Finally got the contract set up with Apple. So my little app appears to be “Ready for Sale” in iTunes Connect, but when I go to search it in App Store, no result matched.

It seems a lot developers are experiencing the same problem here:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1607276&tstart=60

Is this related to a slow updating rate of search index of iTunes Store? I can’t get my app showing up in iTunes Link Maker either.

But it’s possible to reach the app detail page in iTunes via direct link:

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=294454696

You can make your own direct link if you’re experiencing the same problem that app not showing up in search or link maker, just replace the id part in URL with your own app id, you can get it in app details in iTunes Connect.

IMHO, it does take too long time for solo developers on all those non-tech issues. You may not know that I planned to release my app in August! But now it’s November!

Anyway, perhaps what I’ve got is the best I can get, so now I can focus more on tech things to make my app more polished.

Update: AppShopper.com has a page for Gomoku now: http://appshopper.com/games/gomoku

(Thanks Robin Lu!)

So, finally I’ve got my activation code working, actually Apple sent me the right code, but in wrong format like 1234-5678-ABCD-EFGH, that doesn’t work. Then another guy from Apple told me to enter 12345678ABCDEFGH, and it worked, I’m a bit speechless. It seems that something is not quite consistent in the program.

And next step is to set up a contract with Apple, since I’m going to sell my apps. Things are a bit complicated again. Why don’t they use some lightweight method like Western Union? Google uses that way to pay AdSense publishers in China. And Apple uses SWIFT code to transfer money, and I guess this is quite new for most people. One more thing is that W-8BEN is required to be mailed to Apple for foreign developers.

I hope all those non-tech stuff could be settled down before December.

FENG Hua Jun, the author of several useful Mac OS X applications, has recently launched an iPhone application at the App Store: BlogPress, it’s a comprehensive blog writer for iPhone, with supports of multiple protocols including Blogger, Live Spaces, WordPress, MovableType and TypePad, and it has one special feature: you can embed pictures into your blogging just like in WYSIWYG editor on your PC or Mac.

FENG has done an elegant IME before, which is very popular among Chinese Mac and iPhone users. Even iPhone OS 2 came with official Chinese IME, FENG’s Fun Input Toy is still the fastest on iPhone, many users still jailbreak their phones for using FIT. He really has passion on quality software and I wish him best luck at the App Store.