Author: Thomas

When I was doing my study on which iTunes country Apple App Store presence uses which language (for results, see here), I used my least selling worldwide available app to do this, which was Dinner Speech until today. I added a number at the end of each description to document the language I had edited this in.

Then I had to wait, since even after 4 hours, not all shops had the changes pushed.

The next day my son Jonathan carried out much of the worldwide research and edited the table. Since I was busy with other things, I did not immediately change back all App Website texts to delete the numbers at the end.

When I wanted to do this today, I received the friendly notice from iTunes Connect:

In order to save your changes, all iPhone/iPod touch screenshots must be a .jpeg, .jpg, .tif, .tiff, or .png file that is 960×640, 960×600, 640×960 or 640×920 pixels, at least 72 DPI, and in the RGB color space.

What had happened, I just deleted two chars: ” 1″?

It turns out,

• the edit button that enables me to change the text also uploads the screen shots
• my screen shots are still all 320×480 (low resolution) in size
• in the three days in between adding the 1 and today, Apple iTunes Connect had changed the rules
• it will not change my text as long as I have no new screenshots
• my old app website text and screenshots are not affected (as far as I can see)

Of course I am OK with that rule change, it is a change to the better, it is good for the customer and more correct to the iPhone 4(s) users. It is just that I now have to prepare 5 screenshots for 4 different supported languages before I am able to delete all the numbers in the text. It will cost me about 4 hours of work (guesstimate (a word the spelling checker knows!)) and it will not sell a single copy of Dinner Speech for me.

Another example of the meaning of: “Sometimes, progress is painful to the individual.”

Here the quick list of my WordPress learnings after moving from iWeb to WordPress

1. WordPress is really easy to use, install, maintain and update
   The “famous 5 minute install” really is a 5 minute install – if you are a computer science pro like me. If the version number of your database is something that sounds like a mongolian city name to you, then you better ask a pro to set up your webspace. But once this is done (and since this is easy to do, it is rather cheap, call us for a quote), then you can do all other tasks on your own. Really. OK, at least probably.
2. Stick with the defaults if you want results
   There are too many choices: Themes, Plugins, Settings… I ‘lost’ two days for browsing and previewing a lot of nice-looking “Themes”, which is the WordPress name for design and layout of your website. Even if you have a clear vision of how your website should look like, browsing for the exactly matching theme may not be the right thing to do. After some trying here and there, I decided to stick with the default theme, as so many others out there do.
3. By default, WordPress is a blog
   If you want WordPress to be your website rather than your blog, then you can do that too, but you have to change and tweak here and there. Not much of a problem, but by default it wants to be your blog. So if you don’t want to blog, it may not feel like the best choice.
4. WordPress is one blog with one language
   Of course there exist multiple plugins that make a multi-language blog out of WordPress. But by default, it has only one blog and one language. Although this does not seem like a big issue and although I am using one of the multi-language plugins, this is a big problem for me. If WordPress gets updated, you have to check and wait for the plugins to be checked and updated (if needed) as well.
5. WordPress is Web 2.0 built in
   Since by default all pages and posts on your website have a built-in comment part and functionality, it really is a blog system for the web 2.0. Your definition may differ, I usually refer to web 2.0 as the version of the web tools that made user interaction possible, e.g. commenting a comment, comments being taken as serious as the blog post itself and being an important or event the important part of the web page, generating a completely new web experience.
6. Migrating the texts from iWeb to WordPress is easy – but only the text
   I used to generate my website from a tool called iWeb that Apple ships with their Mac OS X. If your iWeb website was little more than a blog, then you can easily write out the website to local disk, look for the.rss and use the rss importer plugin to read the texts into WordPress. But do not expect support for non-blog pages, pictures, picture galleries, layout or the complete website. And sorry, no, I have not written a php script to migrate my site.
7. [UPDATE:] Since I switched from iWeb blogging with comments enabled to WordPress with comments, I get A LOT OF SPAM comments. With iWeb I had no (zero) Spam comments. With WordPress – without using any filter – I get about two (2) spam comments a day. So I will have to add a captcha (which is included in iWeb commenting functions, but not in WordPress). [/UPDATE]

That’s it for now, may be the list gets longer in the future!

Regards, Thomas

  When you want to publish your app in the Apple App Store, you have the choice in which countries you want your app to be offered. I have not counted the number of countries lately, but hey, it is a long list, so you probably rather click on “all countries”.

Since every app has it’s own App-Store “webpage”, you have to decide in which language the app description in this webpage will be. The easiest choice is to use only one language, e.g. english. But I decided different and used german, english, spanish and french descriptions of my apps. Nowadays, when you create a new app, you can select which language will be used as the default language. But my apps are still stuck with the options at that time and this meant: German as default language. I already wrote about the default language issue in the app store some time ago here.

Now imagine I have these 4 descriptions in those four languages. So I go to iTunes Connect and it offers me the choice of 18 languages (see picture) as of today. While you may know, that the word sundowner is listed in an australian dictionary, the question, if the Apple App Store of New Zealand will make use of my text filed under:

• UK English
• Australian English
• English

is not as easy to be answered. To answer that: Apple uses the text you store under Australian English for New Zealand as well.

But what if I did not store any text as Australian English? Then your apps webpage will get the content from your default language, of course. Unfortunately for me, the default language of my existing apps is German, which is rather inappropriate for New Zealand customers. In order to have a complete list of all stores and their iTunes-Connect language settings being used, Jonathan and I compiled this list.

Instruction: If your app website address is

http://itunes.apple.com/de/app/tischrede-app/id459096545?mt=8

then the de in the address above indicates the german store, because de is the ISO 3166-1 code for Germany. I can not guarantee that Apple really uses this code, but at least I tried the codes below and most of them worked. (If you prefer a pdf version of the list, download it here).

Enjoy and feel free to share…

iTunes Country	Code	Language	Comment
Europe
België	be	UK English	benl’ doesn’t work
Belgique	be	UK English	befr’ doesn’t work
България (Bulgaria)	bg	UK English
Česká republika	cz	UK English
Danmark	dk	UK English
Deutschland	de	German
Eesti	ee	UK English
España	es	Spanish
France	fr	French
Greece	gr	UK English
Hrvatska (Kroatia)	hr	UK English
Ireland	ie	UK English
Italia	it	Italian
Latvija	lv	UK English
Liechtenstein	li	English
Lietuva	lt	UK English
Luxembourg	lu	UK English
Macedonia	mk	UK English
Magyarország (Hungary)	hu	UK English
Malta	mt	UK English
Moldova	md	UK English
Montenegro	me	Error
Nederland	nl	Dutch
Norge	no	UK English
Österreich	at	German
Polska	pl	UK English
Portugal	pt	Portuguese
România	ro	UK English
Россия (Russia)	ru	Russian
Slovakia	sk	UK English
Slovenia	si	UK English
Schweiz	chde	Error
Suisse	chfr	Error
Suomi (Finnland)	fi	UK English
Sverige	se	Swedish
Türkiye	tr	UK English
UK	uk	UK English	changes to gb
Asia Pacific
Australia	au	Australian English
中国 (China)	cn	Simplified Chinese
Hong Kong (English)	hk/en		Not found
香港 (Hong Kong)	hk	UK English
Indonesia	id	UK English
日本 (Japan)	jp	Japanese
대한민국 (Korea)	kr	Korean
Malaysia	my	UK English
New Zealand	nz	Australian English
Philippines	ph	UK English
Singapore	sg	UK English
台灣 (Taiwan)	tw	UK English
Thailand	th	UK English
Vietnam	vn	UK English
Other Asia	asia
Africa, Middle East
Armenia	am	UK English
Botswana	bw	UK English
Bahrain	bh	UK English
Cameroun	cm	English
Centre Afrique	cf	Error
Côte d’Ivoire	ci	English
Egypt	eg	UK English
Guinea-Bissau	gw	Error
Guinée	gn	Error
Guinée Equatoriale	gq	Error
India	in	UK English
Israel	il	UK English
Jordan	jo	UK English
Kenya	ke	UK English
Kuwait	ku	English
Madagascar	mg	UK English
Mali	ml	UK English
Maroc	ma	Error
Mauritius	mu	UK English
Mozambique	mz	Error
Niger	ne	UK English
Nigeria	ng	UK English
Oman	om	UK English
Qatar	qa	UK English
Saudi Arabia	sa	UK English
Sénégal	sn	UK English
South Africa	za	UK English
Tunisie	tn	UK English
Uganda	ug	UK English
United Arab Emirates	ae	UK English
Latin America
Anguilla	ai	UK English	points to lae
Antigua & Barbuda	ag	UK English	points to lae
Argentina	ar	Latin American Spanish	points to la
Barbados	bb	UK English	points to lae
Belize	bz	UK English	points to lae
Bermuda	bm	UK English	points to lae
Bolivia	bo	Latin American Spanish	points to la
Brasil	br	Brazilian Portuguese
British Virgin Islands	vg	UK English	points to lae
Cayman Islands	ky	UK English	points to lae
Chile	cl	Latin American Spanish	points to la
Colombia	co	Latin American Spanish	points to la
Costa Rica	cr	Latin American Spanish	points to la
Dominica	dm	UK English	points to lae
República Dominicana	do	Latin American Spanish	points to la
Ecuador	ec	Latin American Spanish	points to la
El Salvador	sv	Latin American Spanish	points to la
Grenada	gd	UK English	points to lae
Guatemala	gt	Latin American Spanish	points to la
Guyana	gy	UK English	points to lae
Honduras	hn	Latin American Spanish	points to la
Jamaica	jm	UK English	points to lae
México	mx	Latin American Spanish
Montserrat	ms	UK English	points to lae
Nicaragua	ni	Latin American Spanish	points to la
Panamá	pa	Latin American Spanish	points to la
Paraguay	py	Latin American Spanish	points to la
Perú	pe	Latin American Spanish	points to la
St. Kitts & Nevis	kn	UK English	points to lae
St. Lucia	lc	UK English	points to lae
St. Vincent & The Grenadines	vc	UK English	points to lae
Suriname	sr	UK English	points to lae
The Bahamas	bs	UK English	points to lae
Trinidad & Tobago	tt	UK English	points to lae
Turks & Caicos	tc	UK English	points to lae
Uruguay	uy	UK English	points to la
Venezuela	ve	Latin American Spanish	points to la
América Latina y el Caribe (Español)	la	Error
Latin America and the Caribbean (English)	lae	Error
US, Canada
Canada (English)	ca	Canadian English
Canada (Français)	ca/fr		Not found
Puerto Rico (English)	pr	Error	points to lae
Puerto Rico (Español)	pr	Error	points to lae
USA	us	English

 

Heute mal was von Laptops und Servern und nix von Apps

Es ist ja normalerweise eine tolle Sache, mit Mac OS X zu arbeiten. Beispielsweise installiere ich nie Druckertreiber oder so etwas. Einfach Gerät anschließen, ein paar Sekunden warten, fertig. Auch wenn ein Gerät im Netzwerk ist, einfach auf das „+“ (für‘s hinzufügen) klicken, man bekommt das Gerät mit Namen angezeigt, angeklickt, fertig. Mein Mac findet immer alle Treiber und alles funktioniert einwandfrei. Meistens jedenfalls…

So klappte auch alles mit der Drucker-Scanner-Kombi, die ich mir gekauft hatte, weil der alte Büroscanner mit seinem Besitzer ausgezogen ist. Leider war das USB Kabel zu kurz um den neuen Drucker-Scanner an den Router anzuschließen. Außerdem: Drucker kann der ja, der Router. Aber könnte der auch Scanner? Egal, schließen wir den Scanner einfach am Mac Server an und geben ihn dann im Netz frei.

Wenige klicks später ist alles OK: Scanner auf dem Server installiert und im Netz freigegeben und dann geht es auch von „remote“ von meinem Laptop aus den Scanner zu verwenden. Geht so etwas in Windows?

Was ich an dem Tag nicht gemerkt habe: Auf dem Server muss jemand (ich?) eingeloggt sein, sonst geht der Scanner nicht. Man sieht ihn nicht im Netz, wenn man den Scanner Dialog bei sich öffnet, sagt der nur „Scanner nicht da“ (oder so ähnlich).

Meist hilft dann einfach, sich auf dem Server einzuloggen. 
[Edit:] Ein paar Tage später ging es mal wieder nicht, dann wieder doch. Unterschied: Als es nicht ging, war Leonard eingeloggt, als es ging, ich. Das ist noch kein Beweis, denn zu viel war jedes mal unterschiedlich. Die Suche nach einer richtigen Lösung geht weiter, stay tuned… [/Edit ENDE]

Heute half auch das nicht – wohl weil irgend etwas mit Scanner und Remote und einloggen in der falschen Reihenfolge passiert ist. Also Server und Laptop rebootet (Ja, das ist unwissenschaftlich, man sollte erst das eine, dann noch mal testen und dann das andere Gerät booten, aber es war mir wirklich nicht wichtig, heraus zu bekommen, welches Gerät „schuld“ ist, dass es nicht geht). Danach ging alles wieder. Scanner da, alles fein.

Aber schräg ist das schon, oder? Ein Server gibt den Scanner nur dann im Netz frei, wenn man eingeloggt ist? Andererseits: Ob es auch gegangen wäre, wenn ich mich nach dem booten nicht auf beiden Systemen wieder eingeloggt hätte? Und gilt das Gleiche für den Drucker-Teil, oder geht der immer? Beim nächsten mal probiere ich‘s aus, ich verspreche es…

 

Beim Testen achte ich eigentlich immer darauf, dass ich alle meine Programme auf alten und auf neuen iOS Geräten teste. Dabei passiert meist nicht sehr viel – so selten, dass man manchmal etwas versucht ist, das viele Testen nicht so wichtig zu nehmen.

Aber ich bin ja schon ein bisschen länger im Business, daher erwarte ich immer, dass sich schnellere Geräte immer mal wieder anders verhalten, als langsame. Oft ist es so, dass korrekte Software auf einem schnelleren Gerät sich anders verhält und Fehler auftauchen, die eigentlich gar nicht da waren.

Jetzt endlich habe ich das auch mal unter iOS erlebt. Eine App funktioniert unter iOS 4.2 auf dem iPod der zweiten Generation. Aber auf dem iPhone 4S unter iOS 5 läuft das gleiche Programm etwas anders. Grund ist wohl, dass der schnellere Prozessor (oder der zweite Prozessor) eine andere Event-Reihenfolge auslöst. Kein großer Fehler, aber ein deutlicher Unterschied im Verhalten.

Eine kleine Änderung später war alles wieder in Ordnung. Tut gut, wenn man mal wieder für sein aus Erfahrung motiviertes verhalten bestätigt wird. Nun ja, unerfahrene, junge Softwerker hätten das auch gefunden, wenn sie Testen richtig ernst nehmen.

In diesem Sinne. Testen, testen, testen !