I've had many serious posts here on the Inside iPhone blog, but today I get to shake things up with a little levity.

At the dawn of the Mac OS X era (say 2001-2003), there were many new programmers, both to the Mac and to programming in general. As a result, there were also many new Mac programs. Many of these applications were not entirely professional. Like stories written by a child, these efforts were often worthwhile, but their creators were lacking in experience. Unlike stories written by a child, these applications were often sold for the same prices as professionally-produced software.

At the time, there was a site which took on the task of excoriating some of the worst offenders. This site was called PerversionTracker and its archives are accessible here. Brent Simmons, of NetNewsWire fame, has said that the only advertising he ever did was a $20 ad on PerversionTracker. I won't give all the credit for NNW's success to one website, but PvT was a good site nonetheless. Sadly, it eventually stopped updating, presumably as site creator ladd went slowly insane from excess exposure to awful software.

It's 2008, we again have a new platform, the iPhone. There are again many new programmers, new both to the Mac way of doing things and to programming in general. There are also hundreds of new iPhone applications, and many of these efforts are lacking in polish, experience and quality. But who, you ask, will take on these applications, spreading the word of their abyssal failures? How can we, as consumers, learn about the worst of the worst?

Fear not, for like a crotchety phoenix rising from grumpy flames, PerversionTracker is back! Ladd appears to be ready to combat the suck appearing now on the iPhone. So head over to the newly-reopened PerversionTracker and enjoy!