Posted by: bearc0025 | May 15, 2012

Saving JSON to Core Data | Cocoa Is My Girlfriend

Tom Harrington post on CoreData/JSON conversion…

You may know me as @atomicbird on Twitter. Just a few days ago my book Core Data for iOS: Developing Data-Driven Applications for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch (co-written with the excellent Tim Isted) was published, and Matt invited me to contribute some Core Data tips to CIMGF. I’m going to start off discussing taking JSON data from a web service and converting it to Core Data storage. Along the way I’ll cover how to inspect managed objects to find out what attributes they have and what the attribute types are.

via Saving JSON to Core Data | Cocoa Is My Girlfriend.

Posted by: bearc0025 | May 8, 2012

OrderGuide App – Inventory By Touch

OrderGuide Inventory app on the App Store

Anyone or any employee can run inventory now (iPhone/iPod/iPad)! Add your inventory items and the order criteria and anyone can walk thru the shop and take inventory!

Synced with iCloud so all your devices have the same data. Start inventory on one device, finish with another!

Distributors:
Order Guide lets you add distributors (or stores) including address, contact info (and let’s you call or email) and notes. Now you can run inventory by distributor.

Locations:
You add your various locations which may be if you have multiple physical locations or just the various locations around your shop: Kitchen, Closet, etc. Now you can run inventory by location – check items upstairs, downstairs, back room, etc.

Inventory:
Add your items including name, notes, location, criteria of when to order, how much to order, cost, etc.

BUILT IN WEBSERVER!
This lets you add your inventory via a webpage instead of on the iOS device. Use a real keyboard!

Now you can run inventory by distributor, location and/or alphabetically! You (or an employee) just looks at the item’s order criteria (e.g., “less than 3″), if there’s less than 3 left, they turn ON the order switch.

As you run inventory, it calculates the bill at the top so you know how much you’re spending.

When it’s time to send, it builds an email with the full order (or separate emails for each distributor using the distributor’s contact email). The email uses your company name and contact info (see Settings).

Designed in conjunction with a cafe owner so it’s got real-world input from owners like you!

Send feedback and ideas to support@brainwashinc.com

Posted by: bearc0025 | April 30, 2012

Apple Mac App Store Gatekeeper and Developer ID

From Apple…

The Mac App Store is the safest place for users to get software for their Mac, but we also want to protect users when they get applications from other places. Gatekeeper is a new feature in OS X Mountain Lion that helps protect users from downloading and installing malicious software. Signing your applications, plug-ins, and installer packages with a Developer ID certificate lets Gatekeeper verify that they are not known malware and have not been tampered with.
Mac Developer Program members can sign applications with their Developer ID now to get ready for Gatekeeper. If you’re not already a member, join the Mac Developer Program today.
So it seems Apple wants to protect you from potential issues even w/ apps that don’t go thru their review process.
It’s one part virus scanner and one part standards creator. There’s no telling what they could, at some point, require developers to do in order to pass thru “the Gatekeeper.”
I’m not too much of a conspiracy theorist but there is room here to theorize. When someone/something steps up in the name of protecting you, there’s always room for abuse.
I don’t develop for the Mac/OSX so this doesn’t affect me (as of now). And I don’t have a problem w/ the control they have over the App Store. I believe Apple generally wants developers going thru the App Store to do well bc it’s good for their business. But this is different since it’s for people specifically not going thru their App Store.
Also, this email was sent to developers. From a consumer perspective, I’ve never heard of Gatekeeper so that might be coming later – get the developers on board and then promote Gatekeeper w/ some number of apps already developed for it.
Anyway, this doesn’t affect me know, but I wanted to mention it to y’all that might be more affected or interested and hadn’t heard about it yet.
Posted by: bearc0025 | April 19, 2012

DIY Attack – Draw-It-Yourself Game!

Now Availabile on the App Store!

YOU draw the game – the character, the ammo, the scrolling background and more! And you record the sound effects from the pew-pew to the explosions.

I’m not much of an artist so I figured you could do better. Fun for kids to make up their own game and have a train shooting lizards at flying tuna cans or whatever you want!

If you have an image online, you can enter the URL to download the image and use that. Warning – it will scale the image so square images are best.

Future features include letting you use the camera to set the theme images and sharing themes with others!

Check it out here!

Posted by: bearc0025 | April 10, 2012

iPhone Development: Using Core Data with iCloud

A couple of good, similar posts about getting your Core Data database in iCloud for apps…

iOS How-To : Using Core Data with iCloud – Une goutte d’eau dans la mare du web.

http://timroadley.com/2012/04/03/core-data-in-icloud/

These steps/methods are pretty much cut-and-paste but require some Provisioning Portal steps, etc.

I had to remove the dispatch call…

dispatch_async(dispatch_get_global_queue(DISPATCH_QUEUE_PRIORITY_DEFAULT, 0), ^{

… in Tim’s persistentStoreCoordinator method. It seemed to be a timing issue.

Posted by: bearc0025 | March 26, 2012

Draw Something Email

If you play Draw Something, you may have received the email below from March 24th.

I believe in a fairly short email, there’s a lot to notice…

  • It starts w/ love
  • They use humor, pop culture and informality (friendly)
  • They quickly point out features they’re going to add which basically answers the questions users’ have had while identifying WITH the user (as opposed to an opponent stating something like “Fine, we’ll give you what you want.” They position themselves as ‘these are great features’/additions.).
  • It points out they recognize they have bugs and are fixing them.
  • They ask for more input on improvements.
  • They recommending rebooting the device.

As a developer, I love to see this. No app is prefect. Even Apple apps crash. The point is, we need to identify WITH the user and recognize that even as great as iOS devices are, sometimes they need to be rebooted.

I think users are mostly ok w/ this type of thing. I see a lot of reviews talking about how “Well, it’s version 1 so I’ll give them time to fix these problems.”

Even though we should aim for perfection, ‘done’ is better than perfect. And from there, recognize that our customers are on our team.

———

Have we told you lately that we love you? Well WE DO! You guys and gals around the world have made this game amazing and we are so humbled and thankful to you for playing and sharing with us.

When we aren’t busy drawing new Hunger Games words or new words like Kung Fu or Green Day here at Draw Something HQ, we have been cranking out new features. Coming soon are:

Sharing drawings on Twitter and Facebook
Save drawings to your devices’ photo library
Notifications for Android devices
Increase of the max streak from 99 to 999 (you guys are rocking it!)
Pull down to refresh game status
UNDO button for your last brush stroke
Even better performance
More words
And a slew of other fixes and tweaks

We also know some of you are encountering issues like:

Coins, colors, and bombs not displaying (If you don’t see them right now, don’t worry, your stuff is safe!)
Games crashing or getting a black screen
Bugs that prevent you from completing your turn

Issues like the above and more will be fixed in our upcoming update! Please continue to reach out and provide info to us in our support community or by replying to this email – we are here for you and doing our best to help everyone as fast as we can!

As a quick note, many common issues are fixed by powering your device off and on. So please give that a shot first!

In addition to all of the above, you can expect more great features in the future – like the much anticipated ability to chat. (We’re excited about that too)

Thanks again for all your support and making Draw Something an amazing success!

-The OMGPOP Team

Posted by: bearc0025 | February 13, 2012

MacOSX 10.7.3 Update Breaks iOS App Validation

This was tricky…

I kept getting:

iPhone/iPod Touch: Icon.png: icon dimensions (0 x 0) don’t meet the size requirements. The icon file must be 57×57 pixels, in .png format (-19014)

I found the fix here:

MacOSX 10.7.3 Update Breaks iOS App Validation.

Thanks Manbolo!

Basically, get the latest version of Application Loader, run it and restart Xcode and try again after a clean build.

Posted by: bearc0025 | February 7, 2012

How to Make an App: iPhone Lock Screen Image

If your app plays music, you may want to handle the remove audio control events. And you might also want to display applicable info like album art and the track name.

It’s not complicated, you mainly just need to know when to update it and what’s available to update. I use a method called updateNowPlaying.

  1. First make sure you’re dealing w/ iOS 5.
  2. Then create your image and trackname.
  3. Use those two items in an array and a matching array of key values (here’s a list of all the key options).
  4. Create a dictionary of the objects and keys.
  5. Set the now playing info (the dictionary from above) in the now playing info center.

 

-(void)updateNowPlaying;
{
    /* make sure the have iOS 5 by checking for the applicable class. */
    // Step 1: Check for iOS 5
    if ([MPNowPlayingInfoCenter class])  
    {
        // Step 2: image and track name
        UIImage *musicImage = [UIImage imageNamed:@"logo.png"];
        MPMediaItemArtwork *albumArt = [[MPMediaItemArtwork alloc] 
            initWithImage:musicImage];

        NSString *trackName = [musicFiles objectAtIndex:curAudioFileIndex];

        // Step 3: Create arrays
        NSArray *objs = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:
            trackName,
            albumArt, nil];

        NSArray *keys = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:
            MPMediaItemPropertyTitle,
            MPMediaItemPropertyArtwork, nil];

        // Step 4: Create dictionary.
        NSDictionary *currentTrackInfo = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjects:objs forKeys:keys];

        // Step 5: Set now playing info
        [MPNowPlayingInfoCenter defaultCenter].nowPlayingInfo = currentTrackInfo;
    }
}

Posted by: bearc0025 | February 6, 2012

How to Build an App: iOS Background Audio Controls

Allowing your app to receive remote audio control events is pretty easy.

The gist of it is to just tell the OS you’re interested in being told of the events. Then you just have a callback for the events and you can act on them.

For the view controller that’s playing music, you can declare interest in receiving the events in the viewWillAppear: method like this…

- (void)viewDidAppear:(BOOL)animated {
    [super viewDidAppear:animated];
    [[UIApplication sharedApplication] beginReceivingRemoteControlEvents];
    [self becomeFirstResponder];
}

Do the reverse in the viewWillDisappear: like this…

- (void)viewWillDisappear:(BOOL)animated {
    [[UIApplication sharedApplication] endReceivingRemoteControlEvents];
    [self resignFirstResponder];
    [super viewWillDisappear:animated];
}

Then you’re ready to handle the events…

- (void) remoteControlReceivedWithEvent: (UIEvent *) receivedEvent {
    if (receivedEvent.type == UIEventTypeRemoteControl) {
        switch (receivedEvent.subtype) {
            case UIEventSubtypeRemoteControlTogglePlayPause:
                [self togglePlayPause];
                break;
            case UIEventSubtypeRemoteControlPreviousTrack:
                [self playPrevTrack];
                break;
            case UIEventSubtypeRemoteControlNextTrack:
                [self playNextTrack];
                break;
            default:
                break;
        }
    }
}

See details here in Apple documentation.

Posted by: bearc0025 | February 3, 2012

How to Build an App: TestFlight – Testing Apps by Users

  I added a new category called ‘how to build an app‘ and this is a great post for it. It’s certainly not the very first step in how to make an app, but it’s important.

TestFlight is a great, free service that allows you to send builds to testers for use on their device. It greatly simplifies the process both in time and technicality. I’ve spent hours with some clients explaining how to install a build (which changes as you can see from that post). It can be cumbersome and flaky at best.

I don’t want to duplicate the TestFlight documentation, but here’s a few of the features that they offer that make things easy and simply for both sides…

Upload builds – dragging an ipa file onto the website is about the hardest part. Granted you need to invite testers (which includes them creating an account etc., but it’s similarly simple: they get an email, click on a link, etc.).

View Crash Reports – I’m not saying your iOS apps crash, but I’ve heard some do. If so, you can view users’ crash reports on the site. I don’t need to tell you how helpful it is to see the symbolicated crash report from a user. And to do it w/o having to walk them thru finding the crash reports, etc.

General Easification – Not a word, but it should be. The point is – TestFlight is great and ‘it just works.’ From including links to setup a device or install a build to explaining how to upload your .dSYM – they clearly are developers and think like it. You can even put in checkpoints to view what your users are doing.

I have no business relationship w/ TestFlight – I use it and love it. Check out the TestFlight SDK documentation and see how quickly you can get started.

Posted by: bearc0025 | October 12, 2011

imageNamed is evil « Under The Bridge

UIImage imageNamed is nice that it caches, but w/o being able to control when it clears the cache, it can be trouble.

However, as this example (below) shows, there’s an easy way to avoid the imageNamed cache, create your own references and clear it when you’d like.

via imageNamed is evil « Under The Bridge.

[myTableView setBackgroundView:nil];

via UITableView backgroundColor always gray on iPad – Stack Overflow.

I ran into this problem where the view backgrounds were always gray. Confusing!

As the post stats, try one of these:

[myTableView setBackgroundView:nil];
[myTableView setBackgroundView:[[[UIView alloc] init] autorelease];

I tried the first - ignoring the warnings as a test - and it worked. This is for an internal/prototype app so I'll wait to see if I get in trouble before heeding the warnings. :)  

Living on the EDGE!

VIDEO: Apple to make iPhone announcement Tuesday – News – Daily Campus – Southern Methodist University.

Some video including me being interviewed on the upcoming (now past) announcement of the iPhone 4S.

Posted by: bearc0025 | September 19, 2011

Create iPad XIB with Xcode 4 – Stack Overflow

Can’t create iPad XIB with Xcode 4 – Stack Overflow.

A helpful post about how to do something that was quite easy in Xcode 3…

 

 

Mac 101: Capture your signature using OS X Lion’s Preview app | TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog.

Lion’s version of Preview comes with a built-in signature scanner that makes signing documents far simpler. In the Annotations toolbar you now have an option to create a signature from your Mac’s built-in iSight camera. All you need to do is use black ink to sign a piece of white paper, align your signature toward the camera using the onscreen guides, and take a snapshot of the signature. (I haven’t used my real signature here, obviously.)

As it states, I never tried it w/ previous versions so I can’t compare. But having a quick way to sign PDFs will be very helpful!

A friend sent this to me and it sounds great – I’ll have to try it. If you do, let me know what you think…

If you add two breakpoints, you should be able to debug these exceptions. To do this, go to Run | Show | Breakpoints and create two global breakpoints (I do them globally because they are so useful in all my applications). The first should be named “objc_exception_throw” and its location should be “libobjc.A.dylib”. The second should be “-[NSException raise]” and its location should be “CoreFoundation”.

Now, if you start debugging your application with breakpoints enabled, it should break on the throw of these exceptions. You should then be able to see the chain of events that led to the exception within the debugger.

via Stack trace or more info on unhandled exception in Xcode/iPhone – Stack Overflow.

It’s quite clear from the Apple documentation that this is possible. As is their wont, they have pages and pages of documentation saying what is possible, but not a single piece of code. And in this case, there is one crucial piece of info missing from their documentation.

via Anna Callahan » Blog Archive » Duck and Resume: a little love from the iPhone music player.

Great post about how to have music fade some, but not completely, when playing another audio file.

Dev Juice: How do I autocomplete in Xcode 4? | TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog.

Creating your own custom snippets and naming them with shortcuts is just as easy. Select text in the Xcode code editor. Click and hold for a second in the selection and then drag it over to the library. It appears at the end of the library list and is named My Code Snippet by default.

I use a lot of completions, but I probably need to start making some of my own. It takes time to save time.

Posted by: bearc0025 | June 30, 2011

iOS 5 beta update iPhone/iPad

I do it every time! The beta of the new iOS comes out, I update to it and regret it. Every time.

Every time I do it, I can’t remember the reason I regret it and so I do it again the next time. I need to write it down… here?

[UPDATE: I also always forget that the betas expire... and never at the right time. Like a smoke alarm beeping in the night.]

So I updated to iOS 5 the other day. Regret. Actually, this time it probably wasn’t as bad as usual…
Read More…

Posted by: bearc0025 | June 22, 2011

Protected: HB Project Spec

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Posted by: bearc0025 | June 8, 2011

Updated App Store Review Guidelines

Updated App Store Review Guidelines by Apple…

The app approval process is in place to ensure that applications are reliable, perform as expected, and are free of explicit and offensive material. We review every app on the App Store based on a set of technical, content, and design criteria. This review criteria is now available to you in the App Store Review Guidelines. These guidelines are designed to help you prepare your iOS and Mac OS X apps for the approval process.

via App Store Review Guidelines – App Store Resource Center.

Posted by: bearc0025 | June 1, 2011

Xcode 4 – “Archive” is greyed out?

you have to select the device in the schemes menu in the top left where you used to select between simulator/device. it won’t let you archive a build for simulator.

via xcode4 – Xcode 4 – “Archive” is greyed out? – Stack Overflow.

Posted by: bearc0025 | May 25, 2011

Protected: Cade Project

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This is a useful tutorial on how to draw to a UIImageView.

via [Tutorial] Drawing to the screen. – iFans – iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch Fans forums.

I made some changes to the code (not to say you need to): I…

  • subclass UIImageView
  • change drawImage.image to self.image
  • added to init: self.userInteractionEnabled = YES;
  • made the double-tap-to-clear a setting and added a similar setting for double-tap-to-erase
  • double-tap-to-erase uses CGContextSetBlendMode(UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext(), kCGBlendModeClear); – works like an eraser (otherwise use CGContextSetBlendMode(UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext(), kCGBlendModeColor);)
  • added UIColor and float setter for draw color and alpha (alpha sets self.alpha – works better than setting the stroke alpha)
  • use [strokeColor setStroke]; to set the stroke color
  • extracted out the context drawing into a method and call it w/ whatever the end point is (either currentPoint or lastPoint)

The result is a UIImageView subclass that takes a color and alpha and optionally either clears all or toggles erase mode w/ a double tap.

Make the contents of the entitlements plist file...

(from http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5449487/iphone-entitlements-problem-with-xcode-4-for-ad-hoc-distribution)

<?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>
    <!--- Required entitlements (in most cases shouldn't be changed) --->
    <key>application-identifier</key>
    <string>$(AppIdentifierPrefix)$(CFBundleIdentifier)</string>
    <key>keychain-access-groups</key>
    <array>
        <string>$(AppIdentifierPrefix)$(CFBundleIdentifier)</string>
    </array>
    
    <!--- Custom entitlements below --->


</dict>
</plist>

via code signing – iPhone Entitlements problem with XCode 4 for Ad Hoc distribution – Stack Overflow.

Posted by: bearc0025 | April 21, 2011

petewarden/iPhoneTracker @ GitHub

This open-source application maps the information that your iPhone is recording about your movements. It doesn’t record anything itself, it only displays files that are already hidden on your computer.

via petewarden/iPhoneTracker @ GitHub.

Posted by: bearc0025 | April 14, 2011

Redrock microRemote Follow Focus app video at NAB

Q&A with Vincent Laforet – Day 3 on Teradek @ NAB 2011 – live streaming video powered by Livestream.

Nice showcasing of the device and app using external accessory communication.

 

Posted by: bearc0025 | April 1, 2011

ShareKit Account Setup Needs

For the sharing, you’ll need to create accounts (or use existing accounts) for
facebook and twitter.

Facebook:
1. Create an account (unless you want to use an existing account):

2. Go to http://www.facebook.com/developers
3. Click on ‘set up a new app’
You’ll need to validate the account w/ a mobile number (it will text a confirmation code to that number)
4. Name it, agree to the terms.
5. Pass the human verification
6. Enter whatever details you want.
7. Copy and email me the api key and app secret

Twitter:
1. Create an account (unless you want to use an existing account):
2. Go to http://dev.twitter.com/apps/new
3. Enter the various details and be sure to set the callback url (ask me to send this to you)
Also, leave the ‘application type’ set to ‘Browser’
Set the access to ‘read and write’
4. Send me the consumer key or secret.

bit.ly:
If you want to use bit.ly to shorten the urls,…
1. go to http://bit.ly/account/register and sign up
2. go to http://bit.ly/a/your_api_key and get your api key
3. Send me your username and api key

Posted by: bearc0025 | March 29, 2011

Amazon launches ‘cloud locker’ music service

It’s not what lala.com was, but it’s something…

Amazon announced Cloud Drive and Cloud Player for the web and Android, a new web-based service that lets you store your music and other files in the cloud and access them on the go. Streaming music is possible using a web-based player compatible with the Mac and PC as well as an Android application.

via Amazon launches ‘cloud locker’ music service.

 

 

I “broke down” and bought this a while back for a project. Every time I use it, I feel like I did something pretty smart…

A Better Finder Rename is the most complete renaming solution available on the market today. That’s why, since 1996, thousands of hobbyists, professionals and businesses alike depend on A Better Finder Rename to organize and maintain files.

via A Better Finder Rename 8: The Batch File Renamer for Mac OS X.

 

 

Posted by: bearc0025 | March 23, 2011

Protected: Eko Project Design spec

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Posted by: bearc0025 | March 21, 2011

Tapptics – iOS Tutorials, Images/Icons, Marketing kit

Jen Gordon’s awesome designer starter kit is no longer “starter” – it’s full blown! And renamed to: Tapptics.

Beautify Your App with Tapptics

Tons of video tutorials, downloads, images, icons, etc.

Great for people trying to visualize their project, UI/UX people to design and developers to polish out their projects.

Posted by: bearc0025 | March 21, 2011

iOS Stencils at Graffletopia

Stencils matching ‘iphone’ page 1 – Graffletopia.

Several OmniGraffle widget, icon, etc. downloads at Graffletopia.

.

Posted by: bearc0025 | March 14, 2011

Protected: HD Wallpaper app upgrade

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Posted by: bearc0025 | March 2, 2011

Protected: ScaleCheck Design Spec

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Posted by: bearc0025 | February 28, 2011

How to Hire an App Developer Primer (part 1) | 148Apps.biz

How to Hire an App Developer Primer (part 1) | 148Apps.biz.

Here’s the first in a series of posts I hope will analyze the relationship btwn client and developer. I deal w/ a lot of clients varying in size, concept, ideas, etc., etc. – I enjoy the variety and most clients have their concept developed to a different point in a different way.

These aren’t problems at all, but there’s no real set pattern for taking the idea, specifying the details and coming up w/a finite/defined blueprint to bid (otherwise, it pretty much needs to be an hourly project which usually neither side is very happy with).

The developer will want to see some specifications that you have defined for the app in order to give an accurate quote. He/she may offer suggestions on how to improve on your idea or alternate features, but this basic game plan is still needed. Once you and the developer agree on the look of the final product, there is a much better chance that your expectations will be met.

 

Posted by: bearc0025 | February 23, 2011

Game Center authentication error – Stack Overflow

I ran into this today and fortunately found this solution pretty quick (below). Thanks Stack Overflow!

In iOS 4.2 when a user cancels the login to Game Center, after 3 attempts that error is returned. You can resolve the error by logging in using the Game Center app, then try your app again, you should see the welcome back message from Game Center in your app

via objective c – Game Center authentication error – Stack Overflow.

Posted by: bearc0025 | February 17, 2011

ITGO in Men’s Running Magazine

ITGO was featured in Men’s Running magazine in the UK. The site promotes the feature, but the content is only in the print magazine (or possibly in the membership area).

Here’s an image of the article…

Click to view full

Posted by: bearc0025 | February 14, 2011

How to Open .Pages Files Without iWork | eHow.com

As of 2010, other word processing programs can’t open a Pages file. However, Pages also embeds a PDF file in each document. PCs and Mac computers don’t need iWork to open the PDF file and access the text of a Pages document.

via How to Open .Pages Files Without iWork | eHow.com.

The site linked above has a few steps to access a pdf version of a pages doc if you don’t have Pages. Basically change the extension to zip, unzip it and there’s a pdf in the QuickLook dir. So great!

Posted by: bearc0025 | February 2, 2011

samsoffes/sstoolkit – GitHub

SSToolkit makes life easier. It is made up of various view controllers, views, and categories that I use in all of my apps. Feel free to fork the repo and make it better.

If you’re using this in your project, I’d love to hear about it! Send me an email and let me know which pieces you’re using and such.

Several categories are included and used throughout SSToolkit.

via samsoffes/sstoolkit – GitHub.

Posted by: bearc0025 | February 2, 2011

Mobile Design Starter Kit v1.0 by Jen Gordon

[UPDATE: Jen Gordon's "starter" kit is now "full blown" - details here: Tapptics]

Check out this designer start kit for mobile design:

Mobile Design Starter Kit v1.0 by Jen Gordon.

I intend to get it for myself for both learning and using in design. Design isn’t easy (especially for a developer).

The set includes leather theme, icons, badges, arrows, background textures, etc. see full list here

It’s produced by Jen Gordon who seems really skilled and open to contact for questions and such.

If you have it or get it, let me know what you think.

Posted by: bearc0025 | January 27, 2011

360|iDev the Premier iPhone developer conference in the world!

I’m a big fan of 360iDev…

 

360iDev

 

WHEN: Late Summer 2011

WHERE: Denver, CO

How Much? $599 (That includes hands-on Pre-Conference training Sunday, and 3 days of awesome content) of course, the “Faithful” ticket is available now for just $299!

When it comes to 360|iDev it’s important to know the following.

What to bring: You, your laptop, ideas

What you’ll leave with: New friends, business contacts, inspiration, and more knowledge than you’ll get anywhere else (40+ Sessions, delivered by over 30 speakers). Probably a book or two as well.

via 360|iDev the Premier iPhone developer conference in the world!.

Posted by: bearc0025 | January 27, 2011

On iOS Devices, Native Apps Trump Web Apps (Infographic)

According to Appsfire, owners of iOS devices typically spend only 10 percent of their time in a mobile browser, inclusive of Web apps. This is in stark contrast to the figure of 50 percent of time spent in native apps, not including the default mail app and other typical telephony apps (mostly pre-installed apps, but also including Skype).

via On iOS Devices, Native Apps Trump Web Apps (Infographic).

 

iOS Apps vs Web Apps

 

Posted by: bearc0025 | January 26, 2011

Appirater by Arash Payan

Presenting, Appirater – Arash Payan | Blog.

The Appstore is better than before (when users were prompted to rate apps when they deleted them), but it’s still dominated by negative reviews.

Appirater is a good option to fight against that since it prompts users to rate the app based on use of the app (e.g., it prompts users to rate the app after they’ve used it for a while).

Setting it up is pretty easy… get the code from https://github.com/arashpayan/appirater/ and then…

  1. Add the Appirater code into your project
  2. Add the CFNetwork and SystemConfiguration frameworks to your project
  3. Call [Appirater appLaunched:YES] at the end of your app delegate’s application:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions: method.
  4. Call [Appirater appEnteredForeground:YES] in your app delegate’s applicationWillEnterForeground: method.
  5. (OPTIONAL) Call [Appirater userDidSignificantEvent:YES] when the user does something ‘significant’ in the app.
  6. Finally, set the APPIRATER_APP_ID in Appirater.h to your Apple provided software id.

Client app, ITGO, featured on The Independent…

 

ITGO

 

Top apps drop prices for New Year’s: Interval Trainer GO, Runkeeper Pro – Health & Families, Life & Style – The Independent.

I found this helpful “recipe” for setting up automatic build versioning in Xcode…

Dealing with build and version numbers in applications whether for Desktop MacOSX or iPhone applications always seems like a bit of a black art, here’s the short version of how to set up a consistent and maintainable system for dealing with version numbers in Xcode.

via Recipe: Automatic Version Number, Build Number & Build Date Handling | MacIndie.

I did a couple things differently – mainly I just didn’t set up the “Versioning System” setting (let me know if you know of problems w/ doing this):

  • Add a “Versioning System” item, and set its value to “apple-generic”

I didn’t want to have to run agvtool next-version whenever I needed to update my Bundle version. I’ve used that on other projects and it’s just kinda a pain to have to run a command line command to update it. Too easy to forget, etc.

I ran it w/o that setting and logged out the settings when the app runs like this:


-(void)viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated
{
   [super viewWillAppear:animated];

   NSString *appVersionNumber = [[[NSBundle mainBundle] infoDictionary] objectForKey:@"CFBundleVersion"];
   NSString *buildNumber = [[[NSBundle mainBundle] infoDictionary] valueForKey:@"CFBuildNumber"];
   NSString *buildDateString = [[[NSBundle mainBundle] infoDictionary] objectForKey:@"CFBuildDate"];

   NSLog(@"%@ %@ %@", appVersionNumber, buildNumber, buildDateString);
}

The output looked like this:

[Session started at 2011-01-18 10:52:15 -0600.]
2011-01-18 10:52:16.423 BuildNumber[33096:207] 1.0 28 Tue Jan 18 10:45:26 CST 2011

Posted by: bearc0025 | January 18, 2011

ASIHTTPRequest example code – All-Seeing Interactive

 

ASIHttpRequest

 

I roll my own for most URL/HTTP communication, but I hadn’t messed w/ multipart image posts in a while. I found the class I wrote a while back (based on this) but wanted to try ASIHTTPRequest. Their doco is well put together and it’s fairly easy to implement…

To send POST data in a manner compatible with web page forms, use the included ASIFormDataRequest subclass. Data is posted in ‘application/x-www-form-urlencoded’ format, or ‘multipart/form-data’ format when uploading binary data or files. Data in files is read as needed from disk, so POSTing large files is OK, as long as your web server is setup to handle them.

via ASIHTTPRequest example code – All-Seeing Interactive.

Posted by: bearc0025 | January 14, 2011

Particle Designer

In doing research for a project, Ray Wenderlich told me about the particle designer…

 

 

Create stunning visual effects for your latest game by customizing every aspect of your particle emitters.

via Particle Designer.

Posted by: bearc0025 | January 12, 2011

MySpace API SDK for iPhone/iOS

myspace-iphone-sdk – Project Hosting on Google Code.

I’m trying to incorporate the MySpace api into an app. Not easy.

On the HowToUse page, the login/logout example tells you where to add the key, secret and callbak url.

Also, I’m including it in a project which also has Twitter and that uses OAuth. So I include the MySpace project using the library route, but it started getting a weird error trying to call URLEncodedString on NSString in MSURLCode.m. It’s a method added to NSString via a category.

So I put the actual call from the URLEncodedString method from the category in MSURLCoder.m, recompiled the library and then it worked.

The API SDK isn’t complete and in the Upcoming entry, it states from May, 2010:

Changes MySpace iPhone team is working on

1. XML support: This will be transparent to most users expect for lower level sdk developers.
2. Exposure of more and more APIs e.g. Activities, Notifications etc

Also, they state:

IMPORTANT: when including the framework bundle created by this target, you MUST change the “File Type” property of the framework from “wrapper.framework” to “wrapper.framework.static”

See image below.

If anyone has used this api (or another MySpace API SDK) w/ success, please let me know.

Posted by: bearc0025 | January 11, 2011

iPhone Apps on The Big Bang Theory

iPhone app on Big Bang Theory

I just watched on hulu the iPhone app episode of The Big Bang Theory – pretty funny stuff. But I kept hoping they’d talk more about the app and show the whiteboard more. :)

Read more about the episode and the consultant they used:
iPhone Apps on The Big Bang Theory « Ironwolf.

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