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Archive for the ‘Development’ Category

Snow Leopard in Depth: Grand Central Dispatch

Written on July 06, 2009 by Weldon Dodd and 4 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 No one 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 10 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 33 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 11 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 56 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 [...]

App Store Roundtable: After Sales Support

Written on May 12, 2009 by Gavin Bowman and 1 person has commented

In this installment of the App Store Roundtable, I talked to a few developers about issues with supporting their apps after a sale has been made. Many developers are concerned at the difficulty of providing any form of after sales support to customers. Minor problems with an app often lead to a bad review and a [...]

Apple Freezes Snow Leopard APIs, Makes Mac Drives Accessible Under Boot Camp

Written on May 12, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 1 person has commented

Snow Leopard is starting to settle down into a relatively stable piece of software that will likely resemble the final release version, according to Engadget. Some speculate that it could receive retail release alongside iPhone OS 3.0 as soon as WWDC, which takes place in early June.
Like iPhone OS 3.0, Apple is now giving developers [...]

iPhone Dev Sessions: Create a Drum App

Written on May 11, 2009 by Henry Balanon and 29 people have commented

You’ve seen all the different drum apps, right? Well, they’re really easy to make. In this iPhone Dev Sessions article, I want to teach you how to make Bickboxx, an actual app that’s in the iTunes App Store.
Grab Bickboxx (FREE) from the iTunes App Store if you want to see this puppy in action so [...]

Apple Insists New Apps Must Be iPhone 3.0-Compatible

Written on May 08, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and No one has commented

It’s getting down to the wire, and Apple clearly means business. Yesterday they sent out an email to those enrolled in the iPhone development program notifying members that all apps submitted will now be reviewed for approval using iPhone OS 3.0. That means that even if you were designing your app using the iPhone 2.0 [...]

Reader Feedback: Macs as a Superior Development Platform?

Written on May 07, 2009 by Nick Santilli and 24 people have commented

So I need your help, dear readers. I’ve taken a new position at my big-boy job, and it’s throwing me back into the world of coding. As with the majority of businesses, ours runs on Dell PCs, but my new lead wants to change that (at least for our group). We’re a small enough company [...]

iPhone OS Beta 5 Now Available, Kills Carrier File Switching

Written on May 07, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 6 people have commented

This week, Apple deviated from their usual biweekly update schedule and released yet another installment of the iPhone OS 3.0 beta. As of last week, the beta has been accompanied by an iTunes 8.2 pre-release build, and an updated version of that accompanies the beta firmware and the SDK. Aside from the single-week interval, the [...]

App Store Roundtable: Transparency and the Approval System

Written on May 06, 2009 by Gavin Bowman and 5 people have commented

For our next installment of the App Store Roundtable, we talked with developers about an issue that comes up time and again: the application approval system and the overall transparency of the inner workings of the App Store. When developers submit their products to Apple, we have to cross our fingers and hope they’ll be allowed [...]

App Store Roundtable: User Review System

Written on May 04, 2009 by Gavin Bowman and 10 people have commented

For our next installment of the App Store Roundtable, we asked developers what they liked and/or disliked about the iTunes review system. It should be noted that the review system for the App Store has seen a few updates since these comments were made, but concerns voiced by these developers are still valid.
For me there’s a [...]

The Apple Ad Effect: How a Promo Appearance Affects App Sales

Written on April 30, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 6 people have commented

Ever wonder how being included in one of Apple’s iPhone and App Store ads affects sales? Positively, would be my uninformed guess. And it looks like, in this case at least, my gut feeling is an accurate reflection of reality. A recent blog post by Michael D. Jensen, developer of Analytics App for the iPhone/iPod [...]

App Store Roundtable: The Gold Rush

Written on April 29, 2009 by Gavin Bowman and 8 people have commented

Welcome to the first App Store Roundtable. The iPhone and the App Store are always hot news, and for good reason. It’s a fantastic marketplace for developers, and there’s always something exciting happening somewhere for the press to report on. But sometimes the issues faced by everyday developers working on the platform get left in [...]