Entries tagged with “iphone development” from O'Reilly Digital Media Blog

There are a ton of people attracted by the iPhone gold rush who want to write iPhone apps without taking the time to learn Cocoa. Come for the phone but stay for the Mac.

There are so many things that we just don't know.

Embedding data, particularly text-based data back into an mdbackup file isn't just a matter of setting the value in the dictionary for the @"Data" key. Instead, you need to serialize your output. The code that follows demonstrates a simple way to serialize property lists into an mdbackup-compatible format

Parts 1 and 2 of this mini-series introduced you to mdbackup files. When backing up your iPhone or iPod touch, iTunes stores files in mdbackup property lists. The name mdbackup comes from mobile device, the name of the private framework that's responsible for handling the iPhone backups. Today, you'll discover how to extract file data from the backups.

To back up an attached device, you must specify its target ID. This is the name used for the folder in the MobileSync/Backup directory. The target ID also appears in the Info.plist file. Issue the following command using the target ID for your device.

Whenever the iPhone backs up to your Mac, iTunes copies certain files to your computer. These include your settings files, from the preferences library, and databases, such as your calls, notes, bookmarks and so forth.

A lot of people have been asking about using the existing open SDK for 2.0 application development. A few betas back, my answer was "Hey, no problem". But with the last two betas, I'm not quite so sure. We haven't seen pwnage compatibility since the third beta and there hasn't been a concerted effort that I've seen to upgrade the open headers to match late frameworks. (I know I haven't documented headers because of NDA concerns. That's probably goes for many other programmers.)

Quite a few readers have asked me whether I intend to continue programming for 1.1.4 firmware. In a nutshell, the answer is "no". And here are my reasons why.

As the new iPhone SDK hit the streets, I decided to take another look at those iPhone Panda protocols I wrote about just a month ago. To my slight surprise, the protocols disappeared from Apple's public iTunes listings.

Seven hours. Go on and ask. I know you're dying to. What could possibly waste seven hours of time in a developer's life? Why downloading an SDK and installing new firmware! Needless to say, I'm in a particularly grumpy mood this morning.

So you pwned your 2.0 dev phone. Now what? You can use the open source toolchain to build a limited set of tools, primarily command-line ones or you can use your SDK to build real apps that you can run outside the sandbox. Here's how.

When it comes to portable computing, the iPhone works in that it gets the job done. Its screen is barely big enough to read comfortably. Its onscreen keyboard will never match up fully to the needs of a trained typist accustomed to physical data entry. It's a gadget made from compromise and limitations. But where it excels is in bridging the gap. If you're serious about reading ebooks, managing your calendar, watching videos, and performing other acts of portable computing, surely a laptop will better suit your needs. But the iPhone offers just enough computing to allow you to untether yourself from a normal laptop and strike out with the Internet in your pocket.

If you’ve used the iPhone or iPod touch for any time, you’ve likely seen the small red badges that appear over applications on the home screen. These might indicate the number of missed phone calls or unread emails that accumulated since the user last opened Phone or Mail.

Progress bars allow end-users to anticipate wait times. They present bars that fill from left to right. These bars indicate the degree to which a task has finished. Progress bars work best for long waits where providing state feedback allows your users to retain the feel of control.

At this time, Apple provides 5 AppStore calls to its new p2-panda service plus a call to legal terms and conditions. I'm swayed by Ryan Block's excellent insight that p2 probably stands for Purple 2, the iPhone's code name

Hackers have been hard at work updating the open source iPhone SDK to work with Apple's newest unreleased firmware and here is what they have found: nearly everything that worked with earlier firmware continues to compile and work with the newer firmware.

What happens when you offer free technical support and application distribution for only $99? An oversupply of iPhone developer wannabees and an undersupply of Apple developer support resources.

Say you were working in an unspecified but extremely buggy beta SDK. Say you suddenly started encountering "could not open a new pseudo tty" errors whenever you tried opening a new terminal windows. There's not much help out there on the net for this extremely hypothetical situation.

There are a bunch of Mac developers who are really angry that Apple will be keeping thirty percent of the sale price of their software in return for giving them access to the iPhone sales channel. Apple could pretty much charge whatever they want --- it's your only sanctioned way onto the phone --- and they are taking 30% and giving the developer 70%.

I was up way way late and woke up way way early. I didn't sleep so you could--here are important things you need to know about the SDK.