Can’t Seem to Digg Your iPhone Anymore These Days?

Digg has changed more than just its style recently, and apparently has left their third-party development teams screaming for a transition back to the old Diggs.  The bottom line is that the iPhone App does not work at all anymore.  I use to be an avid ‘Digger’ myself, until the iPhone came out and my RSS reading habits changed greatly.  This was also about the time where I stopped subscribing to feeds individually, and started using Google Reeder exclusively.  When  the official iPhone version of Digg came out, I became a ‘Digger’ once again.  The look and feel of the new iPhone App was so impressive that I modified my online reading behavior slightly, and starting ‘Digging’ into popular feeds once again.  I consider myself a member of theDiggnation and have even been part of the studio audience of “The Screen Savers” back in the day.  So when the iPhone version of the App stopped working, I Started Digging a little deeper to figure out what was the matter.  I did what any self-respecting iPhone veteran would have done:

• Terminated the App by removing it from the list of suspended Apps in iOS 4
• Turned off my iOS device, then powered it back on
• Removed the App from my device and re-installed the App
• Checked to see if I could access my Digg account online via my Mac
• Check to see if I had installed an update to the App recently, and if so, revert back to the prior version
• Reset my iOS device and perform some basic trouble shooting (then repeated the first three steps again)
• Look Digg’s App Store Page to see if the developer has posted a notice of a future version that would resolve the issue
• Looked at the Developer’s Website to see if there was any information about the problem
• Wrote an e-mail to Digg’s developer support team asking what had happened
• Checked out Digg’s third-party developers API documentation site and forums

It was this last step that proved that I was indeed not crazy.  The developer forums have been buzzing with requests to bring back the prior version of the APIs.  It appears as if the update to the Digg site had some unforeseen consequences.  Kevin Rose has eventweeted about some of the issues since he has taken charge earlier this year and has vowed that an update was coming that would resolve many of the issues.

Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2010 22:00:02 -0700
From: Digg Support
Subject: Re: [Contact Digg] Bug Report - General
Hi,
Due to the launch of the new version of Digg and related bugs, the app
is not currently working as it should, but m.digg.com is and the app
should be fully functional shortly.
Thanks for your patience.
– Digg Support Team
Follow us on Twitter – @digg
Learn more in our FAQ section: http://about.digg.com/faq

Then I received the above response from the Digg support team, basically verifying my findings.  It appears that it is not only the iPhone App that is suffering from the ill effects of the redesign.  Several individuals of the Diggnation have spoken up and voiced their opinion on the redesign.  With all of the Buzz about Digg online lately, perhaps I should switch back my RSS reading habits, as I would have seen the issue with Digg posted a lot sooner if I was not depending on Digg itself to let me know what topics were trending hot.  With any luck, the iOS Digg App will be functional before Digg elects a new CEO to run the company.

Mystery Island, Now Just a Message In the Bottle

I typically get software update notices at least every other day (more so following OS X releases) for all of the Mac software I have purchased over the years. Typically the I make a mental note of the update and plan on downloading and installing at a later time. Not this time. I received an interesting correspondence from Koingo Software. They informed me of my prior purchases and let me know how to upgrade my existing license. Just the usual information from a company you bought software from. Then the interesting bit, a scavenger hunt. An old scavenger hunt that has been going on for some time now.  Apparently they have lost one of their original software titles a while back and are still looking for anyone that may have a copy residing on an old hard drive or backup volume. The software title in question was the original release of Mystery Island. You may recall the tag line: “Millionaire James Harvey has died and his son inherited it all. Now he is missing. It is your job to solve the mystery!” According to Koingo, the archive was originally 42 MB and was a .sea file called “Mystery_Island_Full.sea.” So I quickly ran over to a stack of old MacAddict (now MacLife) disks that I still have looking to see if the title was on any of the discs I still have. Sadly no. It is an intriguing situation as not very many current Apple customers have had Macs since that time. It would be interesting to know if you remember playing this game back in the day, and even more so if you happen to still have an original copy of the installer. You could now score $500 from Koingo Software if you do.