code snippet.m

	NSString *plist_path = [NSHomeDirectory() stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"audio_recording_number.plist"];
	NSLog(@"plist path: %@", plist_path);
	NSLog(@"file exists: %i", [[NSFileManager defaultManager] fileExistsAtPath:plist_path]);
	
    if ([[NSFileManager defaultManager] fileExistsAtPath:plist_path]) {
		NSLog(@"found audio config file");
	} else {
		NSLog(@"did not find audio config file");
		audio_recording_number = [NSNumber numberWithInteger:0];
		NSDictionary *audio_properties = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObject:audio_recording_number forKey:@"number_of_recordings"];
		[audio_properties writeToFile:plist_path atomically:YES];
	}

console output

2010-05-26 14:07:51.323 flower[40853:207] plist path: /Users/mschwab/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/3.1.3/Applications/084FD774-FBD7-4EDC-AFE9-B3FB2A0552A8/audio_recording_number.plist
2010-05-26 14:07:51.324 flower[40853:207] file exists: 0
2010-05-26 14:07:51.325 flower[40853:207] did not find audio config file

terminal output

mschwab$ cat /Users/mschwab/Library/Application\ Support/iPhone\ Simulator/3.1.3/Applications/084FD774-FBD7-4EDC-AFE9-B3FB2A0552A8/audio_recording_number.plist
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
	<key>number_of_recordings</key>
	<integer>0</integer>
</dict>
</plist>

the console output indicates that the fileManager cannot confirm that the file exists at that path.

however, when I built this code against the 3.2 SDK, it worked properly.