iPhone App Review: Sweethearts

Want to send a special treat to your sweet? Do it right from your iPhone or iPod Touch with the Sweethearts app. Sweethearts are the traditional conversation heart candies from Necco. Now they a fun app that promotes their new candy flavors and their new “Tweet Me” heart.

You start by customizing up to 5 candy hearts to give away. Tap on the candy to edit the text. Add another by tapping on the plus sign. Remove it by dropping it on the trash icon. When you’re happy with your box of candy, you can tweet it, DM (direct message) it to someone, or email them. You must login into Twitter before sharing the box of candy though. Your friend(s) will then get a unique link to the box of candy you made for them. It’s simple and is a fun way to say you care.

There is also an option to browse and view other boxes of candy created worldwide, boxes created by people you are following on Twitter, as well as a retweet option.

What I would like added to this app is the ability to add more than candy hearts in a box as well as pick a song for the candies. Other than that, it’s a simple app to bring a smile to anyone’s face.

Here is an example of what the link will take you to. The box of candy will open up for your friend and the candies will be displayed for them to play with.

You can read more about the Sweethearts app on their official website: MySweethearts.com and follow their Twitter account: @my_sweethearts. The app is free and available for download in iTunes App Store.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Notes from iPhone/iPod Touch Development Seminar

I attended the Software Development for iPhone and iPod Touch Seminar yesterday, presented by Steve Hayman.

He briefly talked about development for the iPad (which is very similar to iPhone / iPod Touch development), as well as how to create web apps and native apps during the presentation. These are my notes from the session.

The session is described as below:

Please join us for a unique software and web development seminar brought to you by Apple Education.

We’ll discuss and demonstrate Apple’s software development tools for the iPhone and iPod touch, and show how individuals and institutions are building innovative mobile applications for their organizations and the wider world. We’ll highlight and deconstruct some popular applications – both web-based, and native – and show you how to get started building your own with Apple’s free developer tools. We’ll talk about web development with Dashcode, native application development with Xcode and Interface Builder, and review the integration and deployment options and Apple’s developer program. And if the presenter messes up, we may accidentally wind up demonstrating the debugger as well.

iPad Developmemt

iPad apps will use the same tools as iPhone/iPod Touch development, except there will be more screen real estate to work with. There will also be some new objects for developers to work with as well.

Web App vs. Native App

This chart shows the difference tools, languages used, and deployment techniques between web apps and native apps.

	Web Apps	Native Apps
Tools	Dashcode, iPhone Similator	Xcode, Interface Builder, iPhone Similator
Language	Html, CSS, Javascript	C, C++, Objective-C
Deployment	Web Server	Direct, Ad-Hoc, Enterprise, App Store

Web-based Apps

Most web apps used the webkit, which is an open source project that takes big webpages and shrink them for the phone.

More info on WebKit:

WebKit is an open source web browser engine. WebKit is also the name of the Mac OS X system framework version of the engine that’s used by Safari, Dashboard, Mail, and many other OS X applications. WebKit’s HTML and JavaScript code began as a branch of the KHTML and KJS libraries from KDE.

Some of the animations and graphics you see on a web apps are using the webkit engine. Samples are the flip transition, the drill-down list, and page turn. HTML5 also allow new animations like the photo gallery browser, gesture events, location-based services, and offline caching. Dashcode is used to easily create web apps.

An example of an offline game that uses only Javascript and CSS is Pie Guy. If you visit this game on your iPhone or iPod Touch, the HTML files will be downloaded to your device. You will be able to play this even in Airplane mode! The line between Web Apps and Native Apps are harder to recognize.

Examples of some very nice mobile University websites to visit on your iPhone/iPod Touch:

• MIT
• ACU
• University of Iowa – Click on Residence Hall Laundry -> Select a Hall (Interesting concept!)

Example of using Dashcode

The example that Steve showed us to create using Dashcode was a way to display the Apple Movie Trailers page into a nice mobile-friendly page.

• Create a new project using Dashcode.
• Add in a data source – http://apple.com/trailers/home/xml/current.xml (This is a list of all the movies.)
• Make binding (by dragging a line from the Dashcode object to the field in the data source window.
• You can get more fancy and display the movie image next to the movie title, etc.

Native Apps

Two students who took the iPhone Development class at Stanford created iStanford (a native app) for their final project. The students started a company called TerriblyClever Design and started designing iPhone apps for Universities (see Duke and UCSD’s iPhone apps). They were then bought out by Blackboard recently.

To create native apps, the tools you will use are Xcode, Interface Builder, Instruments, and the Simulator.

Some of the new frameworks in iPhone 3.0 SDK include the following:

• Location – apps can now include a Map View UI within the app. Example: ZipCar
• Peer to Peer – two or more nearby devices can now connect
• Push Notification – apps can now have badges, alerts, and sound notifications turned on

Other frameworks that were already in previous iPhone SDK:

• Camera – it’s two lines of code to have your app take a photo.
• Accelerometer – detects force and motion awareness
• Location – app can use what location accuracy (geo-location apps)

Native Apps are broken into three parts – Model, View, and Controller.

• Model – where your data is stored (such as high scores)
• View – The UI objects / how data is presented on the screen
• Controller – where most of your coding will take place. The event loops and changes.

For View, Interface Builder is used. For the Controller and Model parts, Xcode is used.

Example: Creating a Flashlight Native iPhone App

If we want the status bar on our window to be hidden, we’d add a line of code in the file appDelgate.m:

• Create a new project. This will default to a one window app.
• Make the status bar hidden by adding these lines of code in appDelegate.m:

  [application setStatusBarHidden: YES]
  window.backgroundColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
  

• Build and Run

Every object is described in two files — a header (file.h) and implementation file (file.m).

To make this flashlight app have an on or off switch, you can add an on/off switch object and make the screen turn black when the switch is toggled.

In the header file, add:

- (IBAction) turnOff:send;

Then drag this header definition to the switch object. This connects (binds) the code to the UI.

In the implementation file, add:

- (IBAction) turnoff:sender
{
     if ([sender isOn] )
          window.backgroundColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
     else
          window..backgroudnColor = [UIColor blackColor];
}

Available iPhone/iPod Touch Development Programs

This chart displays the various programs available, along with its cost and type of deployment.

Program	Cost	Deploy
Registered Developer Anybody	Free	Simulator Only
Standard Individuals or Organizations	$99 USD	App Store + 100 Phones
Enterprise 500+ Employees, Internal Apps	$299 USD	In-House phones
University 200 students/professors	Free	200 Phones

.

Getting Started

• Register yourself as an iPhone Developer. Once registered, you can download the SDK, sample code, and documentation.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Software Development for the iPhone and iPod Touch

I’m attending a special Software Development for the iPhone and iPod Touch Seminar in Riverside, CA this Wednesday. It’s a free two hour workshop on how to create iPhone apps! The session is geared toward students, faculty, and staff from education institutions in Southern California. If you’re interested, there’s more information below. There will be sessions taking place at four different locations in Southern California.

More Times & Locations

• Irvine, CA – Mon, Feb 1 4:00PM to 6:00PM
• La Jolla, CA – Tue, Feb 2 2:30PM to 4:30PM
• Riverside, CA – Wed, Feb 3 10:00AM to 12:00PM
• Northridge, CA – Thu, Feb 4 9:00AM to 11:00PM

About the Seminar

We’ll discuss and demonstrate Apple’s software development tools for the iPhone and iPod touch, and show how individuals and institutions are building innovative mobile applications for their organizations and the wider world. We’ll highlight and deconstruct some popular applications – both web-based, and native – and show you how to get started building your own with Apple’s free developer tools. We’ll talk about web development with Dashcode, native application development with Xcode and Interface Builder, and review the integration and deployment options and Apple’s developer program. And if the presenter messes up, we may accidentally wind up demonstrating the debugger as well.

Popularity: 1% [?]

iPhone App Review: Super Monkey Ball 2

Name: Super Monkey Ball 2 (iTunes)
Written By: Sega
Category: Games
Price: $9.99 $4.99

Size: 74.8 MB
Requirements: iPhone / iPod Touch
Version: 1.1
Rate: 4.5 out of 5 Stars

Last December, Sega launched Super Monkey Ball 2 for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It’s an amazing followup to the popular original game! If you’re a Super Monkey Ball fan, you’ll be happy to know that SMB 2 has some significant improvements over first version of the game. The graphics are highly impressive. The rolling monkeys are now truly in 3D. And the tilt-meter is much more accurate to the movement and position of the iPhone/iPod Touch, which makes controlling your monkey character much easier.

The concept of the game is very simple. Tilt your iPhone/iPod touch to guide your monkey to the goal. Collect bananas along the way and keep your monkey from falling off the edge of the track. The tracks are are challenging as before, but there’s much greater control with you and the accelerator. There are 115 tracks to play, so the game can keep you occupied for quite some time.

In the main game, you have a few modes to choose from — Single Player, Multiplayer, and Practice. In practice mode, a random track will be chosen for you to play. In Single Player mode, collect bananas and rack up points to unlock new tracks. Multiplayer mode is a fun way to play with your friends! Go head-to-head using a wifi connection. Players take turns selecting up to 5 tracks to compete in. Player with the most points wins.

While you are playing, you may also notice a small video icon on the lower left corner. This option allows you to record and save your gameplays. You can save up to 10 of these videos and can view them in the “View Replays” option. It’s a very cool feature, and I hope there’s a way to export the videos in the future.

There is also a mini game called “Monkey Bowling” where you can take turns rolling the monkeys to knock over pins. Multiplayer mode is also available, but only one iPhone/iPod Touch device is needed. Two other mini games — Monkey Golf and Monkey Target — will be available in the near future as a free update.

Overall, the controls are smooth and accurately reflect the player’s movement. Super Monkey Ball 2 is really fun and entertaining, and will keep you occupied for hours and hours. Take the monkeys — Aiai, Baby, Meemee, Gongon — out for a spin!

Learn more about Super Monkey Ball 2 for iPhone and iPod touch in the App Store.

This article was originally published in iProng Magazine.

Popularity: 1% [?]

MacWorld 2010 Schedule

I’m attending MacWorld Expo 2010 in two weeks and I’m super excited about it! I’m mostly interested in iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad app development (both web and native) as well as meeting other app developers. It’s going to be super geeky fun! They’re also having a Special iPad Event, so I’ll get to test out Apple’s new creation! I hope to see you there! Register for MacWorld Expo if you haven’t already.

Daynah’s MacWorld 2010 Schedule

Here is my tentative schedule for the week. The bold items are events I’ll definitely go to and the rest are the ones I’ll try to make to.

Thursday, Feb. 11, 2010

• 9:00 AM – 10:00AM – Late night with David Pogue
• 10:00AM – 6:00PM – MacWorld Expo Exhibit Hall
  • 12:15 PM – 12:35 PM – Abvio
  • 4:30 PM – 4:45 PM – Navigon
• 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM – Q&A: Kevin Smith
• 4:30 PM – 5:30 PM – Feature Presentations: The Photoshop 20th Anniversary
• 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM – Appency Media Dinner
• 8:00 PM – 12:00 AM – Cirque du Mac 7.0

Friday, Feb. 12, 2010

• 9:00AM – 10:00AM – Feature Presentations: Revolution from the Rest of Us with Guy Kawasaki
• 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM – SA: Web Development: Tools, Trends and Technology
• 1:00 PM – 2:15 PM – US955: Youth and Educational Tools
• 1:00 PM – 2:15 PM – US954: Stereo 3D Animation with Adobe Photoshop & AfterEffects CS4
• 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM – Macworld Live! with Leo Laporte
• 4:30 PM – 5:30 PM – Feature Presentations: The Gruber 10: Apple’s Top Issues
• 6:30PM – TWiT Meet Up at the Marriott Marquis on 4th Street

Saturday, Feb. 13, 2010

• 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM – IT863: Making Your Sites iPhone Friendly
• 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM – Feature Presentations: Macworld presents: BT!
• 10:30 AM – 11:45 AM – US982: Demystifying iPhone (& iPad) App Development: A Non-Technical Overview for Decision-Makers and Idea People
• 11:45 AM – 1:00 PM – MacWorld Expo Exhibit Hall
• 12:30 PM – 2:00 PM – IT873: Custom iPhone Development
• 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM – Feature Presentations: Macworld 2010 Special iPad Event

Related Post

• MacWorld Expo 2009

Popularity: 1% [?]

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