In parallelo con lo studio di Objective-C, voglio imparare a sviluppare applicazioni per iPhone.

Partirò da un manuale edito da Apogeo e mi spingerò attraverso la Rete cercando cercando e cercando…

Primo passo: la creazione di una semplice applicazione che, alla pressione di un tasto, modificherà il messaggio di benvenuto sullo schermo.

En este segundo tutorial, crearemos nuestra primera app con codigo basico. Crearemos la denominada app como Hello World.

Consiste en que al espichar un boton, haremos que aparezca un texto.

Saludos y recuerden visitar

www.sabiussoftware.com

Este es el primer videotutorial del iPhone SDK:

Revisaremos lo mas básico de todo. Este es el tutorial perfecto para todo aquel que nunca a programado y hasta apenas ha instalado el programa. Si nisiquiera lo han bajado, solo vayan a

http://developer.apple.com/iphone

registrense y bajenlo. Es gratuito. La version de 100 dólares provee la capacidad de pasar sus apps al iPhone y mandarlas al App Store.

Recuerden visitarnos en

www.sabiussoftware.com

Saludos

So I’d been thinking. Because I’m back into iPhone development and getting warmed up not only to ObjC issues and errors but also C++ oddities, I’m wondering how do you write tests for some of the more difficult things to capture? For instance, I’ve figured out how to capture some of the manual reference counting that’s required by CocoaTouch. (I assert that objects passed into other objects are properly retained and properly released when the object itself is released.) Still I can’t capture the more involved memory management problems. How do you assert an autorelease? What about dynamic memory allocation with pointers? I ended up with a single method that dynamically allocates for a pointer via malloc. I then changed it to use new with array notation.

void MySpecialObject::writeRequestToStream(CFStringRef aRequest, CFWriteStreamRef requestStream)
{
if(CFWriteStreamGetStatus(requestStream) == kCFStreamStatusNotOpen) CFWriteStreamOpen(requestStream);
UInt8* convertedString =(UInt8*)convertToCString(aRequest);
CFWriteStreamWrite(requestStream, convertedString, CFStringGetLength(aRequest));
free(convertedString);
}

It’s used in one spot so far and I’ve manually added the free without a prior failing test. I felt dirty. Assuming there were no call to free, how would you write a failing test for the code above? Is this just one of those things where you have to be extra careful? Maybe I should investigate the use of Velocity style code macros/templates that expand after keying special abbreviation similar to what we have in IntelliJ. I can imagine something like “cstr” expanding to:

char *myCStr = new char[size];
// use myCStr here
free(myCStr);

With the ability to tab through highlighting the variable name, declared size and commented insert code section. Any bright ideas?

My iPhone crapped out on me this weekend. I went to use it and the screen wouldn’t show at all. I loaded iTunes which was able to recognize it and offer to restore it to factory. Word of advice, iTunes is very sneaky! I didn’t realize that the factory restore it offered came with a complimentary upgrade to OS 3.1.2! It became apparent after I went to use the device and swiped right revealing the new spotlight search. Crap! I needed to keep it on 2.2 because I need to verify 2.2 compatibility. No worries, I’l just down grade when I get to the office. I then realized that I couldn’t build and run on device using XCode. I was getting “No Provisioned device connected” errors. I got concerned thinking I had to go through the whole re-provisioning my device hassle. Then I realized the “use for development” button in XCode. One thing lead to another then I finally realized all of the ugly truths about iPhone development.

1. OS 3.1.2 only accepts builds from XCode with iPhone SDK 3.1.2.
2. The iPhone SDK 3.1.2 only installs on OSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard)
3. Apple no longer offers any iPhone OS earlier than 3.1.2 on its website.
4. If you are lucky enough to find a lingering copy of iPhone OS 3.0 or earlier, you cannot roll back from 3.1.2 (…easily) due to baseband errors.
5. DFU mode is not easy to do or understand.
6. You will likely spend the good part of a couple of days trying to recover from an unintentional upgrade as your first 5-7 rollbacks will leave you with misc errors.

The simple answer is that you cannot downgrade the OS without using DFU mode. DFU stands for Device Firmware Upgrade and is a secret mode that Apple doesn’t want you to know about. You have to use something similar to the old Nintendo Contra cheat (you remember up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a…) to enable it. I’ve tried it a couple of times so far and realized that you probably should have a completely installed OS before trying it. My second attempt (after a fresh iTunes restore) left me with an error and I’m hoping the third time is a charm. Here goes nothing…

Thanks to all who came for the Oct meetup.

To sum up, these are the topics discussed:

- Introduction to Xcode 3.2 by Chris Hong
- Introduction to MDeC ICONapp (Integrated Content Development Program) by Tan Tze Meng
- Introduction to Xcode Static Analyzer by Jinny

Here are some resources for the above:

MDeC ICONapps
- ICON program page: http://www.mscmalaysia.my/topic/ICON
- ICONapps Program Page: http://www.mscmalaysia.my/article/ICON/ICONapps

Xcode Static Analyzer
- Developer Documentation (http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/featuredarticles/StaticAnalysis/index.html)
- WWDC09 Video Session 401 – Improving Your Application with the Xcode Static Analyzer (if you have ADC Premium, WWDC Attendee or purchased the video bundle)

For those who don’t have access to the video a short video screencast on Xcode Static Analyzer will be posted soon (hopefully, really hopefully)

Here are the slides from the morning and afternoon sessions of the iPhone 101 class I gave at the 360iDev conference in Denver a couple of weeks ago. The morning session consisted of an introduction to programming in Objective-C. In the afternoon, we got into to iPhone development with UIKit.

I’ve cleaned up the Xcode projects I demoed during the lab exercise sessions and I even added numerous comment statements to the code to make things easier to follow. I’ll zip those projects up and post them as well, shortly.

I just finished teaching a two-week series of iPhone training courses last Friday, and I’m going to be heading out to Cupertino, CA on Sunday to deliver another one. (Okay, who’s the nut who schedules this stuff? Oh wait … that would be me.) Well, in spite of the grueling schedule I thought the class went really well, and feedback from the students was really great!

One of the unusual things about the class was that nearly half the attendees were from outside the U.S. (with the U.S. contingent including people from NASA and Penn State University). While it’s not uncommon for us to have students fly in from Canada, folks in this class came from an assortment of countries, including Ireland, France, and Venezuela. I think we all enjoyed the international flavor!

The training consisted of a series of courses: a 4-day ANSI C Programming course, a 2-day Objective-C for Beginners course, and a 5-day iPhone Programming Workshop course, presented back-to-back over a 12-day period with a one-day break. It’s an intense schedule, but seems to be the only way to cram all the material into a two-week delivery. And for most people that seems to be the outer limit of the amount of time they’re able to be away from their regular day jobs to attend.

Taking the full series tends to be most appealing to folks who are either relatively new to programming, or who don’t have a great deal of recent experience coding in compiled languages such as C, C++, C#, or Java. One of the participants who attended the most recent class wrote a series of blog entries about the experience, concluding with these thoughts:

11 days with 1 day off in between. 4 days in ANSI C (fantastic fun, learn do a lab, learn do a lab). Then 2 days in Objective C. Then 1 day off (Washington DC baby!). Then 5 days on the trot of iPhone programming starting not with the graphical Interface Builder but doing everything by hand. For me, this was THE way of learning and building real understanding and strength.

I came home with no sleep on the overnight return to Belfast, severely jetlagged but started coding Monday morning (since I was awake at 5am anyhow). I now feel comfortable in Xcode and very comfortable in Interface Builder. I know my view from my view controller from my UIVIEW from my App Delegate. When the error messages come (and they do, oh yes) I understand their complaint and I know where to heal their little bruises. [so far I hasten to add]
…
Read more

Here’s the complete set of postings on the class from Max O’Malley’s blog:

• Max O’Malley About Objects iPhone Beginner’s Course
• Day 4 over ANSI C course for iPhone Programming
• Day 1 of 2 in Objective C Programming
• iPhone Programming Course Over

And here’s a sampling of feedback from some of the other attendees:

“The course format is arguably the best in the market today. The course should be a must for people intending to build serious and robust applications for the iPhone.” — V. Suresh

“Good course, good value. Thanks!!” — Misty Patcyk

“Well presented. The pace and content were perfect for my needs. This was the most enjoyable course I’ve taken in years.” — Robin Winsor

“The material is just perfect….In two weeks I learned more than in one university semester.” — Nicos Palimidis

“[The instructor was] extremely knowledgeable. Really knows his stuff.” — Lynn Jenner

“If you want to learn Objective-C, this is the course” — Steve Nelson

“This course has been very important in shaping my thoughts for the future. It confirmed my love of coding and enabled me to begin my C/ObjC/iPhone journey.” — Richard Johnston

“Great starting point for beginners.” — John Dutchak

Thanks everyone! Meanwhile, the iPhone Programming Workshop in Cupertino has already sold out more than a week before the start of class, so looks like we’re going to have another full house. Should be fun!

Cette nuit là, alors que le Pistolero avançait  dans son périple au pays de l’iPhone SDK et des multi-views, une drôle de sensation commença à s’emparer de son crâne. Ses épaules retombèrent et puis la vague se propagea dans tout son corps. Non pas que cette sensation lui fut étrangère, bien au contraire, il la connaissait très bien. Il avait déjà ressenti cela au cours d’une galopée romantique en compagnie de sa belle ou encore pendant un longue prestation orchestrale publique ou il sentait quelques yeux dans l’assemblée se poser sur lui avec passion. Proche de l’orgasme spirituel, cette sensation de bien être, avait forcement une origine. Un foyer provoquant la propagation de cette immense vague. Posé à l’ombre de son arbre, la révélation lui vint comme l’éclair qui déchira le ciel sombre annonçant la batailles qu’il restait à mener. C’est l’objet. Oui c’est ça c’est l’objet ! Peu de temps lui avait fallu pour se rendre compte qu’après plusieurs années d’une guerre sans merci, il arrivait enfin à une étape clé. Les paroles de son maître résonnaient violemment dans sa tête, “Le jour ou tu feras de l’objet tu le sauras”. Ce jour là était enfin arrivé, enfin le Pistolero faisait de l’objet. Fini les semblants, fini les tentatives désespérées de faire ressembler du code C à du code Objet, fini le C++ qui tombe en morceaux. Enfin la gloire et la fortune, enfin la liberté et enfin la béatitude.

note de la rédaction : L’emploi répétitif du mot “vague” n’est pas un moyen détourné ou subliminal d’obtenir une invitation à Google Wave. Quoique …

Playing Video Files in iPhone OS

iPhone OS supports the ability to play back video files directly from your application using the Media Player framework (MediaPlayer.framework). Video playback is supported in full screen mode only and can be used by game developers who want to play cut scene animations or by other developers who want to play media files. When you start a video from your application, the media player interface takes over, fading the screen to black and then fading in the video content. You can play a video with or without transport controls; enabling transport controls lets the user pause or adjust the playback of the video. If you do not enable these controls, the video plays until completion or until you explicitly stop it in your code.

To initiate video playback, you must know the URL of the file you want to play. For files your application provides, this would typically be a pointer to a file in your application’s bundle; however, it can also be a pointer to a file on a remote server or elsewhere in the directory containing your application. You use this URL to instantiate a new instance of the MPMoviePlayerController class. This class presides over the playback of your video file and manages user interactions, such user taps in the transport controls (if shown). To initiate playback, simply call the play method of the controller.

Listing 4-4 shows a sample method that playbacks the video at the specified URL. The play method is an asynchronous call that returns control to the caller while the movie plays. The movie controller loads the movie in a full-screen view, and animates the movie into place on top of the application’s existing content. When playback is finished, the movie controller sends a notification to the object, which releases the movie controller now that it is no longer needed.

-(void)playMovieAtURL:(NSURL*)theURL

{

    MPMoviePlayerController* thePlayer = [[MPMoviePlayerController alloc] 

    initWithContentURL:theURL];

    thePlayer.scalingMode = MPMovieScalingModeAspectFill;

    thePlayer.userCanShowTransportControls = NO;

    // Register for the playback finished notification.

    [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self

                selector:@selector(myMovieFinishedCallback:)

                name:MPMoviePlayerPlaybackDidFinishNotification

                thePlayer];

    // Movie playback is asynchronous, so this method returns 

      immediately.

    [thePlayer play];

}

// When the movie is done, release the controller.

-(void)myMovieFinishedCallback:(NSNotification*)aNotification

{

    MPMoviePlayerController* thePlayer = [aNotification object];

    [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] removeObserver:self

                name:MPMoviePlayerPlaybackDidFinishNotification

                thePlayer];

    // Release the movie instance created in playMovieAtURL:

    [thePlayer release];

}

Next in the series of IPhone application development.  First was graphical implementation, now distributed networking. Welcome Back Hugo Munoz as my Guest Blogger. Designing mobile distributed applications implies formalizing the development process to face a lot of challenges in terms of communications, patterns, middleware software, security among others. The market of mobile applications is growing rapidly. Mobile terminals such as iPhone and Android are capable of running rather complex applications, due to the rapid process of hardware and telecommunication technologies, this could mean only one thing “The world is becoming mobile” and we need to be ready to accept the challenge of bringing creative and technically unique software. Before starting I have to mention that my inspiration for this two iPhone blogs was a little application that comes with the iPhone SDK called “WiTap” that demonstrates simple networking between two iPhones/iPod Touches using sockets in case you are not registered in the iPhone developer program here is a YouTube video that shows the application: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzDCAMIy24w To be honest my intention was just to do some testing in matters of networking between two devices, but WiTap already showed me that, so I decided to take the next step in the creation of a real distributed cross device / platform architecture capable to work over the internet in a reliable and secure way. The first concern that came to my mind was finding the appropriate communication protocol for a cross device solution, after so many days of failed tests my patience was arriving at its aim then “STOMP” came to the scene which is a very simple and easy to implement message queue based protocol designed pretty much like HTTP; the server side may be hard to implement well, but it is very easy to write a client to get yourself connected, also googling a little bit I found an open source Stomp connector for ObjectiveC which dramatically simplified this first task, I just downloaded the library then plugged it into my XCode Project and worked smoothly. By this point the communications was happening but in a crude way, just sending text like messages from the client to the server broker, so the next big challenge was adding the ability to serialize and transmit objects thru stomp, for this I initially thought in two options the first one was embedding XML into the stomp message or make my application speak JSON, I took the second approach for this test because I found  a very good open source JSON parser for objectiveC,  I just wanted to be practical and JSON is faster than XML. The final piece was designing a restful API to transmit my “Simon says” movement sequences between players, here I did a very simple Java Server Objects implementation which publishes JSON messages to the STOMP broker then it broadcasts to the subscribed clients. Here is a basic diagram of the solution: As you can see this is a cross platform / device solution, off course the backend could be any technology you feel comfortable with for example Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) with a custom binding implementation to speak “STOMP” in the mix, the same applies for the client side, we can have both Iphone and an Android devices working together in the same application sharing the same backend. I hope you found my little experiments interesting and thanks for your time reading this blog.

Read more Oshyn, Inc blogs at: http://www.oshyn.com/resources/blog.html

Comme je le disais dans le billet précédant, il existe une autre méthode pour gérer la rotation du mobile dans une application. Il s’agit en fait de réaliser un échange de vue (en anglais “Swap”). C’est assez simple sur le papier mais légèrement plus complexe en pratique. La surcharge de la méthode de rotation est primordiale afin de mettre en place les transformations mathématiques nécessaires et la sélection de la nouvelle vue. Ensuite on précise à l’iPhone les orientations qui sont autorisées pour que cette méthode soit appelée avant que la rotation ne commence réellement.

Bon là il est 1h du matin, je continue ma lecture avec la saison 3 de 24 en fond mais j’hésite à gratouiller un peu avant d’aller dormir. Je vous laisse ici et j’attaque un des chapitres que j’attendais le plus, “Les Applications Multi-Views”.

 After a fair amount of wrangling, our first apps hit the store this weekend. They are not sending ripples through the technological community nor are they making the developers (us) filthy rich, but they were a great experience for us to understand all the parts of the process. Our first two apps are the infamous Wifive and a version of the kids game “See and Say.” We were able to use these apps to understand the development tools, submission process, and startup needs for a iphone app development house to get off the ground.

“Wifiving” is like high fiving but you do it over the air waves to someone that is too far away to physically touch. We took this concept to the iphone by displaying a picture of a hand and playing a sounds when you pump the phone in the air. We have a number of different hands and corresponding sounds for each hand. On the development front, we got used to scrolling and using a navigation controller to display the hand selections. We were also able to do some tricks with “lazy loading” so that all the picture did not fully load before the app could start running. This made the app startup significantly faster. As you scroll to the different images, the picture load in the background.

Check it out in the iTunes App Store: Wifive 

 Animal Adventure is a version of the classic game “See and Say” for kids. This app is still extremely simple overall but significantly more complex than Wifive from a development standpoint comparatively. With this app we learned how to animate, rotate, and enhance images with shadows and levels of transparency. We are not graphic artists so it is some amount of trial and error to get things looking OK. We were able to get the arrow in the middle of the screen have a natural feel to so that you can hold and move it or send it spinning with a  swipe. Our app also allows you to shake the iphone to get the arrow spinning. With  an exponential slowdown algorithm we gave the spinning arrow a natural look as it lands on an animal and pops out  a view from the bottom that says something like “The pig says oink.” This feature is implemented with an off-screen view that “peeks in” and is populated with the phrase and a picture of the animal the arrow chose. This action is coupled with a corresponding sound bite of the animal noise.  

 Check it out in the iTunes App Store: Animal Adventure

We are excited to have our first apps in the store and are working on more as I write. We will try and update this blog with more information as we learn.

Motivé comme jamais, hier soir je me suis lancé dans un nouveau chapitre de ma bible actuelle.

Après avoir développé une application qui ne faisait rien si ce n’est afficher des contrôles sur l’écran, je me suis plongé dans la gestion de l’orientation de l’iPhone. A première vu, tout cela me semble bien complexe. Faire en sorte que chaque contrôle se positionne au bon endroit, en fonction de l’orientation du mobile (droite/gauche/à l’envers/normal) semble déjà dur à concevoir avec une application à 3 boutons, ça risque d’être un océan à boire pour une application qui, comment dire, fait des choses.

Mais c’est sans compter sur la l’Interface Builder (IB) d’Apple qui pré-mâche le travail pour le développeur. C’est incroyable tout ce qu’il fait cet IB.

Il existe plusieurs solutions pour gérer les rotations de l’appareil. En gros, vous vous en doutez, le principe consiste à afficher dans un écran 320*480 ce qu’on affichait avant dans un écran 480*320 (je me limite ici aux rotations vers la droite ou la gauche à partir de la position normale de l’iPhone).

Première solution, “l’Autosizing”. C’est la méthode la plus simple, puisqu’elle consiste (après activation) à dire à nos contrôles comment ils doivent régir si l’utilisateur fait pivoter l’appareil. On agit alors sur la taille des contrôles ainsi que la distance entre ces dernières et le bord de l’écran. Méthode simple, puisqu’on n’écrit pas une ligne de code, mais pas toujours efficace, quand on veut optimiser l’espace. En effet l’optimisation de l’espace devient souvent cruciale quand on est en mode paysage (puisque la plupart des applications sont d’abord pensées en mode portrait).

L’autre solution légèrement plus complexe (puisqu’il faut coder) consiste à dire à notre Controller de vue, au bon moment (pendant la rotation), quelle taille donner aux contrôles présents (aux boutons par exemple) mais surtout ou les placer. Il ne s’agit plus de fixer une distance à respecter par rapport aux bords de la vue, mais bel et bien de les positionner de manière libre sur la vue. Cela demande un peu plus de réflexion que la première méthode, mais s’avère plus efficace en matière d’occupation de l’espace perdu.

La troisième solution semble être la création de plusieurs vues différentes, chacune correspondant à un mode d’affichage (portrait, gauche, droite ou à l’envers) mais je n’ai pas encore attaqué ce paragraphe Je vous mettrai les Screenshots ainsi que mon ressenti un peu plus tard dans la semaine.

Microsoft vs. Apple

However it is explained, whether it be PC vs. Mac, Windows vs. OS X, or The iPod vs.  The Zune, Microsoft and Apple certainly have been feverishly competing to win the hearts of today’s gadget consumers.

And recently, after Microsoft’s Zune was overtaken (an understatement. I mean seriously who has a Zune?) by the iPod, these two companies have shifted to developing touchscreen tablets.

 

Apple Tablet

 Apple seems to be somewhat hush-hush about the Apple Tablet. With only some factual details found online, it’s hard to say too much about this, other than evaluating the image.

It seems Apple has is sticking with the basic concept that is the iPhone. Just take it, turn it horizontally, and enlarge it, and you get the Apple Tablet. The same application dockbar as the iPhone is seen in the tablet. It has a 10″ screen (from Gizmodo). When I first saw a picture of it, I definitely thought about getting it, despite the supposed price (from $700-$900, from Gizmodo). Then I thought, Hey, this isn’t really something you can really tote around like and iPhone…darn. Further thinking about it, it could be marketed as a Netbook-like device.

 The Microsoft Courier seems to have had much less coverage than the Apple Tablet. I suggest this is because consumers (or just people in general) love the mysterious atmosphere that having no knowledge other than a picture brings. This allows consumers, as well as the many, many apple rumor bloggers, to speculate essentially anything about it.

Another suggestion I have is that consumers have iPhone fever, and with Apple offering a similar device, they can’t resist grabbing one off the shelf.

Microsoft Courier

The Courier presents a much different feeling than the Apple Tablet. Courier’s user interface appears business-esque; another reason why coverage would be low, compared to the Apple Tablet’s action style feel. The two screens of the Courier are hinged, allowing the device to be folded like a notebook.

A problem brought up by many bloggers about the Courier is the glass on glass issue. Dirt caught between the two screens when folded will grind on the glass. Essentially after a week, the screens when off could look like the back of your once shiny iPod.

Microsoft Courier video demonstration:

J’ai reçu ça, il paraît que c’est génial.

Commandé sur  Amazon au prix de 27,07 euros Mercredi et reçu Samedi . Je pense qu’il va rejoindre mon livre de chevet actuel à savoir le chef d’oeuvre de Jacques Siron “la partition intérieure”.

C’est en Anglais évidemment comme 90% des documents qui parlent du développement pour iPhone. Je vous en parlerai quand je l’aurai commencé.

I waste more time not knowing the details behind XCode. I’m playing with some basic image drawing code and trying to figure out why my custom UIView doesn’t appear on screen. Naturally I click the gutter in the drawRect method to set a break-point. XCode moonwalks right over the breakpoint each time! I try all different kinds of varaitions of my custom drawing, both overriding UIImageView and manually adding it to another view. Each time XCode does a hop-scotch over the drawRect breakpoint. I only notice that the break point turns orage when I run the program. I finally figure out that I had a type-o in a custom graphic file name causing it to appear like nothing was happening. Still XCode ignores my breakpoint.

Because I’ve seen this behavior before I now know my code is begin executed even though XCode doesn’t honor my breakpoint. What I really need to know is why does XCode sometimes ignore breakpoints? What is the significance of these orange breakpoints? As of now there’s nothing I can do to set the break-point except for checking the checkbox in the breakpoint manager dialog. Why does this happen? Why is my IDE clowning me?

*Update*
Found the answer here. In short, XCode sometimes gets its symbol references confused. To rememdy the problem you can either disable “Lazy Loading of Symbols” in the debug preferences or delete the file from XCode (just remove the reference not the actual file) and re-add it.