Thank You, App #1 Complete

Question

This is a big THANK YOU to Ray Newbie, etresoft, K T, Q Lazarus, Tech Guru and the others who have been so helpful in this forum, and others who asked the same questions I have had, and gotten answers found in these forums.
In a little less than two months, from inception to completion, and just over one month for this particular project, I received answers to using Arrays, using NSNotifications, UIWebViews and delegates, help with tracking down "EXCBADACCESS”, sound file formats, PNG conversions, UIView/device orientation, character set selectors, and advice on button symbols. I also spent a few days working with Photoshop and AudioShop/SoundMachine and ResEdit on my older systems. (Actually the guts of the app took less than a week to code. All the rest was setting up the UI and doing battle with delegates and more UI.)
My first app is finished and working. It uses a Utility template, with 2 extra views off the flipside view controller, a data picker, and a web view. The game plays, now has 92 levels/scenes, uses the settings bundle, includes unlimited undo capability. Scores, state and the scene library are all stored in the Documents directory with initial blank copies or templates in the app bundle. It also saves its state and restores to where the player left off upon restart.
This includes the current state of the pieces, and the entire undo chain. It plays sounds when pieces are moved, and animates transitions via modal view controller methods. The info button fades in and out, currently every 10 seconds, but touches on the game board reset the timer to stay hidden. A touch in the status area causes the info button to immediately fade in. It uses touches and swipes (or flicks) for moving the pieces.
On October 1st, I submitted my request for the $99 developer's program so I can get a certificate to sign my code and do testing on-device instead of just the simulator. I was expecting it to take a day or two more to finish. Now, it's time to polish the instructions and verify that I didn't break anything in drawing the scenes, or creating the persistence code. Then, I'm ready to submit it to the App Store.
Thank You so much for your help. I'm sure I wouldn't have made as much progress without your help, nor as quickly. Of course, I've also been learning the ins and outs of Objective-C, since I don't count the 4 or 5 example programs I wrote 3 or 4 years ago while starting in on the Hilgress Cocoa book.
I'll gladly accept any advice on marketing for a puzzle-style game.
I'd also like to know what anyone has done as far as beta testers, since either physical access to a device or downloads from the App Store seem to be the only release channels, and I'd like to have someone other than myself test it out before I put it in the App Store.
Thanks!
-Carl

Answer 1

Thanks everyone.
I've noted the leads you've included. Some pretty good stuff.
The MeetUp group in SF sounds interesting, I'll have to check it out.
I'm also open to distributing a packaged binary, or making one available.
Probably safer to know what's been sent out, and send it via eMail rather than
providing a link to a server based download. App in simulator is 6.5MB, and it
compresses to 1.4MB in zip form. I'll add a link to a web contact page so no
email addresses need to be posted anywhere for anyone interested.
Now that all the hard work is done, I want to release the same app as a Dashboard
Widget, and for Mac OSX, although the market there is nowhere as large as the
iPhone and iPod market.
Feel free to add additional links or comments. It's great to have you guys and girls
out there for support. As a one-person operation it can get pretty tawdry figuring
out what to look for in the docs. Many days of "I know there has to be a way to do this!"
I'm happy and willing to learn what else is out there.