Unless you have been sleeping under a rock around here, then you know our very own Brandon Steili recently released his first app to the iTunes App Store.  Personally, I found that gCalWall was exactly what I needed: a program that would put your calendar on your iPhone/iPod Touch lock screen.

The last time we met to discuss this program, I mentioned two pretty significant criticisms of the program.  One was Apple’s problem, and one was Brandon’s.  Well, I am happy to report that Brandon took this criticism and addressed it in the latest release of the program.  Specifically, gCalWall is now able to download multiple calendars from your Google calendar.  As someone who uses about a dozen different calendars, I can tell you that this will make the program infinitely more usable for me, and probably for many of you as well.

Unfortunately, Apple still imposes unreasonable restraints on developers, meaning that Brandon is unable (not unwilling) to add any kind of automatic refresh.  Come on, Apple, this is ridiculous, let Brandon give the people what they really want.

Check out gCalWall at the iTunes App Store, still for the low price of only $0.99.

Earlier in the week, I reviewed GCalWall, the first (and hopefully not last) iPhone app from JAMM team member Brandon Steili.  He and I have spent a considerable amount of time talking about the included features and what is/is not possible on the iPhone.  Sadly, many of the limitations of the program (such as not automatically updating) are limitations imposed by the iPhone SDK, not Brandon’s technical prowess.  In fact, he is just as frustrated by some of these limitations as any of us.  Anyway, last night, iTunes finally pushed the new GCalWall upgrade to my iPod Touch, which I quickly downloaded and installed.

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Here’s something you can ONLY do if you own the shop…

Thankfully I do own the shop. Alright, well maybe not the whole shop, but part of the shop anyway. You may have (or may not have) noticed that I took the time develop an app for the iPhone. Took a lot of work to figure out and I plan on documenting some of it once I get done with the 4 billion other things I have to do (including a review of the HP Mini Mi). But the documentation is coming.

Want to know what else is coming? Version 1.1 of gCalWall – with improved speed, a re-worked UI and text alignment selection. So, to celebrate I’ve dropped the price until Sunday to $0.99! and I’ve decided to give away a few copies…

So – what do you have to do to win? Almost nothing – just send the following message out to your friends on Twitter:

Make sure to follow @justamonday for all kinds of mobile news and giveaways like the iPhone app gCalWall – http://is.gd/kLVI (iTunes)

Then come back here and leave your twitter username in the comments. The first FIVE people who do that will get a free promo code for gCalWall. Oh … and make sure you’re following @justamonday or we won’t be able to DM the codes to you! If you’re interested you can also follow me @brandonsteili to find out the latest on what I’m up to.

One of the things that has always bothered me about my iPod Touch is the wasted space on the lock screen.  I mean, here is a whole screen that displays every time you access you device, and there is nothing you can do with it.  If you ask me what I would like to put there, I would choose my calendar.  How cool would it be to glance at your lock screen and find a list of your next five appointments right there.

Well, lucky for me, here at JAMM we have our own in-house developer.  And by that, I mean Brandon is a valued member of our team, and also now develops iPhone apps.  His first application, gCalWall was just released at the iTunes App Store.  Let’s take a look.

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As some of you may know, we at JAMM are friends with numerous developers of Palm, Windows Mobile, and iPhone apps.  what I suspect you did not know is that we have a developer living right here among us.  Our very own Brandon Steili, system administrator and reviewer extraordinaire announced today that his first app for the iPhone will be released to the iTunes App Store this Wednesday, February 25.

I had a sneak peek at this app, and I have to tell you it is really quite clever.  I don’t want to spoil any surprised for you folks, but I can tell you that this app does something which I know a lot of people will be happy to see.  Let’s just say that it takes your gCal or Google Calendar and puts that information on your iPhone Wall (ahem…lock screen…).  Hence the name, gCal Wall. 

Says Brandon in his post over at Just Another iPhone Blog:

More important than just the app, I guess this validates for me that you can teach an old dog new tricks… a couple months ago the closest I’d come to programming in many, many years was some simple VBScript stuff, and the minor bit of PHP/HTML I have to maintain at JAMM. So, naturally I need to send a HUGE thanks out to all the folks who have taken the time to write tutorials for beginners, the folks who’ve written the books (specifically Erica Sadun, Dave Mark/Jeff LaMarche), and everyone whose taken time to reply to noob questions on forums. There’s a serious wealth of information out there for a beginning programmer and its all come to life in a matter of months – so THANKS!

So watch the iTunes App store this Wednesday for gCalWall (who knows, maybe Brandon will decide to give away a few promo codes).  and keep watching for Brandon’s thoughts on his experience with the iTunes App development process, as well as my extremely thorough hands on review.

Congratulations, Brandon!