So I was writing my first [iPhone on Rails][1] app when my [Google Reader][2] dropped some pretty awful news on me. Somebody pre-empted my release with their (pretty excellent, but poorly named) “Bargain Bin with Push!” app ([iTunes link][3]).

The Bad News

“Bargain Bin with Push!” does pretty much exactly what my app was going to do. It provides push notifications when apps you’re interested in drop in price. Instead of raging against the dying of the light, I’ve decided to just user their app and let mine go gently into that good night.

The Good News

All was not lost. I learned a ton along the way and decided to open-source the module I was using to fetch app information out of Apple’s App Store.

The Goods

[The code is on GitHub, of course][4]. Clone, fork and branch to your heart’s content. Hopefully somebody will find it useful.

[1]: “http://iphoneonrails.com/” [2]: “http://www.google.com/reader/shared/05234492019244193889” [3]: “http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=302951751&mt=8” [4]: “http://github.com/jerodsanto/app_store”