Beginning Anki for the official iPhone App Store and a Thank You

**EDIT** The application is now available; view the QuickStart guide here or the application information here.

I come to you today, for the first time, from a rare (but increasingly less so) perspective: that of a computer programmer who has just made the switch to a Mac. To say that I am using the Mac OS alone would be a misnomer (I plan to triple-boot, as I love Ubuntu and cannot yet entirely get rid of Windows), yet it is relevant because I will now be able to proceed to create the Anki software for the official iPhone store.

To those of you who made this possible, I must put forward a whole-hearted thank you. All said and done we raised $340 towards the project, and family members as well as myself contributed the remaining sum. Things are tight this month while I work and hit eBay with my old hardware, but all said and done it is exciting to be on the road to creating this software. I must state that my timeline is difficult to predict, and I will not be completing the project with the expediency I would have once expected of myself (before I was required to hold a job and other responsibilities that keep my life together). Nonetheless, I am excited about the project and sincerely wish to see it to fruition. As a pleasant side-note, this computer seems to be capable of maintaining a much more stable connection to the local University wireless networks (it will be interesting to determine if this is because of hardware or software/drivers/OS possibilities... the hardware seems more likely an answer, to me).

Finally, a note to all of you who have emailed me for help using the current (unofficial) version of Anki for the iPhone (which appears in Installer.app in BigBoss' repository):

• No, the current app version will not work with the 3G (that I know of; if you have got it working, please send me an email so that I might post instructions)
• Yes, there are bugs in this unofficial version
• No, I am not continuing development on this (outdated) version, since I am now developing the application for the App store. While I really appreciate what the iPhone jailbreakers and underground coders are doing and wish to see their projects flourish, I feel that this flashcard project deserves the attention and stability of a mainstream application.

That said, I always intend to keep any developed software free of charge, even though it will be in the iPhone App Store. It is a principle I believe in implicitly, and will go to all lengths to avoid ever being forced to restrict access to software (as long as I enjoy what I'm developing and need not entirely join the corporate masses).

On a more personal note, I've made the journey back to Los Angeles and settled in. Life is fast-paced, but pleasant. I'll leave you with this photo (of Windows hanging entirely as the Mac chugs along) that I took while transferring files from my ThinkPad/Windows to my MacBook Pro... an appropriate picture which would feel at home in a "switch" advertisement (though, as an amusing counter-point, my phone calls kept dropping on my iPhone whilst inside the Apple store, and 3G/Edge all around Los Angeles is a sad joke, and Mobile Safari crashes every other page refresh):