Double Bubble

New Year

Ziv — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 03:26:18 +0000

Happy New Year, 2009 is here!

Merry Christmas

Ziv — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 02:23:02 +0000

Just a quick note to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday Cheers!

iPhone App: Warcraft Chest 1.2.1

Ziv — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 23:09:30 +0000

Just a quick note to say that a minor patch for Warcraft Chest [iTunes link] is now available on the App Store.

Fix backward compatibility issue for iPhone and iPod touch running "Pre-2.2" firmware.

Related:
     iPhone App: Warcraft Chest (30 October 2008)
     iPhone App: Warcraft Chest 1.1 (15 November 2008)
     iPhone App: Warcraft Chest 1.2 (1 December 2008)

Ding, 80!

Ziv — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 17:00:08 +0000

There comes a time in WoW when your character hits the level cap (or in my case the third time). It's a milestone occasion and should be celebrated.

Ding, 80!

My main character, Ziv, finally hit level 80. It wasn't particular mob kill that brought the XP over the top, but rather a quest turn-in. Ziv was questing in Sholozar Basin and turning in The Lost Mistwhisper Treasure is what dinged him 80.

It took me 25 days to go from 70 to 80 (I don't know the actual /played time). I don't think I was especially slow at reaching 80, but then again I wasn't exactly speedy either. This time around I told myself that I'd take the time to level and really take in the new content. I started off in Howling Fjord, moved to Borean Tundra, Dragonblight, Grizzly Hills, and then Sholozar Basin. My goal was to try to clear the zone of quests before moving to the next. I truly enjoyed getting to 80.

Now it's time to do whatever level 80's do.

iPhone App: WOW NEWS 2.0 - Sneeky Peek

Ziv — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 02:46:59 +0000

I've been waiting for an update to the iPhone/Touch app, WOW NEWS, since I heard that the the developers had submitted an update for Apple's approval. The initial availability of the program on the App Store was on November 11, 2008, and the developers mentioned that they were submitting the next version for Apples's approval only five days later.

The reason they could release a brand new version so soon after it being available on the App Store has to do with how long Apple takes to review and approve an application. From what I understand, it can take up to a few weeks from the time a developer submits an application, fix, or patch and the time Apple finally puts it up on the App Store.

This can be a big issue, especially for bug fixes, but also for program updates and new releases. I'm sure developers aren't too happy about the time delay of the approval process, but it's the way Apple is doing it. No one really likes it, but there's not much anyone could really do about it until Apple finds a way to speed the approval process.

The reason I am bringing this up with WOW NEWS is because it's been at least two weeks and probably closer to three weeks since, Steve, at Matrixsites Inc. has submitted the latest version to Apple. It's still not available as of this writing and I think the developers are anxious for it to get into the hands of it's users. I know they are anxious because Steve has already wrote a couple posts about the new version on the WOW NEWS feed.

WOW NEWS UPDATE
Dec /03 / 08 - 1:13pm < admin

We wanted to let our users know that we have sent into Apple an update to the application over two weeks ago. There are several new features, sections, and code updates. Since this has now been over two weeks now we sent the Apple dev team an email to see where we are in line for the update review and release. We were told that there are over 1400 updates in front of us and there is no time frame as to when we will get reviewed, approved and released.

Apple does review a lot of applications each day so let's hope this goes fast as we feel the update will add a lot of great content and features requested from our users.

Thanks for your support on this application and we look forward to many more updates coming out each month.

Matrixsites Inc.

The above post was only displayed for users of WOW NEWS, meaning that if you use WOW NEWS on your iPhone/Touch then you got to see that post, but it was not displayed elsewhere (or at least no where else that I'm aware of). It makes sense to give the actual users of the application an early "heads up", and we all really appreciate that. It is nice hearing from the developer on what was happening and what's coming in the next version.

The developers have been hard at work with the new version and the fact that it's taken almost three weeks since they submitted it has them (and us users) pretty anxious. Since it wasn't known when the new version would finally be made available on the App Store, Steve, gave the users a sneak peek of what's to come when it is finally released. I hope he doesn't mind me sharing this with everyone, but there's a lot of new features coming, and I'm sure people who were interested in this application would like to know.

WOW NEWS UPDATE (photo)
Dec / 04 /08 - 1:19pm > admin

As some of the WOW NEWS CUSTOMERS has requested, below is the picture of Version 2.0 that was submitted to Apple for Approval. I will discuss each section below. Also, Please Note that this is what is submitted and if approved will have the listed features but we can not be sure until Apple has completed and released the Version. Some items could be rejected and will have to be changed.

TOP NEWS
This section is like the current version and offers daily news from WoW insider and a few news feeds. We are always looking for new feeds that "feed" full or almost full content and graphics.

WotLK
This Section will only have WotLK News and not have other new like it does with the current version.

PODCAST
This is a new section that links to Apple itunes "Podcast" and allows you to play any Podcast listed under the WOW section.

Video
This section still pulls from YouTube Videos and we are working on 2 additional video sites for more updates and videos to watch. This section in the current version does not get updated often as there are just not a lot of good videos posted on a daily basis. With the 2 news links we should be able to increase the amount of videos each week.

Daily POLL
Each day we post 1-5 POLLS that you can vote on and see what other WOW NEWS users has voted. We will also request Topics from our users on new polls.

WOW TALK
This is a new section that will allow the WOW NEWS USERS to discuss topics. A mini messagge board. We will take topics from users and then all users can offer a comment. This is a mini because most people do not want to hafe to write a long post on the iphone keyboard.

RAW RSS
This new section has 5 RSS feeds of RAW WOW news. This does not go to our servers and does NOT get formatted for the iPhone like all of our news does now. But this allows the users to EDIT the 5 RAW links to set it to a site RSS that you enjoy following right from inside the application. This really does a few things for the users. First, since we have a longer process in posting tnews because of all the scripts that have to run to make it look great on the iphone and then one of our staff has to review each post before it hits our servers, this allows for you to view Live RAW feeds anytime. It does operate inside the app and functions is our app browser so you are not dumped into safari.

BLUE POST
This is a new section and is updated by a staff person as fast as possible. We do not grab any new DIRECTLY from Blizzard because of legal issues and only posts from other native sites. Currently we have no found any site that feeds BLUE POST in a good feed that is useable for us to format with scripts so we have to do it all by hand. Maybe someday this can be scripted.

Guild
This new section will have news covering both US and EU guilds and will have several nice articles posted from some guild leaders we have been in contact with for WOW NEWS.

ARENA
This new section will cover all the news for ARENA! Starting Dec. 17th 2008 the new season will began and we have setup several feeds and scripts for this event. We will be adding and changing these section as needed during the Arena Event.

Class NEWS
This section is the same as in the current version but now only has articles that are class related.

DeathKnight
This new section will cover only news about the Hero Class DeathKnight and offers articles like BEST PVP Talent SPECSs. Best Tanking builds, etc, and news for the class.

This is about all for now, we are just waiting to hear from Apple if we are approved and released or if we need to edit or change anything. Hope you like the new design and function and this application brings all of you some added enjoyment to the game of WOW.

Matrixsites Inc.

Personally I'm excited of what's coming in version 2.0 because I actually use this application everyday. At first I didn't think I'd use this application much, but once I started using it, I was using it everyday to check up on WoW news. I'm hoping Apple will approve what was submitted and we'll be able to finally get our hands on this.

Related:
iPhone App: WOW NEWS (12 November 2008)

iPhone App: Armory Spy Lite - Disappears (Temporarily)

Ziv — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:32:04 +0000

While I was doing the updates on my iPhone for the latest versions of Warcraft Chest and Warcraft Characters, there was something amiss on the App Store. Something was absent in the list of Warcraft related iPhone/Touch applications, but what was it? I did a quick check of my saved applications in iTunes and sure enough there was one missing, it was Armory Spy Lite.

One day it was there, the next it's gone. It seemed so abrupt, and my curiosity of it's disappearance lead me to this posting on their website:

Armory Spy iPhone Update
We've pulled Armory Spy Lite from the AppStore because of the updates to the WoW Armory have started causing crashes since the release of WoW the Wrath of the Lich King. A new version is in the works but there is currently limited time for development. We are aware there is vast support for the application and appreciate your patince while we work on the full release which will be free of charge AND yes it will support multiple armory instances (EU, JP, etc..). Feel free to continue providing feedback and requests to armoryspy@networkcoders.com.

Thanks,
Network Coders

So it seems it's gone temporarily, but it's return time is currently unknown. Let's hope the developers at Network Coders will get this back up again as it was a very nice application.

Related:
iPhone App: Armory Spy Lite (22 September 2008)

iPhone App: Warcraft Characters 2.1.2

Ziv — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 06:32:02 +0000

The long awaited update to the quintessential Armory browser app for the iPhone/Touch, Warcraft Characters [iTunes link], is now available for update/download on the App Store. Rudi actually submitted this update to Apple for approval back on November 20, 2008 and it just hit the App Store on Sunday.

This is only a minor revision update, but now includes:

Compatibility with "The Wrath of the Lich King" expansion release, death knight class and lvl 80 character support, and item image update.

Though this version is compatible with WotLK, it doesn't have all the fancy new changes that the official WoW Armory has implemented recently (Achievements, Statistics, and Calendar). I don't know if there are plans to include the Achievements and Statistics into Warcraft Characters, but it would seem like a natural fit to do so.

The new Calendar feature of WoW and the Armory is nice but I don't think will be implemented into Warcraft Characters just because it requires for you to log into your account to access the information within it. I do see a completely separate application being created that would access the Calendar, but I'm not sure Blizzard has even released information on how to access the new Calendar, or if they ever will. But that's besides the point.

So what are you waiting for, go grab the update now, Warcraft Characters [iTunes link]

Related:
     iPhone App: Warcraft Characters (31 July 2008)
     iPhone App: Warcraft Characters 2.0 (18 August 2008)
     iPhone App: Warcraft Characters 2.1 (26 August 2008)
     iPhone App: Warcraft Characters 2.1.1 (5 September 2008)

iPhone App: Warcraft Chest 1.2

Ziv — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 05:26:38 +0000

The latest update to Warcraft Chest [iTunes link ] is now available on the App Store. It's a minor update which brings it up to version 1.2, but it now includes:

Updated to support "Wrath of the Lich King"
Improved performance

Nothing really new to report in this update, but the ability to browse the new WotLK drops and rewards sure is nice especially as I try to gear up for raiding.

Related:
iPhone App: Warcraft Chest (30 October 2008)
iPhone App: Warcraft Chest 1.1 (15 November 2008)

Turkey Weekend Update

Ziv — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 04:57:38 +0000

Here in the US, the Thanksgiving weekend has come and gone and I'm glad that it's finally over. I didn't mind the family, friends, festivities and food, but this weekend was just the culmination of one busy week IRL. Even with all the activities and holiday cheer this weekend brought, I was able to sneak in some WoW time here and there. Mostly in the wee hours of the night, but that's okay, I didn't mind.

When I finally did log into the game this past week, I spent the majority of the time questing and experiencing the new content. I've managed to make it through several of the instances with guildies, but it's mostly been solo questing. I got Ziv up to level 77 last night and am especially excited to finally get my epic flying mount back. Moving around in Northrend will definitely become a lot easier now, therefore so will questing and leveling.

So this was just a quick update on what's been going on but now that turkey weekend is done, perhaps I'll be able to catch up on a few things, First and foremost would be a couple quick updates to WoW related iPhone/Touch applications.

Happy Anniversary WoW!

Ziv — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 17:26:28 +0000

Did you know it was World of Warcraft's 4th Anniversary on November 23, 2008? Well if you didn't, you will when you log in today and check your in-game mail. When I checked my mail, I received something from the WoW Dev Team. It was a letter along with a nice surprise gift, the Baby Blizzard Bear, a baby polar bear!

It's an account bound vanity pet so all your characters will automatically get one, and it's also a Feat of Strength, WoW's 4th Anniversary

From: The WoW Dev Team
Subject: WoW's 4th Anniversary!

Did you know that the World of Warcraft is now four years old?

We wanted to send you something to say thanks for sharing this game with us. Sure, the 4th anniversary present is traditionally "flowers" ... but in WoW it's "Bear".

With that said, please accept this furry little friend! Just remember to hold his fish by the tail, not the body... that mouth is bigger than it looks.

The WoW Dev Team

[Update 3:42 PM PST:] I corrected the date of WoW's anniversary to November 23, 2008. When I posted, I forgot that I was on an Oceanic realm and therefore ahead of the US timezones. So those on the US realms won't be able to see this until Sunday, November 23, 2008.

The original release of the World of Warcraft was on November 23, 2004. Can you believe it's already been four years!