One of the most frustrating things about the previous version of the iPhone software was password entry. Apple used a masked entry field, which means that instead of seeing what you type, you see a splat. On a computer with a big monitor, that’s understandable; you don’t want someone stealing your password by looking over your shoulder. But on the iPhone, it seemed a bit silly, and it was incredibly hard to know if you’d typed your password properly.

But with iPhone 2.0, things have changed. It still uses a masked entry field, but now the most-recently typed letter is visible until you type the next character, or for about 2 seconds if that’s the last letter. Oh, mama, that’s an awesome improvement. I will make far fewer errors now! 🙂

My download of the iPhone 2.0 kit finished successfully. I then installed it a restored my settings and such. Now, about 25 minutes later, I’ve installed my first app. I’m going to be digging through the App Store for a while tonight, looking for cool things to install.

I can’t wait until tomorrow to get the new iPhone 2.0 software. I’m downloading it now at a rate of 715.47K/s and once it’s downloaded, I’m gonna slap it on my phone. I’m using the instructions found here for the procedure.

Ooh! Only 2:24 until it’s finished downloading.

Like 10 million other iPhone fanboys, I applied for the Apple iPhone developer program. Today, one week after applying, I received this email

Thank you for expressing interest in the iPhone Developer Program. We have received your enrollment request. As this time, the iPhone Developer Program is available to a limited number of developers and we plan to expand during the beta period. We will contact you again regarding your enrollment status at the appropriate time.

Thank you for applying.

Best regards,

iPhone Developer Program

And I’ve seen lots of other people on Twitter complaining of getting the same email. One disappointed reject said this

As I understand it, no one got in except for a handful of large partner companies alla Google.

It’s bad enough that the “free SDK” isn’t actually free since you have to pay $99 to be able to load your apps on your own iPhone, but now they’re rejecting hopeful developers in bulk. They ought to let everyone in who wants in. What’s the harm?

Gee… I wonder if I’m violating some NDA by blogging this? I’m sure some of the helpful souls on the xcode-users list will let me know if I am.

Like 10 bajillion other Mac fans yesterday, I downloaded the iPhone SDK. It took me four tries to get it, but I finally got it. I installed all 5.3 GB of it, and rebooted (reboot? what is this, Windows?) and then created a sample project, just like the ADC video shows. I excitedly clicked the ‘Build and Go’ button and… nothing. Well, not completely nothing, but not what was supposed to happen.

What was supposed to happen was that the app would build, the iPhone simulator would start up, the app would be loaded onto the simulator and then it would run. My app built, but the simulator didn’t run. All I saw was ‘Debugging of “Sample” ended normally’ in the Xcode status bar. I checked the Xcode console, and I get this every time I try to run the app:

[Session started at 2008-03-07 16:42:09 -0500.]
2008-03-07 16:42:10.772 Sample[1326:10b] Warning: CFFIXED_USER_HOME is not set!
2008-03-07 16:42:10.793 Sample[1326:10b] Warning: ASPEN_SIMULATOR_ROOT is not set!
Terminating since there is no system event server.
(Run the EventPump or pass the argument "-RegisterForSystemEvents" if you want to run without SpringBoard.

The Debugger has exited with status 0.

I’ve been exchanging emails with people inside Apple about this and the only suggestion so far was to run the uninstall script in /Developer/Library and reinstall. I have done both, but it still doesn’t work. Upon the suggestion of a friend, I created a new user account, logged in as that user and tried from there. Everything worked. Which means Xcode, the SDK and the simulator are all installed properly, but something in my account is dorking things up. I am loath to ditch my account and start over from scratch, but obviously something is wrong. Does anyone have any suggestions? I am awaiting another email from my guy at Apple, but if anyone else knows anything, please let me know. And when/if I get it working, I will document what worked here.

03/08/2008 21:47 Update: It’s working! w00t! It appears that if you are running Xcode in 64-bit mode, you get the errors that I got. If you run Xcode in 32-bit mode, it works. Now, I had switched to 64-bit mode when I installed Xcode 3.0, but when I installed 3.1, it got reset to 32-bit mode. Only it didn’t get reset, at least not for my user account. That’s why when I created another user account, it worked for him. I right-clicked on Xcode in my dock and selected ‘Show in Finder.’ Then I right-clicked on the Xcode icon and selected ‘Get Info.’ On the Get Info screen is a checkbox labeled ‘Open in 32 Bit Mode’ and it was checked. I unchecked it, launched Xcode and the same problem happened. Then I re-checked it, re-launched Xcode, and now the simulator works. If I uncheck it, the problem returns, proving the cause. Thus, you must run Xcode in 32-bit mode and even if you think you’re running in 32-bit mode, it wouldn’t hurt to toggle that checkbox a time or two just to make sure. (Thanks to Daniel Cliche who suggested the 64-bit problem.)

Since getting my iPhone, I’ve visited two Kroger stores near my house and in both stores I was unable to access the Internet over the EDGE network. In both stores I had 5 bars of signal, and in both stores I was able to place calls, so it wasn’t a signal problem. But in both stores, trying to access any website using Safari failed with a message about not being able to find the server. Now, in both stores the iPhone popped up its list of available WiFi networks and in both stores that list contained a single network called “nomad5.” In both cases the network was private, so I didn’t try to connect.

Am I seeing something nefarious where there is nothing? Is it just coincidence that in both of these Kroger stores I was unable to get on the EDGE network, despite the fact that I had a perfect signal? Is there some technical aspect that I don’t understand? I’d love an answer to this. There is a third Kroger that is about 5 minutes from my house, so I will try to get to it and run a test to see what happens there.