Cissy brought an iPad back from a business trip to Hong Kong recently, and I have started writing educational games for our four-year-old. I have a bit of a history of starting to write educational games for myself, but then never really using them, always more interested in studying and playing with the technology rather than studying and playing with the content. So maybe this a good solution for both me and Kai (who has had some fun with letters on the now defunct OLPC, my Kindle and my Android phone).

I have to pay Apple an annual 99 USD for the privilege of putting my own software on my own hardware (because their online developer subscription service does not accept Chinese credit cards, I had to pay an additional five dollars to send them a fax. A fax! In 2012! To a company supposedly at the fore-front of innovation). I am not complaining too much, because the developer tools themselves are free and excellent, and if you think of the iPad more as an appliance (like a phone or a gaming console), this process is still a lot cheaper and easier than what was available just a few years ago. Think about how many hurdles the the Nintendo or PlayStation homebrew community has to jump through.

In order to recoup some of the investment, I'll put the more presentable games up for sale (which my 99 USD subscription also enables me to do). The first one has just cleared a ten-day review phase, and is now available on the German and Austrian iTunes stores.

If you are not embarrassed about the first release, you have waited too long. That was the motto of a talk I attended this week. And indeed, there are a few things in there that need fixing. I am mostly done with them, but I'll hold back on the update a little to wait for some actual costumer feedback.