The Hipstamatic response to my question if the 230 update was tested on anything other than iOS5. Given that I’ve not been able to find one single report of someone successfully running the 230 update on any iOS4 version it seems quite clear that it wasn’t. Despite the fact that Synthetic know that the 230 update can’t run at all on anything other than iOS5, 230 is still in the app store and saying it is compatible with iOS4 which obviously isn’t true. The current app star rating is 2 stars, an unprecedented low level for the app.  There’s been no notification from Synthetic NOT to update if you’re not running iOS5 (which many users who have the option to do so are not doing until the early bugs are ironed out from that). Instead they have responded (on facebook comments) by suggesting people update to iOS5 to run the app!!  What Synthetic HAVE managed to do, however, is put the app on sale - its currently showing as 69p (99c), half its usual price. In the meantime they’re continuing to promote their new hipstapak which requires iOS5, without mention of the entire app requiring it.  Of course the hipstapaks are the main source of income via hipstamatic app for Synthetic, which is where there is a steady stream of them through the year. I can entirely understand why they keep releasing them to what would otherwise be a stagnating market. I’ve bought every single pak that’s ever been released, because I love to see and experiment with the new ideas they come up with. I am dumbstruck by the ostrich-like response of the marketing team to this 230 debacle, however. Is it so desperately important to Synthetic to gain their in app pak sales from some of their users while completely failing to offer proper communication and service to their other customers who are unable to even load the app? Isn’t there a responsibility on Synthetic to actually proactively inform their customers that there are known bugs with Hipstamatic 230 and to ONLY update IF you are running iOS5?

The Hipstamatic response to my question if the 230 update was tested on anything other than iOS5. Given that I’ve not been able to find one single report of someone successfully running the 230 update on any iOS4 version it seems quite clear that it wasn’t.

Despite the fact that Synthetic know that the 230 update can’t run at all on anything other than iOS5, 230 is still in the app store and saying it is compatible with iOS4 which obviously isn’t true. The current app star rating is 2 stars, an unprecedented low level for the app. 

There’s been no notification from Synthetic NOT to update if you’re not running iOS5 (which many users who have the option to do so are not doing until the early bugs are ironed out from that). Instead they have responded (on facebook comments) by suggesting people update to iOS5 to run the app!! 

What Synthetic HAVE managed to do, however, is put the app on sale - its currently showing as 69p (99c), half its usual price. In the meantime they’re continuing to promote their new hipstapak which requires iOS5, without mention of the entire app requiring it. 

Of course the hipstapaks are the main source of income via hipstamatic app for Synthetic, which is where there is a steady stream of them through the year. I can entirely understand why they keep releasing them to what would otherwise be a stagnating market. I’ve bought every single pak that’s ever been released, because I love to see and experiment with the new ideas they come up with.

I am dumbstruck by the ostrich-like response of the marketing team to this 230 debacle, however. Is it so desperately important to Synthetic to gain their in app pak sales from some of their users while completely failing to offer proper communication and service to their other customers who are unable to even load the app? Isn’t there a responsibility on Synthetic to actually proactively inform their customers that there are known bugs with Hipstamatic 230 and to ONLY update IF you are running iOS5?

Have @Hipstamatic abandoned support for earlier devices without warning, or is the 230 update THAT buggy?

It may not have arrived with much fanfare (all the Hipstamatic focus seems to be on their upcoming launch event for….something on December 13 at the moment) but as a huge Hipstamatic fan (obviously) the release of a new update AND a new Hipstapak from the boys and girls at Synthetic has always been a cause of celebration for me.

Until now. 

I’m still not at the end of my current iPhone contract period (a few months to run yet) and while I know I’m incredibly fortunate to even have an iPhone of any variety I’m not so fortunate as to be able to afford to break or pay out of a contract to get the latest shiny versions as soon as they come out. For that reason I’m still using an iPhone 3G and will be until my phone contract ends. Yes, its slower than it used to be and it can be frustrating on iOS4, but I’ve been happy to live with that because its still given me access to the apps I love. Some apps have updated past my hardware and iOS version and that’s OK, because every single time its happened so far I’ve known about it, its given me that old “This version of the app is not compatible with your phone/version of iOS” message. I may stare wistfully at new features I can’t use but at least I can carry on using the older version of the app.

Hipstamatic has stood out from the crowd of iPhoneography apps for many reasons, one of which has been its support for older versions of iOS and iPhone, so it was disappointing to see that the new foodie HipstaPak was iOS5 only on the update screen.

I don’t claim to know the ins and outs of Hipsta-code so I don’t know whether a particular version of iOS would be required for a particular pak, but I do have to wonder about how much the new pak and new version were tested before rollout. Especially the new version. 

Even though I couldn’t get the new pak I was reasonably philosophical about it all and got the new 230 update which promised a “new and improved HipstaProcessing engine for speedier print delivery” as well as the usual “bug fixes and improvements”. I saw on some of the comments on Marty Yawnick’s Life in Lofi blog post about the new update that it had proven buggy for some users when first trying the new pak, but as I couldn’t get the pak I thought I should be OK with the 230 update.

Bad move. VERY BAD MOVE. 

Load update…..hit the icon…..get the “wiping off lens” loading screen and…..crash. Frown, try again. Loading screen and…..crash. Frown more, reboot phone. Wait a lot. Phone comes back up, hit the hipstamatic icon, loading screen……and crash. Repeat ad infinitum. 

Hipstamatic 230 will not even load. For me its been rendered instantly unusable. Right now my #1 photo app is totally out of action and I’m rather keen to know WHY. 

I haven’t had the opportunity to try the app on other 3G iPhones, or other i-devices running iOS4 yet, but I’m hoping to see some other reports from other users how the 230 app is running on anything other than iOS5 on iPhone4/4S. I get the strong feeling I might not be the only person finding 230 to be a big fat fail on iOS4 on earlier devices. 

In hindsight perhaps I should have seen the warning signs around the new pak being iOS5 only. Along with the lack of fanfare for the new pak release and 230 update it smacks of a rush release and very limited testing. I’ll be very disappointed if that is the case, but I can understand the pressures of the update and testing grind in a small software company having been there and done that myself. I’ll shrug and wait for a 231 bugfix release in a week or so.

What I’m more worried about at present is that Synthetic are abandoning Hipstamatic support for earlier devices and have done so without announcement and without ensuring that the requirements were set correctly in the app store. If that is the case then I’ll be well past disappointed. After all, these little Random Hipstamatic hobby sites of mine are based around Hipstamatic app and if I’m unable to use the app then effectively the sites can’t exist in their current form. I’m gutted to have lost access to the app for now, but if that’s a permanent loss then I’ll have to question what the hell Synthetic are thinking. 

I’ve got a bunch of random Christmas themed photos I’ve yet to post to randomhipstamatic.com but once they’re posted I’m pretty much out of new material. Will I even be able to continue with the site in its current form? Watch this space I suppose - and if you have an older i-device or you’re still running iOS4, best not grab the Hipstamatic 230 update for now!!

So what is this Internet thing anyway? Bet it doesn’t catch on, so I’ll be all sneery and disparaging about it, safe in the knowledge it won’t come back to bite me in the ass…..

Post for me arrived with the postman this morning. Brown paper packages, tied up with string……which I eagerly unpacked.

Beautiful stamps from Hong Kong and inside was my new Holga 12 MFC flash, intended for my Diana Mini. 

Not as stylish as the proper Diana flash, but a darn sight cheaper and more versatile. Looking forward to trying it.

11 minutes well spent, New Internationalist editor Vanessa Baird talks to Occupy London’s Tent City University about the financial crisis.

newint.org

Did someone change the date of it all and not tell me?

Did someone change the date of it all and not tell me?

People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.
Winnie the Pooh

twitter.com

I was quite relieved to make it through the weekend of photo app sales without having made any new purchases (mainly because all the photo apps I saw on sale I’ve already got!) but then I got derailed by 6x7 app yesterday.

It was the review on Life in LoFi blog that got me interested. The 6 x 7 format is one that I’d never tried yet (wonder why some of the “big” camera apps don’t have it?) and I was curious enough to drop the 69p (99c) on it. I’m really glad I did.

 You know how some apps just “feel” right from when you start using them? They’re the apps that you know you’ll be using and wanting to use out of all those screens of icons? 6x7 is one of those apps for me. Simple but effective customisation options, volume shutter click (that works on iOS4 too, not just iOS5, which might be why some apps are getting in trouble with the big fruit for including volume shutter in their apps) and a really easy way to switch between colour and black and white. Its retro without being kitschy and a delight to use. 

Life in LoFi has a much more technical review for you to check out, so I’ll just say give this app a try. For a buck you won’t regret it, its a great little app you’ll want to keep coming back to. Its already made it onto my first screen of apps so I can get to it quickly, which is probably the best endorsement of it that I can give. 

Its hip to be square but its also hip to be square-ish, so give 6x7 app a go!

Inside Job - full HD version.

Now available to watch on Vimeo, the whole of the excellent “Inside Job” documentary. 

If you’re not understanding how we got into the financial situation we are in today then you need to watch this film, there’s no better place to start to grasp it all. 

Watch. Learn. Take action!