Random header image... Refresh for more!

iOS Development

Developing the Development Tools

by Jay Versluis on April 7, 2013

in iOS Development

PatchBay Icon 512x512Every major software company has a collection of internal tools to help them develop their software. These are either off-the-shelf apps like Photoshop, or they are so specialised that they have to be custom written in-house by a team of specialists, often by a dedicated department.

Right now I’m in a similar situation myself: We need a dedicated tool to create the data structure for future reference apps. Specifically we need a simple input mask that makes my iPhone App understand what data I’d like to display without having to tweak a text file.

I can’t quite believe that I have successfully written such a tool for precisely this purpose. Best of all, I did this almost without any code using Cocoa Bindings. Aptly titled PatchBay, this app allows us to create a Core Data store file which I can pick up in iOS and display on the iPhone.

Let me tell you how it came to be, why it’s useful for us and how gobsmacked I am that this has become a reality.

[Read full article…]

{ 0 comments }

Seek and Ye shall find

by Jay Versluis on March 10, 2013

in iOS Development

folder_findFor the last week and a half I’ve been having fun researching and coding the search function in iOS Table Views.

You’d think there’s just a “thing” you drag into your view, hook it up somehow and “hey presto, it works” (alas that’s how you do it in jQuery Mobile).

Not so in iOS: we’ll have to deal with a search bar, a search display controller and its many intricacies, and then something called a Predicate.

I don’t mind telling you: my head has been smoking… but my hard work and perseverance has paid off, and now I can finally add a search function to all my iOS Apps!

Tell me about it

{ 0 comments }

Testing Views App for iOS

June 29, 2012

I was just browsing through my archive and stumbled upon an iOS App I’ve made a few months ago. It looks great on the new iPad due to really hi-res images – but what’s even better is that it’s written almost entirely without code! It’s still using Xcode so it’s a native app of course, [...]

Take a closer look →

How exciting: I’ve just written a Web Browser for the iPad!

April 6, 2012

Today you find me rather speechless: because I’m sitting here with my iPad which is running a web browser that I’ve just written in Xcode! As in “written myself, working and doing what I’m expecting it to do”. I’m in SHOCK! This is seriously cool – and it didn’t take long either. Let me tell [...]

Take a closer look →

Dancing Robot Splash Screen

August 28, 2011

I thought I’d share a couple of Splash Screens I created for my (since rejected) iPhone Apps. Splash Screens are loading screens which are shown while the sometimes lengthy startup process would show a black screen – unless you provide an image. Makes for a much nicer user experience. Dancing Robot (above) is lovely cartoon [...]

Take a closer look →

Steve Jobs resigns from Apple over the rejection of my Dancing Alien app

August 26, 2011

On Tuesday, my “Dancing Alien” App has been rejected by Apple on the grounds that “it wasn’t very useful”. They pointed me to Section 2.12 of their submission guidelines which explains this. Today, only a couple of days later, my good mate Steve Jobs resigns from Apple, probably as a direct response to this appalling [...]

Take a closer look →

I’ve submitted my first iPhone App to Apple

August 16, 2011

I’ve just spent the last three hours trying to make sense of how to submit my first iPhone App to Apple. This is not an easy task, I can tell you that! Now the waiting game starts – let’s see if I’ve done everything correctly. As nice and easy as the end user experience is, [...]

Take a closer look →

Creating Dancing Alien v1.0 – Release Notes

August 14, 2011

It’s been an exciting day here at The Render Farm: we’ve decided we wanted to release our first app by tomorrow evening, and the next thing we knew was that Julia’s soundtrack was ready for it. Not even half an hour later we previewed stunning animations with several characters… we couldn’t believe it ourselves – [...]

Take a closer look →

Objective-C: The Final Frontier

July 28, 2011

It’s been a tough couple of days with my head spinning and – as my wife says – me being not very happy. This is because every book i read about iOS developing appears to be hopelessly out of date. My fault for wanting to get my hands dirty with bleeding edge shenanigans. Book No. [...]

Take a closer look →

My first Test App: “How ya’ll doin?”

July 21, 2011

It’s exciting times here at the hacking front: I’ve deployed several test apps today and had a closer look at Xcode 4.1 – the latest coding environment for iOS and Mac. After having spent most of the day downloading and installing Mac OS X “Lion” I found out the hard way that Xcode 4.02 was [...]

Take a closer look →
Page 1 of 2
1
2