iOS Development Goodies – iPhone and iPad SDK development news & tutorials

iPhone Tutorials from Mobiletuts+

Posted on July 17, 2010 by Joost Schuur

Who doesn’t like a good app development tutorial? They’re usually concise and to the point and leave you feeling like you’ve picked up a practical new skill in under an hour. There are a couple of well known iPhone developers that have been cranking out tutorials on their personal sites, but today I want to focus on a new site I just discovered. Mobiletuts+ is platform agnostic, and covers Androd, iPhone and Windows phone development, as well as HTML5 based mobile apps. Their iPhone coverage currently includes 10 tutorials and an introduction to Objective C, with a new one being added every week. Some highlights:

Learning About Touch Events & Basic Game Animation covers attaching a touch event to a custom button and triggering the animation of an object.
First Steps With JSON Data Using the Twitter API focuses on adding JSON support to your iOS applications by demonstrating how to create a Twitter reading client app.
Core Data: Your First Steps guides you through the process of creating a project with Core Data and shows you how to use it with a simple UITableViewController.
Creating a Photo Gallery With Three20 teaches you how to use Facebook’s Three20 framework to create a photo gallery in your app.
In-App Purchases is part one in a series on selling products and services “in-app” with the Store Kit framework

What are some of your favorite tutorial sites? Leave a note in the comments.

Posted in Tutorial | Tagged beginner | Leave a comment

Prototype an iPad App in 30 Minutes in Keynote

Posted on July 16, 2010 by Joost Schuur

User Interface consultant Amir Khella has a guide available on how to use Keynote to rapidly prototype an iPad app. Not only does he simulate the iPad UI without any programming, but he also replicates some of the feel by linking individual screens up to each other:

Amir’s Keynote template is currently available on his blog for a limited time for free, in exchange for subscribing to his mailing list. A teaser on a version for iPhone prototyping is also available. (via Josh Clark)

Posted in Design | Tagged ipad, prototyping | Leave a comment

Shipping Soon: iPhone and iPad in Action

Posted on July 16, 2010 by Joost Schuur

There’s no shortage of fine iPhone programming books out there, so if any one in particular doesn’t jive with the style your brain best picks up something new in, it’s easy to pick up another. You’ll definitely want to check out a few at the local book store first if you can. From an author’s point of view, Apple’s regular SDK updates means even if one title is currently enjoying its stay at the top of the bestseller list, things can always change 6 or 12 months down the line when new editions come out.

With the release of the iPad, the next generation of titles is starting to include both iPhone and iPad development in the same book, and iCodeblog‘s Brandon Trebitowski recently completed work on Manning’s iPhone and iPad in Action, due out towards the end of the month and clearly targeted at novices to the iOS platform:

iPhone and iPad In Action, compiled by mobile software developer and blogger Brandon Trebitowski, simplifies existing iPhone topics while also updating them to account for the 3.4 SDK framework including iPad coverage. Beyond covering the basics of iPhone development, this edition also explores exciting topics such as the accelerometer, peer-to-peer gaming, mapkit, push notifications, and in-app purchasing. The reader is provided with step-by-step instructions on how to integrate the APIs into new or existing applications.

After completing this book, the reader will have all of the knowledge necessary to create fully functional iPhone applications ready for the App Store. There are many sample applications to work from including a chat client, video game, interactive map, and many others.

If you can’t wait, Manning’s Early Access Program has the draft available for purchase as an ebook already. Otherwise, sample content on using media, audio and making recordings as well as is adding a map to your application are available for free.

So next time you’ve noticed your favorite tutorial blog slacking with the updates, perhaps they’re just hogging all the good ones for an upcoming book?

Posted in Code | Tagged beginner, book | Leave a comment

Steve Says Relax

Posted on July 16, 2010 by Joost Schuur

Steve Jobs: Everyone chill the fuck out, I got this!

A little lighthearted humor I cooked up while waiting for the event to start. Credit to the inspiration.

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Posted in Misc, Original Content | Tagged humor | 1 Comment

Goodie Roundup – July 15th, 2010

Posted on July 15, 2010 by Joost Schuur

Interesting iPhone and iPad development, design or even marketing items. Often new, sometimes old.

Nick Harris takes a look at advanced file encryption that enterprise apps can use in iOS 4 with NSFileProtectionComplete.
Kwigbo shares details on his OpenFeint multiplayer integration using their new turn-based functionality.
Dr. Touch has a quick tip on how to specify default values, when when reading from NSUserDefault data.
Cocoa With Love explains how to conditionally compile and runtime switch between the code for different versions of iOS.
Josh Clark tweets that you can still pick up Tapworthy as an eBook for just $9.99 with the code DDTAP.

Have a goodie to share? Send it in!

Posted in Goodie Roundup | Leave a comment

Goodie Roundup – July 13th, 2010

Posted on July 13, 2010 by Joost Schuur

Interesting iPhone and iPad development, design or even marketing items. Often new, sometimes old.

Alex Volmer has some detailed tips up on working with UIAnimation in iOS 4 to run a full set of set of regression tests for your iPhone app UI. Don’t miss his followup post either.
Everyone loves a good success story and the latest one is taptaptap, whose Camera+ app made $253k in 5 weeks. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that they were an App of the Week recently. 2 years into the app store, there’s still plenty of opportunities to make it big, with hard work and a little luck. Reassuring for a novice app developer.
Bob Koon at App Size Matters encourages developers to create readable code and provides some tips on how to do so.
Jeff LaMarche, author of the popular book Beginning iPhone Development 3 is working on an Open GL ES 2.0 book for Pragmatic Programmers and provides some insight into a sample app he’s written for it in a blog post. The 3D texture mapping sample app is also available for download.

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Calcbot Shows Polish with Intro Screens

Posted on July 13, 2010 by Joost Schuur

Tapbot and taptaptap’s new Calcbot calculator app just launched, following their established model of taking every day needs and providing simple, but highly polished iPhone apps for them, undeterred by the fact that the app store is already full of competitors. One thing is does particularly well right from the get-go is introducing users to the interface in a short, multi-screen overview when you first launch the app.

Calcbot makes a lot of use of swiping actions that might not otherwise have been apparent to users, so the intro serves as a necessary overview. Even their intro can be navigated with swipes. Check out the four screen sequence below:

The intro only appears automatically the very first time you launch the app, but you can call it back again later from the support screen. It’s worth pointing out that typical splash screens that always appear and display app names and logos are actually discouraged by Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines. Instead, they recommend you design a launch image similar to the first screen of the application. Due to the one time nature here, I think Calcbot doesn’t fall under this Apple HIG.

Calcbot is a universal app for both the iPhone and iPad and currently available at an introductory price of $0.99.

This is great material for a coding tutorial on how to use a UIScrollView and PageControl to implement this behavior. Anyone up for the challenge?

Posted in Design | Tagged app | 2 Comments

Cooperative Pathfinding in Objective-C With ASIPathFinder

Posted on July 12, 2010 by Joost Schuur

Game developers, especially those working on RTS games, will love the new ASIPathFinder framework from the makers of ASIHTTPRequest. It features a cooperative path finding algorithm, and is compatible with Mac OS and iPhone OS. See it in action here:

They note that it’s based on a variation of techniques in David Silver’s paper Cooperative Pathfinding. (via Wade Neuwirth & Alex Curylo)

Posted in Code | Tagged advanced, games | Leave a comment

Goodie Roundup – July 12th, 2010

Posted on July 12, 2010 by Joost Schuur

Interesting iPhone and iPad development, design or even marketing items. Often new, sometimes old.

John Muchow shows us how to implement video playback with MPMoviePlayerController, so that it runs within your app in a view that is not fullscreened.
Wade Neuwirth recently began introducing newcomers to iPhone development, and his latest post discussed afforable and free graphics resources for non artist programmers.
Alex Okafor offers some lessons learned in tilt controls, including design and technical issues and a look at how well they really work.
ManiacDev points out a solution to create glossy buttons, with Hwee-Boon’s GlassButtons class.

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Pro Objective-C for Mac and iPhone in Alpha

Posted on July 12, 2010 by Joost Schuur

The latest edition to Apress’ Pro series, Pro Objective-C for Mac and iPhone is available in its first 7 chapters as a digitally distributed alpha book. Amazon currently lists a release date of October 15, 2010. From the publisher:

Pro Objective-C for Mac and iPhone is the first Objective-C book ever written that takes Mac developers, with some level of previous experience, beyond the basics. Authors Jim Dovey and Michael Ash explain complex, often mysterious techniques and illuminate difficult concepts with real-world examples, so you can create the most advanced applications using Objective-C.

In this title, the more advanced and up-to-date continuation of Apress’s best-selling Learn Objective-C for Mac book, the authors include practical coverage of advanced Objective-C topics that are merely touched on in other books; you’ll find thorough treatments of all the advanced concepts and invaluable advice in Pro Objective-C for Mac and iPhone.

Apress recommend the title for developers with a basic knowledge of Objective-C who want to program more complex, larger, and downright advanced applications for Mac OS X and the iPhone platform. On his own blog, co-author Dovey says:

The overall aim of the book is to impart a deeper understanding of How It Works, so the reader will be better able to recognize and anticipate certain API behaviours and characteristics for themselves.

Posted in Code | Tagged book, intermediate | Leave a comment

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