January 18th 2013: Both of the icon building apps have now been updated to fix a but that made incorrect icon sizes when running on a Retina MacBook Pro. Icns Maker uses your image to create an icns file for Mac apps. Icon Builder uses your image to create the suite of icon files needed for iOS apps.

Icns Maker which makes an icns icon file for Mac apps, and Icon Builder which makes the suite of png files needed for iOS apps, are both compatible with the Retina MacBook Pro. However it was recently brought to my attention (thanks Cameron), that when running on a Retina MBP, all the icon files were exactly twice as large as they should be. The Icon.png file which supplies the main app icon for iPhone apps should be 57 pixels by 57 pixels.

UPDATE: September 2016 - A Knight’s Move for iOS is no longer available.A Knight’s Move for Mac is still supported. A Knight’s Move for iOS has been updated to take advantage of the taller iPhone 5 screen. In-app purchasing of packs has been removed from both Mac & iOS versions. For iOS, the app is now free but supported by iAds (please click through if you would like to show your support).

There are been a lots of stories going around about lengthening Mac App Store review times. Shiny Developmentscrowd-sourced data certainly backs this up although they have much more data for iOS apps than for Mac apps. Some people, including Lex Friedman of MacWorldand John Gruber of Daring Fireball, are suggesting that the delays are due to the rush of new apps to support the iPhone 5 and iOS 6. This implies that there is only one set of review staff and that a large proportion of them have been moved from Mac to iOS apps.

Announcing two new apps for creating icons for with Mac or iOS projects: Icns Maker helps you convert a single image into a .icns file in two steps. Icon Builder creates all the files needed to set up your icons for any iOS project. Creating icon files for Mac apps: # In versions of Xcode before 4.4, Apple provided an app called “Icon Composer”. It allowed you to drag images into a window and export a .

I have started work updating my iOS apps to fill the larger screen of an iPhone My iPhone 5 is on order - I missed out on the first shipment, but hopefully it won’t be too long. Meanwhile, I will just test in the iPhone Simulator and hope this is OK. But it was a puzzle to me how to get an app to fill the longer screen. I have the latest Xcode and the latest Simulator which allows you to specify what screen size iPhone to simulate.

UPDATE: September 2016 - A Knight’s Move for iOS is no longer available.A Knight’s Move for Mac is still supported. A Knight’s Move for iPad & iPhone has just been updated to version 1.1 There were some minor changes: New puzzle pack: Majestic. iPhone now shows an info button of there is more help available for a particular puzzle. (This info was already visible in the iPad version.) Minor cosmetic fixes.

The update of Man Reader to version 1.1 has just become available through the Mac App Store. This update has a bunch of new features - thanks to everyone who made suggestions. As detailed in a previous post , there have been major issues getting this app approved with Apple’s new sand-boxing restrictions fully in place. But to their credit, the Apple reviewers have been unfailing helpful and polite in answering my questions and keeping me informed.

As of June 2012, all apps submitted to the Mac App Store have to be sandboxed i.e. they have to be able to run in a limited environment where they cannot interfere with other apps or other parts of the system. While this is generally a good thing, there are problems when apps have legitimate reasons for requiring access to other resources. One annoyance for developers is that Apple’s apps are mostly not sandboxed.

Time In Words screen saver has just been updated to version 1.1 and is now fully compatible with Mountain Lion. It is free to use and can be downloaded here. The basic screen saver worked before, but searching for an alternative time zone would crash System Preferences. That is now fixed. The screen saver also shows a thumbnail image when in Mountain Lion and is code-signed with my developer ID for compatibility with Mountain Lion’s Gatekeeper.