I hate instant messaging. Not because I don’t like talking to people, but because there are so many networks I have to be part of, and once I’m signed up I have to use this program or that program, which means I have to have a ton of programs running, or I can wait a while and get a program that does a half decent job at implementing many different networks and then have a few more programs running to open what that program doesn’t support. So I log off, and never log back in again. I would really like to use IM, I would really like to be more available that way, but it’s such a hassle.

That’s why I have big hopes for iMessage. If Apple were to open iMessage for extension, the providers of the IM networks themselves could extend it to support their network. Then I could have all the chats in one place, and be signed in to these different networks so that if there’s an incoming Skype call, I’m available on Skype, without having the app open (or knowing that I do), and if I get an instant message from something as ancient as ICQ, it gets into the message list. Grouping accounts together on one contact would be nice also. No more logging in and out of IMs, just always on, and perhaps set a do-not-disturb mode for whenever I go to sleep. Man I hope they open up iMessage for extension, that would be awesome!

I thought I’d give Tapptics a little plug. I love writing nice applications for the iPhone, but taking on a graphics artist for pet projects is sometimes a bit hard to justify. But a while ago I read about Tapptics and saw their site and bookmarked the article so I could come back to it when I had a project where I needed some graphics. That time has come, so I signed up and it’s just a bucket full of resources, both nice tutorials and guides, and a lot of excellent graphics to use in my app. There were, however, two glyphs that I wanted that weren’t there, but no sooner had I enquired about them, had Jen whipped them up: two gorgeous glyphs that will have a prominent position in my app. The price is well worth it, so go check Jen’s site out today. If you’re an app developer and need nice graphics, you’ll love it!

I just quickly want to plug The state of iOS Open Source – and what to do about it! by Fredrik Olsson. It’s a great little piece of advice for all us iOS developers

I’m working on setting up my continuous integration system to work with Xcode. I’m using Jenkins on a separate Mac Mini, and I found this great article by Christian Hedin where he introduces his ocunit2junit.rb utility that converts the output of OCUnit to something looking like JUnit, thus making it easier for Jenkins to pick integrate with the build.

When the iPad was announced, we got to hear we had to wait until the international launch date. So before it was even morning on the date of the international launch I ordered mine online, black 64Gb with 3G. I expected Apple to prioritize their own sales channel, but it turned out I had to wait 33 days from I ordered it until Apple expected me to have it!

To reduce the wait, I went by many stores, and finally I came by a Virgin Megastore in Nice, and the salesman there said unfortunately, they only had one model, and it was exactly the one I wanted, so I quickly bought it, set it to update and sync and went about my day.

Later that evening I got to play with it, but the home button really needed to be pushed very hard to work, and that really affected the pleasure of using it. After much thought, I decided to return it. The day after, I went back, and of course the man talking to me was strong and had a habit of pushing buttons hard, so while I reproduced the problem all the time, he managed only once. But he saw the problem, and would love to exchange it for me, but by then they were sold out. So I got a refund.

Luckily, the day before I had tried to cancel my original order, but they were about to ship it that day, so they couldn’t cancel it but asked me to send it back when I got it. So now I’ll have to wait patiently for it, and then hopefully it will have no issues, just like my last iPad had no issues.

Written, unexpectantly, on my iPad 1