ll blow your socks off with the ambitious feature set.

Just on another note. I’m working on a game which will hopefully be out in the middle of December, based on the all the milestone efforts thus far. Fingers crossed and more news about it when the time comes.

Kristof Kowalski | kristof@kowalski.ms

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With this release you will be able to to open PDF’s several hundred MB in size! The scrolling is much faster and also the much requested Go to Page feature.

On top of this International translations are now supported. I’ve translated the App into 14 languages through Google Language Tools. If you find some comical translations of certain languages, you’ll know why.

On that note. If you can help out on Translations i’d be eternally gratefull! Drop me an email if you’re willing to help.

On to version 2.0 now where development should be a lot quicker now. I will be leveraging some of the wicked new OS 3.0 features for this next release, so watch out for an update in the not too distant future.

Kristof Kowalski | kristof@kowalski.ms

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I’m going to spare you all the jibber jabber about how great the 3.0 OS is with the 3GS, as every man and his dog are talking about it on the Internet.

One of the gripes I had with the iPhone 2G/3G/iPod Touch is that it only came with 128MB usable RAM. After the OS booted you were really left with about 35 odd MB of usable RAM, which intern allows you to open up a PDF of say 26MB max or an Office file of about 13MB. I get the odd mail asking for help in opening up a 100MB PDF, which I’m thinking to myself, good luck! The most common symptom of opening up a file that larger is that the iPhone/iPod will reboot, freeze or LookSee will just quit.

So with the new update to the hardware the 3GS is packing 256MB RAM under the hood and with about 100MB usable after boot.

Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Unleashe.pdf, coming in at a nice 75MB. I loaded up LookSee, copied it to the device and then opened the file. I wasn’t sure what the outcome would be but… SUCCESS! Opened up like a champ and quite snappy too I must add as the solid state drive has a transfer rate of 5MB/sec.

So with this upgrade I can definitely see a lot less emails coming in and asking why their device has rebooted, locked up or just plain quit LookSee.

So happy days people!

Cheers,

Kristof Kowalski | kristof@kowalski.ms

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