LicenseKeeper 1.4.3 has been released. Download it directly or use “Check for Updates” from the main menu.

For further details, check out the release notes.

LicenseKeeper 1.4.2 is now available. Use “Check for Updates” under the main menu or download directly. This is a free update and is recommended for all users.

LicenseKeeper now sports a new optional toolbar button for a one-click refresh of all applications’ versions and icons.

In addition to the copy serial number to clipboard shortcut (changed to Command-Shift-K), you can now also copy the registered name (Command-Shift-L) and email (Command-Shift-M) to the clipboard.

Due to popular request, there’s now a “Reveal App in Finder” item under the Product menu and in the contextual popup menu.

The email scanner has been updated to correctly detect serial numbers for Sandvox, Twitterrific, and VideoDrive.

Several small interface bugs have been fixed along with some memory leaks (thanks to LLVM Clang Static Scanner).

See the LicenseKeeper 1.4.2 Release Notes for further details.

Gustavo Duarte: Lucky to be a Programmer

Under the right conditions, writing software is so intensely pleasurable it should be illegal.

Many programmers relate to this, but others are taken aback when they hear it. I think it’s because institutions are so good at squeezing the fun out of everything. It’s appalling for example how schools can take the most vibrant topics and mangle them into formulaic, mediocre slog. And so it is for programming.”

(Via Duncan Campbell.)

Back in May of 2007, I announced that Bullfrog 2 development had begun. The game engine was to be entirely rewritten to accelerate graphics by using OpenGL and to add many of the game play features I always felt were missing from the original Bullfrog.

Then in September, I shared with you a short movie showing a very early version of the new game engine. This was all targeting the Mac, just like the original.

While I was very excited about the project, Marcus and I were quite busy with other projects and development was slow. But, just as our schedules began to open up a bit, Apple announced that they were allowing third party developers to write software for their new iPhone.

I guess timing is everything. Within hours of the announcement, we had decided to change directions and target the iPhone and attack the world of mobile gaming.

After more than a year since the original announcement and four months of intense development on a brand new and very exciting platform, the original vision was released.

Bullfrog Touch sports a fast graphics engine, accelerometer-based controls, beautiful scrolling maps, animated water, obstacles, and my personal favorite lily pads.

But, the most exciting part of this whole journey is the huge list of ideas we generated while working on this project. The iPhone and iPod Touch platform is an extremely powerful environment for all kinds of software. The ability to take your iPhone anywhere you go and have the full power of OS X under the hood is sure to lead to some great things.

Fraser Speirs comments on the first week of Apple’s new iPhone App Store.

Demographics Is Destiny:

If you haven’t got it already, it’s time to move your head to this place: iPhone OS is Apple’s mainstream platform for 2012 and beyond. It’s a bold prediction, but the numbers seem fairly clear.

…

Put this another way: my iPhone app, Exposure, has picked up on average 3,200 new users per day since the App Store opened. Exposure already has twice as many users as FlickrExport for Aperture.

These are crazy numbers.

App Store Review is broken:

If Apple can’t guarantee a maximum 24 hour review process, they should drop it. What would happen if I was trying to correct a data loss or security bug, and the update sits in App Store limbo for five or ten days? Fortunately I’m not facing that situation, but these are fixes for painful crashing bugs that are really affecting users of Exposure. All the while, users continue to comment negatively on these already-fixed-but-not-released bugs in Exposure’s reviews on iTunes. Without demos, those reviews are an app’s lifeblood.

I can understand Apple wanting to check new applications, but holding up bug fix releases for five days or more is both annoying to users and damaging to developers’ reputations.