July 2008 Archives

Regular Inside iPhone readers already know that I'm one of the new authors here. What you probably don't know is that this is not the only new job I started in July. Last Monday I started working for a travel-related...... read more

I've had many serious posts here on the Inside iPhone blog, but today I get to shake things up with a little levity. At the dawn of the Mac OS X era (say 2001-2003), there were many new programmers, both...... read more

In which I try not to gripe about the NDA (gripe-worthy though it may be) and instead look for answers to more basic questions about iPhone development and it's roots in OS X tools.... read more

You may have seen a link to a site called, well, &*%#ing NDA. If you might be offended by coarse language, avoid clicking this link. The site collects tweets from various developers who are expressing their frustration with Apple's Non-Disclosure...... read more

Now that the iPhone has been jailbroken, may people are asking "So now what?" What use has the jailbreak been, especially considering the easy advantages of App Store distribution. The answer to that depends on how you use your iPhone.... read more

Head on over to the iPhone developer site to get your fresh hot copy of the iPhone 2.1 sdk and beta firmware. It's unclear whether the SDK beta NDA agreement still applies to this new release. In other news: pwnage is now out of date.... read more

I spent Thursday, July 10, installing the pre-released version of the iPhone 2.0 firmware on my first generation iPhone. I couldn't wait to start playing with the native iPhone apps I saw in the iTunes App Store. The journey was...... read more

A guy named Michiel van Meeteren researched and wrote a thesis paper for the University of Amsterdam looking into the world of independent Mac software developers. The research was sponsored and now published by Mac developer MadeBySofa. You may ask...... read more

Shortly before the launch of the iPhone 3G, Nielsen Mobile published iPhone statistics they aquired through their "audience measurement and wireless market research" activities. Their press release apparently went mostly unnoticed until now. According to their data, the iPhone users...... read more

The iPhone Dev Team have released their pwnage tool for 2G and 3G phones. The tool jailbreaks both generations of phones on the 2.0 software, and also unlocks the 2G’s. (Full disclosure, I am on the Dev Team) “Ebony and...... read more

New Inside iPhone contributor Giles Turnbull says hello.... read more

Opening the book on my journeys in iPhone development, mistakes and all. Come read along, follow along, and join in the discussion.... read more

"An" vs. "The". It's one little article, but it makes a huge difference on the iPhone. I've previously mentioned Rogue Amoeba's frustrations with Apple's developer certification process in an earlier post. The App Store has just launched, and like thousands...... read more

The past few days, I've returned to playing around with backup files. Among other things, I discovered that the name of each backup file is actually the SHA1 hash of its path. So there really is a logic between the mdbackup naming and the files they represent!... read more

So we got into 'a bit of a pickle' recently with the 2.0 Cisco IPSEC VPN client for the iPhone. We could not for the life of us work out what was going on. We checked the config, checked...... read more

The anti-climax. After the exciting frenzy of the pre-opening weeks, our two heroes Martin and Dominik of TheCodingMonkeys have cooled down quite a bit. Since Apple does not provide any statistics and the download counter in the App Store still...... read more

Hello Inside iPhone readers. I'm Dave Aiello, an Internet application developer and ice hockey official. I've been blogging at Operation Gadget for almost five years, and I've been a proud owner of an iPhone since June 30, 2007, which is...... read more

The whys and wherefores of the appstore and the associated cost model are starting to more become directly apparent. I just found an email in my Inbox entitled: "Your receipt #53294320380023764". The entire system is clearly set up so...... read more

Apple claims that there are more than 800 apps listed in the App Store. Looking through the offering, I am wondering if more isn't less. Not only does developing an iPhone app become less appealing with prices approaching zero under...... read more

The iPhone 2.0 OS update finally arrived for all users at the end of last week, and it's got lots of minor updates included. Overall, the 2.0 update isn't massive, but it's certainly worth installing. Below, see some random notes...... read more

Holy cow! Apple just announced 10,000,000 downloads from the App Store which contains 800 apps. That is an impressive 12,500 downloads per app for just three days. Pity that iPhone developers individually have no clue as to how well (or...... read more

So, iPhone developers have woken up and noticed that being in the App Store alone is not going to drive sales. Some developers are reclaiming their 30% listing fee worth by naming their Apps with obscure characters up front so...... read more

It will no doubt take many companies some time to take advantage of all the new Enterprise Integration options of iPhone 2.0, but there are some ways to simulate at least some of that kind of integration, using software that you may already have.... read more

So back in the day, we used to build a lot of UNIX apps for the iphone, and one thing that we really miss in the new SDK is a quick way to do the old: ./configure --host=arm-apple-darwin trick The...... read more

Grandpa Joe: I never thought my life could be Anything but catastrophe But suddenly I begin to see A bit of good luck for me 'Cause I've got a golden ticket I've got a golden twinkle in my eye! It's...... read more

When it comes to the iPhone, supply and demand principles are surely in action. iPhone developers, who have been waiting for Apple to throw open the beta program to all comers may have to wait a little longer. As of today, Apple had made no announcement. Many developers have been left on the sidelines feeling marginalized by the opening of AppStore with their products yet untested on the actual iPhone or iPod touch, let alone ready for sale along side early admissions.... read more

Martin and Dominik got excited about a week before the WWDC when both found themselves with a bit of time on their hands having come to the valley a bit early now waiting for WWDC to start. "We decided to...... read more

Late last week, I read an article so dumb, I couldn't believe it. I recovered, and wrote up part of a response for this very weblog, but I couldn't bear to finish it. Now, however, I see that both Macuser...... read more

My good friends Martin and Dominik, aka TheCodingMonkeys of SubEthaEdit fame, are poised to release their first iPhone app on the app store on friday. Since TheCodingMonkeys share our offices and cooperate on a project with us at Boinx Software,...... read more

The iPhone's on-demand positioning may soon connect developers to an entirely new revenue stream: Geomarketing. New vendors are developing "location-aware ads" that leverage your user's location. Geomarketing bring offers for goods and services directly to the consumer, wherever he or she is, in a way that traditional ads cannot... read more

Among all of the iPhone documentation published, how do you separate the wheat from the chaff? In this article, Matt Twomey highlights some of the documentation from Apple that he has found most accessible, but at the same time particularly useful. ... read more

We just published a new article by Matt Twomey titled, A Guide to iPhone Dev Documentation. This is Matt's first publishing with us, and I'm looking forward to more up the road. You might want to bookmark this one, however....... read more

Currently, it appears the the iPhone 3G will not support iTunes activation, instead requiring in-store activation. Additionally, it's reported that the phone will only be available for purchase in-store, with no online sales. If this is the case come July...... read more