The three days before I submitted DutchTab to Apple for publication on the App Store were hectic. Apple had set a deadline to application vendors: if we wanted to be part of the App Store on the Grand Opening day (July 11th), we had to submit our applications before noon Pacific time on monday the 7th. I was made aware of this deadline 5 days before, on the 2nd.

To be quite honest, before receiving this ultimatum I did not really intend to have DutchTab ready for the Grand Opening of the App Store. I didn’t think it would be possible to make it in time, as I was barely beginning to feel comfortable with Cocoa and Objective-C, the tools required to build an iPhone application.

But, as is often the case when faced with a tight deadline, I took this as a challenge. I felt like I might be able to have something ready in time for the 7th, so I talked with my wife about it to see what she thought of this crazy idea. She immediately supported me without hesitation, and offered to take care of the kids during the weekend so I could work on this heads-down, without any interruption.

Therefore, two of the most important ingredients were offered to me on a silver plate: a tight deadline and quality time.

However, I did not have ample supplies of the latter. So I had to make some compromises. Since I did not want to cut in quality, I decided to cut in the quantity of features I would deliver in this first version. Two of the most important features that I had to put aside were the integration with the Address Book and the ability to send debt reports by email.

It was a tough call, as I felt like these 2 features were essential for DutchTab to shine. But I was running out of time, and I really wanted to provide a quality application to Apple before the deadline. Now that the deadline has been met and version 1.0 has been out, I have been able to find the bit of time that I needed to add those two features.

So I am pleased to announce the immediate availability of DutchTab 1.1 on the App Store! Here’s what this new version has to offer on top of what was already in version 1.0:

• It is now possible to use the Address Book to select bill participants.
• It is now possible to send the debt report by email to each participant.
• Various minor user-interface adjustments.

As with all application updates on the App Store, this update is free for all existing DutchTab customers.

Enjoy!

Last friday, when I posted about my new venture in iPhone application development, I forgot a very important part: giving credit to people without whom DutchTab would not have been possible. So today I will try to make up for it by dedicating this post to everybody to whom I am indebted:

• Thanks to Martin, who created the ancestor of DutchTab some time ago. The application concept and bill splitting algorithm are his ideas, and he kindly allowed me to use them. Since he was already working on a Windows Mobile version, we decided to use a common branding for our products, so we share the same product name and icon. Martin, it has been a lot of fun doing this with you and I will be forever grateful to you for letting me do it!
• Thanks to Jenny and Marc for helping me find the name of the product, DutchTab.
• Thanks to Catherine for creating a gorgeous icon for DutchTab on such a short notice!
• Thanks to Caroline for taking care of the kids and allowing me to work heads-down during the 3 days that preceded my submission of DutchTab to the App Store. I love you!

Today marks the beginning of a new venture for Polkapps: iPhone application development. During the past few weeks, I have been heads-down learning how to program for this small computer that you can hold in your pocket and the fruit of my labor is already available on the iTunes App Store!

The application I built is called DutchTab. It lets you easily split bills between friends and co-workers, and is most useful when a bunch of people order lunch and there is only one bill for the whole order. It lets those who have cash with them cover the bill, then get paid back their due later.

If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, I invite you to check it out and tell me what you think! And if you have a device that runs Windows Mobile, you too can enjoy DutchTab: my good friend Martin from slimCODE is putting the finishing touches on DutchTab for Windows Mobile, and it should be available soon.

I took the release of DutchTab as an opportunity to finally build my new website, which had been in the “coming soon” state for way too long. I’m not quite done with the migration of the TuneSleeve content from its current location, so the new Polkapps site still links to the old TuneSleeve site for now. But the move to the new website should be complete within a few weeks.

Speaking of TuneSleeve: those of you who have been patiently waiting for an update to TuneSleeve should rest assured that I still plan on doing the upgrade I talked about months ago. In fact, I should be getting back to TuneSleeve pretty soon now that my first iPhone project is behind me.

Also, this iPhone development experience means good news for everybody who have been waiting for TuneSleeve on the Mac: Since programming for the iPhone is very similar to programming for the Mac, I now have the skills required to make a Mac version of TuneSleeve so it could become a reality sooner than expected.

Have a great summer!