March 2011
1 post
WatchSlide to mark all as read — my favourite new feature in Byline 4.
February 2011
1 post
Pricing Byline 4 or: How to Do Paid Updates in the...
The App Store has improved in many ways in the two-and-a-half years since Byline was first released. Back then there were only five-hundred apps, and though the road to the hundreds of thousands of apps you see today has been bumpy at times, Apple has done a good job of improving the nuts and bolts of the store for developers by shortening review times, clarifying approval criteria, and...
May 2010
1 post
Byline 3 — Not Your Grandpa’s Google Reader iPhone...
I’m pleased to announce the release of Byline 3, the long-awaited successor to the first and best Google Reader app on the App Store. (Well, I think it’s the best, but then I would, wouldn’t I?) Byline has been pulled apart and reworked from the inside out, and the result is a lean little monster of an app that’s more functional and elegant than ever before. I’m very excited about this update, and...
February 2010
1 post
A Bit About the Basics
Before I go into more detail about the big new features and interface improvements in Byline 3.0, I’d like to talk a little about the fundamentals.
The first thing you’ll notice upon opening Byline 3.0 is that syncing is faster than ever. Byline now loads your items all in one go, rather than loading each folder separately. This offers several advantages besides faster syncing, not least the...
January 2010
1 post
On The Horizon
Byline 3.0 has been in development for a long time, much longer than I expected due to various distractions and a failure to be realistic about the time I would need to make such sweeping changes to the app. I’ve been reluctant to release information about the project until its final form begins to take shape, which has led to some speculation that development has stalled altogether. I regret...
June 2009
1 post
Pushing It
I’ve been receiving an increasing number of requests for Byline to make use of the new Push Notification service in iPhone OS 3.0. Many people seem to assume — understandably, given Apple’s enthusiasm — that push notifications are just as effective as allowing apps to run in the background, and that using the service is relatively easy for developers given that Apple provides a large part of the...
May 2009
1 post
How Not to Design an iPhone Icon
Byline 2.5 finally saw the light of day last week. The update has had a very positive reception, with the notable exception of the new icon, which has been roundly abused by almost everyone I’ve heard from. Making changes to anything which so many people are familiar with — fond of, even — always provokes a bit of a backlash, but I was surprised by the sheer volume of the complaints I received,...
March 2009
1 post
Slowly Getting Faster
Byline went from 1.0 to 2.0 in little over three months, gaining along the way a totally redesigned interface, support for folders, a built-in web browser, and a host of other features. Byline 2.5, on the other hand, offers very few new features, yet when it is released in mid-April it will have been a whole six months since 2.0. Why?
Part of the answer is boring; other programming projects,...
February 2009
1 post
January 2009
2 posts
SecuritySpy Screensaver
A free Mac OS X screensaver which displays live video from one or more servers running Ben Software’s SecuritySpy. I’m hosting this here temporarily — it’ll be moved to the Phantom Fish website to coincide with the release of the SecuritySpy client for iPhone.
Download version 1.3 (Snow Leopard only), released 26th October 2009, version 1.2 (Leopard only), or version 1.0 (Tiger only).
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