DevRocket is an iOS development panel plug-in that provides Adobe Photoshop with additional iOS specific tools and functionalities that are designed to assist key areas in iOS app design for all iPhone models including the iPhone 5 and all iPad models. A simplified solution to working between display resolutions, breaking down full ui designs into separate elements ready for Xcode and saving for the Retina display are just a few of the awesome features DevRocket brings to iOS designers currently using Photoshop.

via Dev Rocket – Photoshop panel plugin for iOS developers.

Caveat: I haven’t used this and I’m not a designer, but it seems like a good tool and a good price. If you have used it, let me know what you think.

Let me know if you have any thoughts on it especially if you’ve used it.

I got an email from Lucent Mobile about this today…

About the JUMPSTART Platform!

JUMPSTART Platform! is a powerful new solution that helps iOS developers minimize repetitive presentation layer tasks in Xcode, while providing unlimited flexibility to extend the abilities of code — without any limitation being set by the development platform.

JUMPSTART Platform! avoids the limitations set by traditional development platforms that utilize secured libraries, by producing a zero footprint Xcode solution. For an iOS application, the designer or developer can process Adobe Photoshop™ and Fireworks™ design files through the JUMPSTART Platform! and then immediately move over to working in the Native iOS environment Xcode with all presentation layer source code and Storyboard views populated. The tremendous advantage of using the JUMPSTART Platform! is that the presentation layer of an iOS application is done for you.

What JUMPSTART Platform! means to the Designer:

· Peace of mind that their design will be retained when handed off to a developer
· Ability to show their designs on a device
· Ability to start development of the application without a developer
· Increase in marketability by having the presentation layer of an app “jumpstarted”
· Ability to demo and present their project to clients without the use of a programmer

What JUMPSTART Platform! means to the Developer:

· Speeding up development of the presentation layer
· Automatically hooking up code and storyboard elements
· Creating common behaviors and delegates for text fields
· Automatically creating segues between view controllers
· Creating button action Methods

What does it cost?

We charge as little as $49.99 a year for each individual users.

You can simply go to www.jumpstartyourcode.com and download a free 7 day trial.

To remove it from executing/running memory, follow these steps…

1. Press the Home button to return to the Home Screen (if not already there).
2. Double-press the Home Button to show the multi-task bar.
3. Hold your finger on one of the icons on the multi-task bar to make them wiggle (see image) and display the red circle/badge.
4. Tap the circle/badge of the app you want to close/remove from execution memory.

No In-App Purchases – one price you get it. A simple tool to track your 400 rep workout.

Randomly generated 4-move workout. 10 reps, 10 times. 400 reps. Great for a quick, at-home workout.

A variation of the deck-of-cards workout but with out the variation of 2, 3, 4 reps – it’s all 10 reps.

One more tool in your fitness tool-belt… and probably one of the cheapest ones.

It doesn’t teach you the (basic) moves, but provides some variations and ability to search for variations and form.

This is just a tool to help you monitor your workout and does not intend to train, teach or instruct. Check with your physician before starting any fitness program. Use of this app implies agreement to no responsibility or liability for this app or Brainwash Inc. Workout responsibility.

“There are a few other non-one-off companies with big ties to Denton (we’re looking at you, Brainwash, Inc.),…”

The app turned out great. Check out the video and the app!

Here’s one of the first I was able to answer for someone that others might find interesting. In case you ever need to find out the file name from the iOS photo album.

This isn’t tough w/ web clients (I use Yahoo!) but for my iOS devices it has the added challenge that I want to use the native client. That way if an app kicks me to the email UI, I can carry on as usual.

So the other emails are just forwards to my Yahoo account. No problem. But to have them as options to write from is different.

I found a couple sites that helped me figure out how to do this…

Geek and Dad and Modernerd which has nice images.

My specific issue was that I needed to specify both the incoming and outgoing servers (listed here) INCLUDING username and passwords.

From what I can tell, if you specify the incoming and outgoing servers w/ login credentials, iOS Mail will let you specify any from address you want. But if you select a service (Gmail, Yahoo, etc.) it will force you to use your specified email address across the board.

It looks like Apple thinks it’s time to dive into the wearable computing market.

The company is reportedly working on a Bluetooth smart watch, complete with call integration and a 1.5-inch OLED screen supposedly manufactured by RiT Display, a Taiwanese manufacturing company.

Read more: FoxNews.com

Also at Wimm.com they’ve posted that they’ve entered an exclusive agreement…

During the summer of 2012, WIMM Labs entered into an exclusive, confidential relationship for our technology and ceased sales of the Developer Preview Kit.

Similar speculation on the Wimm-Apple SmartWatch info here.

How to Design like Apple

via How to Design like Apple – Online MBA.com.

A pretty cool, short video talking about Apple/Jobs’s approach to design: simplicity mostly which is quite difficult and even more difficult to make it look easy.

I usually try to get clients to draw the UI from their head on anything: computer, napkin, etc. Not b/c that will be the final UI design, but to communicate what they see in their mind. Also, it’s a great exercise to have them think thru the UI.

InVision also has a new feature called InVision Sync… “InVision Sync creates a folder right on your desktop where you can access all your projects and designs. Think of it as Dropbox for all your design communication & collaboration.”

Mobile tips: https://projects.invisionapp.com/#mobile

The Moms With Apps blog supports family-friendly developers seeking to promote quality apps for kids and families.

Moms With Apps is based on the following principles:

• Thoughtful use of technology: Parents should be up-to-speed on tech trends. Know your devices settings, what types of apps are out there, and what types of marketing practices are being used in the mobile industry – so you don’t get caught off guard.
• Apps aren’t parents: Apps are not be a substitute for parenting.
• Great developers make great apps: I look for developers with good ideas and intentions, who strive to create family-friendly content.
• Keeping kids safe online is a team effort. Developers should stay informed about privacy concerns and legislation, and are encouraged to disclose the features in their apps, and how they do (or do not) use consumer data.

See more at http://momswithapps.com/

App Friday just launched its own website at www.appfridayparty.com. Curious about which apps are featured this week, how to sign up, or how to win some free apps? Head over to check it out!

Be sure to check out the iTunes Best Practices Guide also.

iOS in Practice is a hands-on guide with 98 specific techniques to help solve the specific problems youll encounter over and over as you work on your iPhone and iPad apps. Youll dig into the practical nuts and bolts of applying views, view controllers, table views and cells, audio, images, graphics, file structure—and more. Examples written for iOS 6.

via Manning: iOS in Practice.

Print version available in November.

I agree the many people assume that being on-site (visible) means they are controllable, engaged, focused, etc. but I think it’s far from true as a rule. What I mean is, it’s not a given. It depends on the person, the job, the environment, etc. – too many variables.

For me, most tasks are best done outside of an office. The only things that might be better are things like meetings and even that’s questionable (a meeting at a cafe might be better than a conf room).

Of course, coding and such is best done undisturbed.

However, many managers I’ve worked w/ in the past have a very different job type that tends towards walking in at any time to discuss something, change things, etc. It reminds me of the Maker/Manager Schedule.

Also, I suspect a lot of managers wd be very nervous to think their employees would do better by NOT being around them.

UPDATED FOR ARC BELOW.

If you want a class to respond to a given method w/o knowing what that method is when coding, you can use Dynamic Method Resolution.

In my case, I wanted to store some values in a dictionary not knowing what would be stored there (JSON parsed into a dictionary). Then have my class respond to getters/setters by looking for the given item as a key in the dictionary.

The answer here by Amy Worrall provides the bulk of the solution.

Basically you override resolveInstanceMethod: to call class_addMethod which adds accessorSetter or accessorGetter depending on the method being attempted.

+ (BOOL) resolveInstanceMethod:(SEL)aSEL
{
    NSString *method = NSStringFromSelector(aSEL);
    
    if ([method hasPrefix:@"set"])
    {
        class_addMethod([self class], aSEL, (IMP) accessorSetter, "v@:@");
        return YES;
    }
    else
    {
        class_addMethod([self class], aSEL, (IMP) accessorGetter, "@@:");
        return YES;
    }
    return [super resolveInstanceMethod:aSEL];
}

Then implement those added methods, accessorSetter or accessorGetter, (I changed NSString to NSObject to allow for various class types to be stored in my dictionary. Also, for the setter, I remove ‘set’ and lowercase the next letter to turn something like setYikityBlar to yikityBlar)…

NSObject* accessorGetter(id self, SEL _cmd)
{
    NSString *method = NSStringFromSelector(_cmd);
    // Return the value of whatever key based on the method name
    return [((EventItem *)self)->valDict objectForKey:method];
}

void accessorSetter(id self, SEL _cmd, NSObject* newValue)
{
    NSString *method = NSStringFromSelector(_cmd);
    
    // remove set
    NSString *anID = [[method stringByReplacingCharactersInRange:NSMakeRange(0, 3) withString:@""] stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@":" withString:@""];
    NSString *firstLowerChar = [[anID substringToIndex:1] lowercaseString];
    anID = [anID stringByReplacingCharactersInRange:NSMakeRange(0,1) withString:firstLowerChar];
    
    // Set value of the key anID to newValue
    [((EventItem *)self)->valDict setValue:newValue forKey:anID];
}

UPDATE FOR ARC:
ARC requires a bit more precision in the interface declaration – otherwise you get compile errors. There’s a couple things you should be able to do. If you actually have the item you want to dynamically create the getter/setters for, you can declare the methods to be dynamic (see link at the top of this post).

However, in my case, I don’t have them as properties (I set them in another class like a dictionary). So I declared the getters/setters in the header, but don’t implement them. I do get a compiler warning that my class’ implementation is incomplete. If anyone has a better solution, let me know.

For every 10 apps that developers build, roughly 7 are for iOS.

via App Developers Signal Apple Allegiance Ahead of WWDC and Google I/O.

Another good quote from the article…

“For every $1.00 a developer earns on iOS, he can expect to earn about $0.24 on Android.”

The four options are

• Call
• Text
• Email
• URL

Once you have the app and purchase the Launch feature (Settings>Additional Features), you can add an Action to a given todo item.

For calls, text and email, you can use the Address Book to pick a person’s info to use.

When the reminder goes off, the action will automatically be launched.

Use with the Email Feature to send a todo via email including a launch action – send an email to 2pm@4todayapps.com with a subject of “Call John” and a body of “call:214.555.1212″ then the todo will be sent to your phone and the reminder at 2pm will launch the call!

Once you have the app and purchase the Email feature (Settings>Additional Features), you can email 4TodayApps.com using these guidelines:

Email Address For Time:
For todo’s without a time, just send to todo@4todayapps.com.
If you want a reminder set at a certain time, put the time in the email address like…

• 2pm@4todayapps.com
• 1500@4todayapps.com
• 730am@4todayapps.com

Subject is Title:
Set the subject to the title of your todo like “Call John.”

Body is Notes/Actions:
Put the notes in the body of the email including phone numbers, email addresses, physical addresses – the notes field in the app will analyze for these and allow you to tap to call, email, map, etc.

Auto-Launch Actions
If you have the Launch Action Feature, you can use action items in your email body like: call:214.555.1212 or email:john.fake@gmail.com – then at the time of the reminder, the notification will start the action specified.