For those of you who are anxiously awaiting the approval of DSLR Camera Remote v1.1 to be approved by Apple's App Store review team, you are in good company. We spoke with our Apple Developer representative last week and the app is in the review queue, but that's all we really know. We were told that they have so many apps to review that any app that is submitted, whether it is a brand new app or an update to an existing app could take between 3 and 4 weeks. Here's a screen shot of our iTunes app status screen.
The May 15, 2009 date is the date of the original submission of the 1.0 app, not the 1.1 update.
That's good and bad. The good part is that if you're an iPhone or iPod Touch user, there are lots of apps being developed for your potential use. The bad news is that they have to be reviewed and that process takes time. Your continued patience is appreciated. Just remember that the Apple App Store review team is filled with people just like you and me who are working as fast as they can.
For all of you who have been patiently awaiting, I'm happy to report to you that we have finished the development and testing of the 1.1 update to our DSLR Camera Remote app for the iPhone (and iPod Touch). This 1.1 update is free to all 1.0 users and will show up on your iPhone or iTunes as an available update when the app goes through the approval and review process of the iTunes App Store.
Please note, just to be clear, the 1.1 update is not yet available for download, but we have submitted it to the iTunes App Store for review. The review process can take as few as 2 days or as many as 2 weeks depending on the number of other iPhone apps that are awaiting approval ahead of our submission. These things just take time.
I will be sure to post a new entry here on the blog when we get the approval and I will also put out a tweet on Twitter. If you want to be one of the first to know, subscribe to the RSS feed for this blog or follow me on Twitter.
I know many of you are patiently awaiting the official list of features added in the 1.1 release of the DSLR Camera Remote app, so here it is. Before you run off to the iTunes App Store though, please note, contrary to what many people are twittering out there, we have not yet submitted the app. More on that in a moment. Here's the list of new features that are being added to version 1.1.
Updated user interface with improved horizontal view mode
Lightroom Auto-Import support
Changed the naming system for downloaded images to prevent accidental overwriting
Raw+JPG are not treated as a single entity rather than appearing on the phone as two files
Auto-update added to the companion server software in case there are updates available
Fixes to various bugs reported by users
I've said before that we would release this in mid July and here we are at July 27. At least 12 days past the most common interpretation of mid July and still no 1.1 update. There have been several comments left here or emails sent to me that we are either lazy; stupid; liars; or some combination of the three. To that, I say we're none of the above. If anything, perhaps we were a little optimistic. Maybe I shouldn't have shared anything with anybody, but I did, so it's out there. Here's a little insight into what's going on and why the update isn't out yet.
First and foremost, we are doing best at getting this 1.1 update complete and out the door. Our developer is working full days (8+ hours) plus weekends on this 1.1 update (which technically could be called a 1.5 update, but I digress). Our QA Engineer is doing the same as well as working on testing all of the other updates and projects we're working on for our Photoshop plug-ins. But we also want to make sure that what we send out there is good and is going to work. To do this, we have to test each new feature that is implemented on every camera that we support tethered to on both a Mac & Windows computer. That "Mac & Windows computer" portion translates into 5 different OS's to test with.
Mac OS X v10.4.x
Mac OS X v10.5.x
Windows XP (32-bit)
Windows Vista (32-bit)
Windows Vista (64-bit)
That's 27 supported cameras and 5 operating systems times the number of features both new and old (you have to make sure implementing a new feature doesn't break an existing one). That's 135 camera & operating platform combinations to test each feature on. Multiply that times the number of features and I'm hoping at that point you might realize that there's more to releasing an application that meets the eye.
So I'll repeat. We are neither lazy, stupid or liars. I'm not taking any of those comments personally and I don't hold any ill will or grudges against those who have made those comments. I understand the frustration at wanting something when you can't get it ((It probably didn't help when people interpreted Rob Galbraith's review of a pre-release version of the 1.1 update as a review of a shipping version)). We've all been there in some form or another about something we were interested in. If anything, we're flattered that so many people want this update.
Further, this 12-day delay shouldn't give anybody any cause to doubt our intentions or make you less confident in us. There's a reason we've been in business for 4 years now during less than ideal economic conditions. We do what we say we're going to do. Yes, sometimes it takes longer than we think, but rest assured we have lots of other projects we want to be working on so the sooner we get done with this update, the happier everybody will be. We do our best to NOT have to do a bunch of maintenance releases by trying to catch bugs, fix them and generally make things work right the first time. Nobody likes to do things twice and I doubt most of you would want to get a buggy piece of software.
Well, this was much longer than I thought it would be, but now at least you know the official list of features in version 1.1 and hopefully have gained a little insight into why it's taking longer than any of us would like.
For anybody out there reading this who purchased version 1.0 recently in the iTunes App Store, thinking you were getting version 1.1, don't worry. You'll get the 1.1 update when it's available as a free update.
Here's a video (via You Tube) of David Dettmann from Capital Photography showing how he is using our DSLR Camera Remote iPhone app in his wedding photography to overcome those times where he is restricted from certain locations that he would like to shoot from.
Have you got a video using the DSLR Camera Remote posted online? Send me a note and I'll post it here as well.
Another example of photographers using the DSLR Camera Remote app for the iPhone was brought to my attention last week. Marshall G. posted some photos of his work photographing water drops while using the DSLR Camera Remote app. Check out the full setup in his blog post as well as additional pictures from his shoot. Here's a photo (used with permission) from the shoot.
Photo copyright Marshall Garlington. Used with permission.
If anything, perhaps we were a little optimistic. Maybe I shouldn't have shared anything with anybody, but I did, so it's out there. Here's a little insight into what's going on and why the update isn't out yet.