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Apple having troubles with updates

We've experienced some really weird behavior with iTunes yesterday and today with the update to one of our games (iAssociate 2). We had an update (v1.8.4) which we released yesterday (as we normally do every three weeks) and at first everything seemed to go ok, we got the message Ready for Sale from Apple, and within an hour or so we saw that the update was available for download on iTunes.

However, some hours after that, maybe 3 or 4, iTunes again started showing our previous version (v1.8.3) as the latest available, even though iTunes Connect only shows the latest version. We then tried changing the release date of our app, and, sure enough, this update was pushed out to iTunes, which caused v.1.8.4 to become available for download, but again, within two hours v1.8.3 re-appeared.

After that we've tried changing the copyright text for the app, and this has now always caused the most current, v1.8.4, version to become available, but it has always 2-3 hours later the latest, been replaced with the old v1.8.3 version.

We can verify from our own logs that when v1.8.4 is available it is being downloaded and people are able to play it, so the update itself is working well, it's just iTunes that for some reason keeps forcing our old update back.

Screenshots from today, for how the update has shown up:

iAssociate 2 in iTunes
At 5.44pm v1.8.4

At 5.44pm we had v1.8.4 live

At 7.34pm v1.8.3

At 7.34pm it was back to v1.8.3

At 8.06pm v1.8.4

At 8.06pm we got 1.8.4 back by changing the Copyright text

At 10.08pm v1.8.3

But at 10.08pm it was once again back to v1.8.3

As you can see, if we change something in iTunes Connect, then we'll get the real update live, but, an hour or two later it again reverts to the previous version.

If you want to follow the updates regarding the status, check out our Facebook page at iAssociate 2 Facebook fan page


Cruel Jewels video preview

So it seems now Cruel Jewels will get delayed by a week, meaning we'll have it out on August 9.

Until then, here's a short preview video of the game =) Enjoy!


Summer update

Today lots of people are heading off for vacation, so I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to get everyone updated on what's going on here at TicBits.

As our previous blogpost stated we planned to have two new games out in May. Unfortunately as it often goes in the gaming industry these games got delayed a bit. However, I'm happy to announce that our latest and greatest card game Solitaire Gold is out! It's a further improved solitaire game with a quest (like the one in our FreeCell) and much improved graphics. And as with all our games: It's free!

You can get it from here for your iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.

On an even more exciting topic, one of our bigger game projects just got done and submitted to Apple for review. This is a game we're extremely excited about! We aim to have it out on August 2nd. But more on this later!

And once that game is released we've got yet another exciting release coming up a short period after that. Without spoiling what it is too much, what I can tell you is that it's another word game =) We think you will really like this one.

Have a great summer everyone!

Cruel Jewels! ;)

TicBits turns 2

Even though it seems like it wasn't too long ago that we discussed with Niklas about the possibility of forming a gaming company of our own today is actually TicBits second birthday! Our second year has been a great experience, as, when we celebrated our last birthday in April 2011 we started thinking about going forth with our first recruitment, which led to us in the spring of 2011 hiring our two first employees. And our recruitment didn't stop there, but, over the year we've continued our expansion so that TicBits today employs eight persons. This expansion has also meant that we've had to move to larger offices twice during this year, so that we're now in an office that's about seven times as large as our first one.

Our year hasn't been all about adding more employees, we've also been able to focus a lot on both adding more content to our existing games, as well as releasing new games on the market. Some of the games we released we're Mahjong :), Solitaire :) and FreeCell :). Besides those games two new ones are also nearing completion, so, with luck we'll have two brand new games out in May 2012!

Thanks a lot to everyone who has supported us through these first two years, we're doing our best to make sure all of you get the best possible content from us in the future as well!


Busy spring for TicBits

A quick spring update on upcoming TicBits projects. We've been busy all winter working on some cool new projects for all of you, and I'm happy to say that three games (yes, three) are now nearing completion and will all be out sometime during the spring.

Two of the projects are totally new games, one which has a lot of sparkle in it, and another which will put your linguistic skills to a test. The third project will put you to work on a quest in a game that's already familiar to a lot of people.

And, these projects aren't the only thing we've been busy with, we're also making sure our older games are kept fresh, with regular updates to iAssociate 2 appearing every three weeks, and now, in about a week, we'll also be releasing an update to Mahjong :), where we add two new levels to the game.

Besides working on games, we've also expanded our team during this spring, with a new developer, which means that you can expect even more great projects from us in the future!