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Archive for the ‘Development’ Category

Apple’s App Store Approval Process Now Includes an Automated Layer

Written on November 17, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 12 people have commented

App Store developers now have more to contend with than just the fickle tastes of the humans Apple has reviewing submissions. Now, submissions also go through an automated filter that determines whether or not the app is obeying the rules and not using any of Apple’s private APIs, which is a no-no, according to the [...]

App Store Devs Flaunt Copyright Troll With Name Changes

Written on November 13, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 8 people have commented

iPhone devs are a rebellious bunch, and they don’t like to be bullied by anyone other than their Apple, which both frustrates and affirms their existence. Now, in light of what some might call a campaign being waged against the App Store by a well-known trademark troll, many iPhone devs are protesting what they see [...]

App Developer Diary 5: Building on a Budget

Written on August 26, 2009 by Olly Farshi and 4 people have commented

Going behind-the-scenes of a real iPhone app’s development, in this installment I investigate several methods for cutting development costs and adding value to the game.
I have to admit that I’m still working on the Game Design Document. Something which I thought would take only a few days has grown to incorporate minute details alongside gargantuan [...]

Sequel Pro 0.96 Released

Written on August 20, 2009 by Andrew Bednarz and 6 people have commented

The open-source project team that released Sequel Pro 0.95 three months ago has just released 0.96. The update adds polish to the application, making working with it more pleasurable — if you can ever call working with databases pleasurable.
They’ve also added some new core functionality and optimized the backend. To me, this feels like more [...]

Sketch Book Makes Designing iPhone Apps Easier

Written on August 19, 2009 by Lisa Hoover and 7 people have commented

There’s a new tool available that’s designed to make life easier for iPhone developers, and its surprisingly low tech. It’s called the iPhone Application Sketch Book and it looks like just the thing to keep all those notes and inspirations about a new app idea all in one place.
The spiral-bound book is around 8 1/2″ [...]

iPhone Dev Sessions: Adding Analytics to Your App

Written on August 10, 2009 by Henry Balanon and 12 people have commented

Welcome to another episode of TheAppleBlog’s iPhone Dev Sessions. We left off with a drum app tutorial called Bickboxx. For this tutorial, we’re building off of the first Bickboxx project, so go back and finish it if you haven’t already. Or if you want to cheat, grab the Bickboxx code from Github.
The Story
The Boss is [...]

Smultron and Lingon Developer Hangs Up Hat

Written on August 10, 2009 by Andrew Bednarz and 22 people have commented

If you were to navigate to lingon.sourceforge.net or smultron.sourceforge.net today, you would see the following text on your screen:
“Hi!
First of all I’d like to thank you for your interest in my applications. But I have now come to a point where I don’t have the time to spend on the applications that they deserve so [...]

App Developer Diary Part 3: All in the Timing

Written on July 17, 2009 by Olly Farshi and 1 person has commented

Taking a genuine behind-the-scenes look at developing an app for iPhone, the latest installment finds this journalist-cum-game-designer hidden behind a mounting pile of paperwork and planning.
Last time, we left off with me pondering the possibility of the project’s failure. I’ve moved on, though, and set aside my doubts, mainly because I need to focus on [...]

Apple Issues Developer Updates for iPhone 3.1, Snow Leopard Preview

Written on July 15, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 3 people have commented

Yesterday evening was a red-letter night for Apple developers, especially if you happened to have both Mac and iPhone developer accounts. That’s because Apple dropped new builds of both iPhone OS 3.1 and Snow Leopard, bringing it to version 10A411. Users with an iPhone developer account can head to Apple’s Developer Connection web site and [...]

iPhone Social Gaming Service Roundup

Written on July 13, 2009 by Chris Ryan and 7 people have commented

Like any gaming platform, the sustained success of the platform itself is driven by its users. Social gaming networks allow for increased user interaction and, in many ways, a more engaging gaming experience. On the Xbox, you have the Xbox Live service; the Playstation 3 features the Playstation Network; and the Wii features WiiConnect24. So [...]

Snow Leopard in Depth: Grand Central Dispatch

Written on July 06, 2009 by Weldon Dodd and 12 people have commented

At the beginning of the decade, Intel was imagining that by 2010 it would have processors with over 1 billion transistors running at a clock speed of 20GHz. As we move into the second half of 2009, the reality is that we will soon have 3GHz mobile chips with four cores on them and 2010 [...]

App Developer Diary Part 2: Pitching My Concept

Written on July 03, 2009 by Olly Farshi and 1 person has commented

In this week’s enlightening installment of the App Developer Diary, I pitch my game concept to the coders, preach the gospel of the Game Bible and muse upon the possibility of the project imploding.
Straight after submitting last week’s App Developer Diary, I packed up my MacBook Pro and headed down to Nolla, a local bar [...]

iPhone OS 3.1 Beta Available for Developers

Written on July 01, 2009 by Charles Jade and 9 people have commented

Following closely on the official release of iPhone OS 3.0, Apple has seeded a developer build of version 3.1, build 7C97D, along with the SDK.
The point release appears to be more than bug fixes, too. A number of sites, including Gizmodo, are reporting features like:

Faster boot time
Bluetooth voice control
Access to video editing through APIs for [...]

Why Snow Leopard Matters

Written on June 18, 2009 by Jon Buys and 47 people have commented

Just about as far back as I can remember, every new release of an operating system has brought new features, additional functionality, and, unfortunately, more bloat. This applies equally for OS X and Windows, and in recent years has become even more prominent.
Windows XP was bigger than both NT or 98, Vista was far bigger [...]

Dig Into Unix

Written on June 10, 2009 by Jon Buys and 12 people have commented

When Apple revamped its operating system and adopted Nextstep as the base of OS X, they brought along with it an extremely powerful version of Unix based on the open-source project FreeBSD, now known as Darwin.
Unix has a long history, one that started in the basements of Bell Labs by a group of AT&T engineers [...]

Developer Preview of Google Chrome for OS X Available

Written on June 07, 2009 by Charles Jade and 12 people have commented

An early version of Chrome is now publicly available for Mac users, at least what there is of it. As the Chromium Blog glibly posted, this release is intended for developers who take “great pleasure in incomplete, unpredictable, and potentially crashing software.” Having caveated that, Chrome feels fast, faster than Safari, and that is [...]

43 iPhone Development Resources

Written on June 01, 2009 by Henry Balanon and 86 people have commented

Programming for the iPhone is still pretty new. It might be a bit tougher to find iPhone developer resources, but we found a bunch that will get you through building any iPhone app you might be starting on. Check out our list of our favorite developer books, blogs, podcasts, screencasts, open-source libraries, communities, forums, conferences, [...]

Japanese Game Maker Survey Finds Strong Appetite for iPhone Development

Written on May 22, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 2 people have commented

The real core of the video game industry has long been Japan, where it enjoys a pop culture status that Western studios can only hope to one day achieve. It stands to reason, then, that a good barometer for the iPhone’s success as a gaming platform would be Japanese industry interest in the device. A [...]

App Store Roundtable: Analytics

Written on May 20, 2009 by Gavin Bowman and 4 people have commented

For this installment of the App Store Roundtable, we talked to developers about analytics. On the web we’re spoiled when it comes to analytics. Simple plug-ins allow us to track where visitors come from, and what they look at. We can also use this information to track purchases and referrals over many months. It’s a different [...]

Apple Begins Stress Testing Push Notification Servers

Written on May 19, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 6 people have commented

Yesterday, people registered as paid iPhone developers received an email alerting them to the availability of a new version of the Associated Press News app via a temporary, exclusive code. The purpose of the app is to test high-volume live push notification and its effect on Apple’s servers before the function goes out live to [...]