Category: I-phone

I’ve mentioned a couple of excellent posts on the iOS 5 SDK tutorials page describing the details automatic reference counting.

Today I came another post that takes a different approach by explaining how to convert a project to ARC, but more specifically about how to deal with the specific issues that can arise when converting an existing project to ARC.

Such as:

– Compile errors after switching to LLVM 3.0
– Getting third party libraries to build with ARC
– Fixing C structs
– Fixing C/C++ pointers

The guide is from Steffen Itterheim and you can find it here.

Very useful for solving those conversion problems – if you run into an issue and need to convert a project to use ARC remember this page!

©2011 iPhone, iOS 5, iPad SDK Development Tutorial and Programming Tips. All Rights Reserved.

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Since iOS gave us a new type of checkbox control – the On/Off switch – I’ve noticed them appearing in more and more desktop applications too. Just today, I saw an example that displays terrible usability, and wanted to talk about it a little.

This example is from a piece of utility software that I use and enjoy, and I’m not going to name it since I want to talk about the user experience of the switch implementation itself, without needlessly fouling the specific utility. I hope that you’ll take a similarly classy approach if you post a comment.

Here’s a screenshot:

Putting aside the redundant and slightly confusing word “enable” in the label (it’s a horrible word, and it clouds the issue of whether something is actually on or just potentially on according to some other circumstance), this switch obviously controls whether a ‘history’ function is active or not. Here’s the question: would you say that, in the screenshot above, the switch is on or off?

To my eye, it’s currently on. There’s a silvery-grey switch set into a recessed trough, and you can move that switch from side to side to control its state. That’s how those switches work in the real world, and it’s what the appearance implies. And maybe it is on. Probably, even.

The problem is that both its appearance and interaction design confuse the issue.

The switch shows “On” and “Off” labels at the same time

Including both labels inside the switch boundary is the first step towards confusion, because you’re immediately making the user rely on a secondary cue to determine which one currently applies.

By contrast, here’s a standard iOS 5 switch in the On position:

And here’s one in the Off position:

There’s very little question as to what state these switches are in, because there’s only one state displayed – the current one. System-wide highlight colour is also used to considerable effect: when it’s on, it has energy; when it’s off, it doesn’t. Easy.

Another implementation is the one used by the first desktop example of a slider switch that I can remember seeing: the Time Machine pane in System Preferences on OS X. Here it is, in the On position:

This time, there’s no visual energy clue inside the switch itself, but the “ON” label does gain a dark green energy (Time Machine’s branding colour) when the switch is on, and reverts to grey when the switch is off. To reinforce the concept of energy meaning an active state, the “OFF” label remains grey at all times.

More importantly, the switch responds to click-toggling anywhere within its bounds or on its labels, the labels are set outside the switch so as to not clutter the switch display itself, and the switch knob can also be dragged as the appearance implies.

The switch can’t be toggled by clicking the inactive option

When the switch is on, you’d expect to be able to click on the ‘Off’ side to toggle it to off. This switch doesn’t work that way. Indeed, assuming that I understand its appearance above correctly (and that it’s thus currently on), you have to click the current state to toggle it to the opposite state! That’s crazy, to the point of surely just being a bug – no-one would actually design something to work that way.

By contrast, iOS switches can be tapped anywhere to toggle states.

The switch cannot be dragged between states

The entire visual design of this type of switch relies on us being familiar with physical toggle-switches in real life, thus we project an affordance of ‘toggleability’ onto this virtual switch.

Our brains understand that we can slide it between positions – indeed, there’s a big, inviting shadowed recess that we can clearly slide the switch towards, and we can see from how the light falls on the switch surface that it’s raised from the surrounding area, which will let our fingertips and nails get a hold of it. Furthermore, we probably expect the dragging to display a degree of ‘gravity’ or momentum, such that the switch will only flip states if it has been dragged at least halfway towards the new state.

Except that this switch can’t be dragged at all. Its actual ‘switch’ portion simply responds like a button, actually mirroring the inactive side if you click and hold on the active side.

It’s a train-wreck, and one that happens all too often when we allow our thinking to stop at “this new type of control looks cool, let’s make one like that”. We have to think about how and why particular interfaces work, rather than just mimicking their outward appearance.

For more thoughts on software interfaces and user experience, feel free to follow me (@mattgemmell) on Twitter.

Instapaper is a staple on many a homescreen. The application and service has been powerful in shifting the digital landscape, offering a useful service at a fantastic price.

With a brand new interface design, changes to the reading view, and some other features that really improve the functionality of the app, 4.0 is a huge update that shot for the stars. Did it reach its lofty goals? Read on and find out.

Using Instapaper

Instapaper is a digital bucket that you can save articles that you come across into. It’s a bit more complicated than that on the backend, I’m sure, but while you’re using it the service really feels like magic.

There are more than a few ways to get articles into your Instapaper after you sign up for an account. While the applications are paid, the account itself is free, with a $1/month optional subscription fee. Instapaper’s creator Marco Arment provides a bookmarklet to save a webpage to your account, which is by far and away the most popular method I use to save things for later.

Tweetbot (left) and Reeder (right) are two of my most-used apps and both support sending articles to Instapaper

Beyond that, taking advantage of the extensive (and I do mean extensive) third-party support for adding articles is an astoundingly useful feature. From feed readers to Twitter clients, most anything that provides you with written content will let you save that content to Instapaper.

What if neither of those works for you, though? What if you can only grab the URL of an article? Instapaper has you covered. If you enter the app with a URL selected, the app will automatically show a dialog box that asks if you’d like to save that article for later. The first time this happens it really surprises you, and subsequent times are only slightly less astounding.

Interface Changes

One of the most exciting changes with this update, for me, was the interface overhaul. Things haven’t been changed quite as much as they have with the iPad version, but it does look more appealing now.

Instapaper's new icons are a nice change of pace and give the app a unique style.

Instead of using default UI elements (as with previous versions) Instapaper 4.0 has a newly designed interface with some nice, all-black icons and some reworking of the fonts. The changes are subtle, but they really help Instapaper stand out more than it did before.

Instapaper's reading view; notice the lack of a status bar.

Another important change is the removal of the status bar in the reading view. For a long time users have clamored for a full-screen reading experience on the iPhone, and removing the status bar is a good first step. I would have preferred the iPhone app take on the look of the iPad app (moving the action bar from the top to the bottom) but this is still an improvement.

Let’s Get Social

Instapaper has had support for finding articles via your Twitter or Facebook contacts for some time. One of the nice things about Instapaper’s social aspect is that you have no idea if someone (or anyone) is following you, allowing you to like articles guilt-free.

Unfortunately, other aspects of the social side of Instapaper were lacking. You could only add people to your Instapaper if you had them on Twitter and they had an Instapaper account. Even then, they had to like an article in order for anything to pop up. Some people don’t tap that little heart icon very often, so this area could get barren.

The newly improved Friends pane.

4.0 changes that. Now Instapaper can pull all of the links from your Twitter timeline or Facebook News Feed, meaning that there will almost always be something waiting for you. This makes discovery that much easier, and is a nice change over the original.

If you want to only view what the people you follow have liked, though, that’s an option too. Instapaper gives you a choice on how you’d like to get your content, which is nice.

Search

A nice feature of Instapaper 4.0 for subscribers is the ability to search all of the content of every single article that you have saved to your account. That includes your folders and archives, but not deleted items.

This search is a great feature that can be beneficial for a number of reasons. Sometimes you’re writing something or trying to curate articles on a particular subject and can’t quite remember the exact article. Other times you may be in the mood to read a certain article again and you can’t find it based on the title alone.

Unfortunately, the Search feature can't be tested without becoming a subscriber.

As I said, this feature is only for subscribers, but it may be worth the $1/month that it costs for some people. If anything, this may help cut down on the Google searches that you run during the day.

Instapaper Against Reading List

With the release of iOS 5 and Safari 5.1 Apple unveiled Reading List, a built-in method of bookmarking sites for later reading. Has Apple managed to supplant Instapaper on the iPhone (or other devices)?

Nope. Reading List has a lot of things going for it, but it can’t match Instapaper in terms of functionality or presentation.

Apple's Reading List is barely comparable to Instapaper.

First, Reading List doesn’t have the powerful ecosystem support that Instapaper has. Instapaper has a bunch of different applications, unofficial extensions, and handy features for adding articles to your queue. Reading List has a button.

Secondly, Reading List doesn’t save the articles that you add for offline viewing. It’s easy to save articles to Instapaper, switch your iPhone to Airplane Mode, and still have those same articles saved to your phone. Not so with Reading List.

Other Competition

Other competition offers the same functionality as Instapaper. The main competitor is Read it Later, a similar app/service suite that saves your articles for later.

Read it Later is nice, and until this latest update I actually preferred the Read it Later interface to the Instapaper UI. Now that Instapaper has been updated I prefer its look, but Read it Later is also going to be updated over the coming months and is certainly worth checking out.

Between these two, it really comes down to personal preference. One nice thing about Read it Later is that the suite has a free iPhone app (with a Pro version available as well) so those that don’t want to lay down the money for Instapaper can get much of the same features (sans search and social) for free.

Conclusion

With version 4.0, I feel that Instapaper has really hit the ball out of the park. It was already a strong service, with powerful capabilities, excellent sync and strong support from the community; it just had a few things that needed updating, and each of those were answered with this update.

Is it worth your money? Absolutely. While I would love to see some strong competition in this space, Instapaper is the king of the hill right now. For $4.99 (and that includes the iPad app as well) there isn’t a better deal out there that’s nearly as powerful as Instapaper.

When working as an editor or writer online, it’s easy to stay behind the scenes and remain something of an elusive shadow. AppStorm is no exception – we have a great team of editors and writers who work really hard to bring you a regular stream of top-notch articles across the sites.

Today, I thought it would be fun to publish an interview with your very own editor – Kevin Whipps. He’s been a member of the AppStorm team for a while now, and is the driving force behind everything that goes on at iPhone.AppStorm.

I hope you enjoy getting to know your editor a little better, and feel free to leave a few questions for him in the comments!

Hi Kevin, how are you doing?

I’m doing well, thanks.

It’s well known that the Envato staff are spread across the entire globe, where do you live?

I’m in Scottsdale, Arizona. I’ve been in the Phoenix area since 1987, and before that I was in Boston, Mass. and Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

How did you begin working for Envato/AppStorm?

I’ve been reading AppStorm for years now, and as a freelance writer, I was always looking for new opportunities. Every few months or so, AppStorm would put out a post saying that they needed writers, and I had applied before, but with no luck. I applied again around September of 2010 or so I believe, and next thing I knew, I was writing for the company.

What is your absolute favourite part of being iPhone.AppStorm editor? Is there anything that really bugs you?

My favorite part is working with a great team of writers that are spread out all over the world. It gives the site a variety that you don’t find on most others, and I enjoy that dynamic. On the flip side, that’s the only real downside to the job as well. I’ve only met two of our writers in person, and that’s only because I knew them from previous jobs. I wish I could get together with everyone and just shake a few hands. Heck, I didn’t even know that Josh (the previous iPhone.AppStorm editor and current Mac.AppStorm editor) lived in Phoenix until shortly before I became editor!

When did you get your first iPhone, how did you feel the first time you used it?

I remember when the iPhone first came out. It was pricey and a bit of a compromise because it didn’t have picture messaging, and there really wasn’t much to it. I liked my smartphone at the time — which might have been a Treo or a BlackBerry, I’m not sure which — so I told my then girlfriend that I would buy an iPhone when they upgraded to 3G and added picture messaging. Sure enough, the 3G iPhone came out and I remember driving by one of the stores on launch day around 10 pm, and there was still a line. But I asked a salesperson, “Do you have more?” They did, so I decided to wait. The next morning I was up early and in line at the Apple Store in San Tan Village. I walked out with a white iPhone 3G and never looked back.

I was used to my BlackBerry, but the Internet connection sucked and it was horrible at rendering webpages. Using the iPhone was such an eye opening experience. It worked, and worked well. I could do everything I wanted to and more, and it was so much faster than anything I had ever used. From that point on, you could expect to see me with a new iPhone on launch day.

Talk us through your home screen, why those apps?

Well, I talked a lot recently about home screen organization, and here’s where I’m at currently:

The Goods: A folder with the stuff I want to use, but don’t need one-touch access. Outside, the calculator and Photos are in there.

Camera: I have a 20-month-old boy. I need access to this all the time.

SiriusXM: I’m a big fan of talk radio, and SiriusXM is my audio supplier of choice. Baba booey to all of you.

Facebook: The app has improved lately, but it’s still not fantastic. I use it to keep up with my buddies.

Twitter: Again, it’s improved, but I don’t like how the pull to refresh has changed in this latest update. I constantly find myself pulling down and having it stop sharply at the end, which it didn’t always do.

Foursquare: I just started using this one, so I’m still very much a newbie. But whatever, I’ll give it a shot and see how I like it.

Instagram: For pictures of the boy.

Music: I stream music to my car’s stereo via Bluetooth, so I have Music available at all times.

AP Stylebook: I’m an absolute grammar dork. I need access to this frequently for AppStorm as well as other writing assignments.

OmniFocus: I find being organized has freed up my life, and I have OmniFocus to thank for that. I don’t use the iPhone app as much as the desktop version, but I do like having it handy.

MLB At Bat 11: Well, it’s unfortunate that I don’t have a use for this right now as my favorite team, the Boston Red Sox, didn’t make it to the playoffs this year. But streaming live games is still cool, which is why it’s there.

YouAndMe: I open it up and I can quickly send a text or call my wife.

The Dock: Well, it’s all the standard stuff.

What’s your desktop setup like? What couldn’t you live without?

I’m currently running a brand-new 13-inch MacBook Air that I maxed out with the 1.7gHz i7 and all that. I had a MacBook Pro previously, but I’m so mobile now that having to lug around 5+ pounds just got excessive. Ridiculous, I know, but the Air really has changed the way I work and I can’t imagine owning a MacBook Pro ever again.

When I’m at home, the Air is connected to a 27-inch Apple Cinema Display that I got in February, and now I’m trying to sell it so I can buy the Thunderbolt model. The Air is really great, but I want that Ethernet connection bad. I also have an Apple Wireless Keyboard and Magic Trackpad connected together with a TwelveSouth Magic Wand, and for my mouse I use a Logitech Performance MX — by far the best mouse I’ve ever used.

Behind my main setup is a circa 2007 iMac with a wired keyboard and an old mouse that I found in a junk bin somewhere. This is my iTunes machine, and I use it for the home’s library, as well as for holding all of my backup files for my company, Whipps Industries. I’m hoping it lasts another year or so, that way I can give it to my son as his first computer. If not, I’ll buy a Mac mini to replace it, and my son will get another computer of his own to learn on.

I also have three WD hard drives — 1, 2 and 3TB models — that backup and store my iTunes library. I want to upgrade to a Drobo really badly, but that’s a future purchase.

A snapshot of Kevin

What article are you most proud of? What type of article is your favourite to write?

I was pretty happy with one of the first articles I wrote as an editor, How (And Why) We Review Apps. I was pretty nervous about putting myself out there as the editor for the first time, and I knew this was also something really representative of the entire AppStorm family. Frankly, I didn’t want to screw it up and get fired. But I think the resulting post worked out pretty well, and the comments were positive, so I was happy with how it ended up.

What do you like to do when not Editing iPhone.AppStorm?

I’ve been building custom cars and trucks for the past 15 years or so now, with a few magazine covers to my credit and some big show appearances. So if I’m not writing for AppStorm or anyone else, I enjoy getting in the garage and getting my hands dirty. I don’t have any projects at the moment, but soon I’m going to start shopping for a ’47-’53 Chevrolet 5-window pickup, or a ’67-’69 Chevrolet truck.

I also run my own business, Whipps Industries, and I’ve been doing that full time since 2009.

What’s the best thing you’ve seen/heard/watched/made/read this week?

My one real vice is television, and recently we decided to upgrade our television package so we could get Dexter on Showtime. If you haven’t seen Dexter, you really haven’t lived, and I watched a recording of last week’s episode the other day, and it was fantastic. There really isn’t a better show on TV.

How do you like your steak?

Medium rare, but more often than not, most restaurants screw that up pretty good so I ask for medium.

If you could ask the readers one question, what would it be?

What’s your favorite thing about the site? What would you change if you could?

Thanks Kevin!

Thanks to Kevin for taking the time to shed a little light on how he came to edit iPhone.AppStorm, and what his routine looks like!

If you have a question for him, or would like to answer his questions above, we’d love to chat in the comments. Now’s your chance to quiz your editor on anything and everything related to AppStorm and iPhone apps…

There are lots of different photo editing apps out there for the iPhone, but not all of them have the advanced capabilities found in FX Photo Studio. If only you had some money to buy a copy.

Well put away that wallet, we’ve got you covered. That’s because we’re giving away five copies of FX Photo Studio for the iPhone. Just hit that More button below and we’ll tell you how!

About the App

FX Photo Studio takes your pictures and allows you to edit them above and beyond. There are 194 photo effects, you can combine effects to create custom looks, and even import photos from Facebook. It’s a pretty cool piece of software at a low price.

FX Photo Studio

The Contest

So how do you win? Here’s the deets: First, follow @iphoneappstorm and @fxphotostudio on Twitter. Next, tweet the following:

I just entered to win a copy of FX Photo Studio from @iphoneappstorm and @fxphotostudio! http://iphone.appstorm.net/?p=21573 #iphoneappstorm

We’ll announce the winners in a few days, right here on this very post. So keep an eye out, and good luck to all of you!

Gaming on the desktop computer has always been a big deal for the seasoned gamers, yet a royal headache for normal human beings. “W” is forward, you say? And “D” is right? What was “reload” again? Where’s the jump button?

Luckily for you, one company heard your cries. They also noticed that you have an iPhone. Their name is Hazelmade, and their solution is to turn your iPhone into a game controller using Joypad.

Getting Started

Hazelmade caters for an otherwise untapped market between two very prominent other markets. Beyond the hardcore gamers that use keyboards for their gaming, and the hardcore gamers who buy expensive gaming controllers to play with, remains the human beings that don’t want to use the keyboard to play, nor do they want to buy controllers for their passing interest in games.

Joypad's UI

There are a number of apps in the App Store today that allow you to control your computer with your iPhone, but they’re either geared towards moving your cursor around or reproducing your keyboard. Neither moves us forward in this field.

What Joypad offers is a fantastic solution that sits between these two extremes. For free, you can download an app for both your computer and iPhone to play your games safely in the knowledge that you’re not going to forget what key does what, and without the remorse of purchasing an expensive controller for this fleeting fancy.

The Basics

For the games that support Joypad, all you need to do is fire it up and get playing — it’s really very easy. Joypad also comes with preconfigured controllers for retro consoles, so that you can use them with a video game emulator that you have installed on your computer.

Disclaimer: The legal ramifications of video game emulators are a bit hazy, as some are considered against the law. We don’t encourage illegal gaming habits here at AppStorm. If you are going to emulate games on your computer, it’s important that you understand the rules and regulations of doing so, so that you stay on the right side of the law.

Different Joypad Controller Styles

By default, the app comes with controller configurations for the consoles Sega Genesis (or Megadrive, for European readers), Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), Super Nintendo (SNES), Nintendo 64 (N64), Gameboy Advance (GBA), Arcade games (MAME), amongst other existing desktop games like Minecraft and Portal2.

Put simply, “all those games you used to play, plus a couple newer ones.”

Joypad skins match classic consoles

While the app is free to download and use for both your iPhone and your computer, Hazelmade does offer some nostalgia of their own for a small fee. For 99 cents you can download app skins for all the aforementioned consoles, to make your gaming experience that little bit closer to the original.

Performance

In all my testing, I noticed no slowdown between button pressing and in-game response. It’s just like using the real controller — almost.

One of the biggest downfalls of this app is through no fault of its own, but the medium itself. While the touch screen experience on an iPhone is gorgeous, it does assume that you’re looking at the screen. When you look away, you’re just sliding your fingers around on a piece of glass. While it’s much easier to use Joypad than it sounds, there can (and will) be occasional moments when a Goomba will get the better of you, robbing you of your Fire Flower as you repeatedly press the dead-zone next to “jump” on your iPhone screen.

Not that I’m sore, or anything.

There’s also the configuration process you have to go through if you happen to use any non-standard keyboard configurations. All emulation apps map keys on your keyboard to what buttons would have been available on that particular console. Joypad adds itself into the fray after that configuration process is complete, so you have to then map those keys back to the buttons the console would have had, again. It’s a daisy-chain of button configurations that, if done incorrectly, will have you back in the configuration panes scratching your head as to why your Left arrow moves Player 2 right.

Nevertheless, if you stick with the default configurations, or take your time on the configuration process, you should be absolutely fine.

Joypad works with iPad too

It’s not just games on the desktop computer that can take advantage of Joypad, either. Select iPad games also make use of the app, opening doors to yet more gaming possibilities in the future.

Conclusion

I was a big gamer in my school days. Nowadays I have very little time to invest in games, coupled with no interest to go down the whole WASD/mouse route (I don’t even have a mouse). What Joypad brings is a gaming experience my wife and I can enjoy in front of my MacBook Pro’s screen with our iPhones with no investment required. Hook up your Mac to an Apple TV and buy a couple of those nostalgic skins and you’ll be hitting your head against “?” blocks like it’s 1990.

If you play computer games, or ever played console games, you owe it to yourself to download this free app, and experience those classic moments all over again.

I am always trying to stay in the know when it comes to technology. I just love reading about it everyday and seeing what is up and coming. This is where something like Google Reader comes in very handy. I can pull in all the news stories from all the different websites I read and have it all in one place. Definitely a great way to get your news if you get it from many different sources.

But this review isn’t about Google Reader, but an application that is very similar to it and yet offers a ton more features — Reeder for the iPhone. For those of you that don’t know, Reeder has been around for a couple of years now and I have used it on the iPhone for a long time. It’s a great app to use to browse the news and save for later reading when you are on a bigger screen.

Setting Up Reeder

There isn’t a whole lot of set up when it comes to Reeder, because that mainly happens in Google Reader. If you have a Google account you can get access to Google Reader. From there you can then subscribe to the different news websites that you are wanting to read.

Once you have all your news feeds in Google Reader, you have basically done everything you need to do, because when you are in Reeder, all you have to do is log in with your Google Account credentials and then it will pull all your data from Google Reader. You don’t have to do anything else to get started.

Reading Your Feeds

As we all know, reading on the iPhone is not the most ideal way to read if we had a choice. But at the same time, it still is a decent option. Reeder provides you with a variety of solutions when it comes to reading your articles on the iPhone.

View of folders and articles

When you pull up a news story to read in Reeder, you will see a slimmed down version of what the actual story would look like on the web. But no need to worry, you still get the whole article and just about everything you need to know what is going on in the story. You just don’t get the glitz and glamour of the regular site.

There are still more options to read your articles. You have the option of looking at the mobile website for the article that you are reading if you so choose. But say you are in a hurry and you want to just glance through your news feed and want to read the interesting ones later. There are a nice group of services that you can use to save articles for later. For example, you can use Instapaper, Read It Later, Evernote, Delicious, Pinboard and Zootool. These are all great services for saving and reading your interesting articles later. Personally, I use Instapaper, but you really can’t go wrong with any of the options.

Screenshot of an article in Reeder and on the web

Syncing and Sharing

In this day and age, syncing and sharing are two key features that separate an average app from a solid app. There is no point if you can’t sync and share now days, especially in an app like Reeder. Fortunately, it does these two things very well. Reeder keeps your feeds in sync with Google Reader as well as Reeder for iPad and the Mac. So if you mark an article as read, star it, etc, all those changes will be made in Google Reader as well and vice versa.

Syncing and sharing services

You have the standard ways to share your articles as well. Articles can be emailed, tweeted, or shared on Facebook. The services I mentioned earlier for saving articles can also be used to share if you so choose.

Why Choose Reeder?

There are a good handful of iPhone apps to use to read your news from Google Reader. So why should you choose Reeder and why is it so popular?

First, it is easy to set up, plus it’s very clean and polished. You look at some of the other apps out there to read your Google Reader articles and there is so much going on within the app. For me, I just want something that works and is clean. I don’t need all the extra bells and whistles that I will never use.

Secondly, there is a Mac and iPad app. This means I can read my news feeds on any of my devices and just use Reeder and everything stays in sync.

Conclusion

Overall, Reeder is hands down, one of the best Google Reader apps out there for the iPhone. Reading on the iPhone is not the best, and Reeder does a good job of helping alleviate that problem by giving you great reading views and lots of sharing services for later reading.

The only thing that makes me a little nervous about endorsing this app is the price. It costs $2.99 for the iPhone. To the casual reader, this price may be too high, but for one who uses their iPhone a lot to glance at their Google Reader feed, the $2.99 is well worth the price. For me, it comes down to the old adage, “What you pay for, is what you get.” And let me tell you, you get a solid reading experience with this app.

In this application we will see how to Current time display in the application. So let see how it
will worked.

Step 1: Open the Xcode, Create a new project using View Base application. Give the application
“TimeApplication”.

Step 2: Xcode automatically creates the directory structure and adds essential frameworks to it. You can explore the directory structure to check out the content of the directory.

Step 3: Expand classes and notice Interface Builder created the ViewController class for you. Expand Resources and notice the template generated a separate nib, TimeApplicationViewController.xib for the TimeApplication.

Step 4: Open the TimeApplicationViewController.h file and make the following changes:

Step 5: Double click the TimeApplicationViewController.xib file and open it to the Interface Builder. First drag the Round Rect Button and label from the library and place it to the view window. Now select the Round Rect button and bring up Connection Inspector and connect Touch Up inside to the File’s Owner icon and select ShowTime: method. Select File’s Owner icon to the label and select time. Now save the .sib file close it and go back to the Xcode.

Step 6: Open the TimeApplicationViewController.m file and make the following changes:

Step 7: Now Compile and run the application on the Simulator

You can Download SourceCode from here

Today we present new collection of CSS3 and HTML5 tutorials.

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ReaddleDocs, if you haven’t used it, is one of the first document management apps to land in the App Store. Version 3.0 of the app recently landed and it’s a significant update that helps ReaddleDocs retain its title as one of the top document managers and viewers for the iPad.

By far, ReaddleDocs biggest selling point is its ability to import files from a variety of online sources and save them for offline viewing. It can import files stored in online services like SugarSync, Box.net, DropBox, Google Docs and a handful of other smaller services. ReaddleDocs can also pull down documents from an external FTP, SFTP or WebDav server. It does support Apple’s older MobileMe service, but not the newer iCloud service.

Besides online services, the app lets you import files wirelessly via an IP address provided by the application, or via a USB connection and iTunes file sharing. A built-in web browser also lets you capture full web pages or partial web pages for offline reading. If you are like me and receive a lot of documents via email, ReaddleDocs also taps into the iOS mail app and lets you import any attachments, manually or automatically.

Once you have a collection of documents, ReaddleDocs will let you sort them by name, type, date and size. It also lets you place them into folders which is great for organizing a large collection of files. As a file manager, ReaddleDocs has the ability to rename, copy, move, delete, email and zip files. It also has a toggle to select all or deselect all files which is very handy when you want to manage several files at once. There’s also a new “Recents” section that provides quick acces to documents you recently opened.

Besides being a useful file manager, ReaddleDocs is also a very good document viewer. It supports PDF, Microsoft Office, Open Office Writer files and Apple iWork files. Other file formats, though, will have to be converted to PDF before being imported into ReaddleDocs. Once a document is in PDF format, though, ReaddleDocs lets you annotate it in several different ways. You can add bookmarks, create outlines, highlight text, add notes and even mark up PDF text with underlines and strikeouts. When opened, most documents were formatted properly and easy to navigate by swiping from page to page.

I did encounter a few hiccups, like the app copying some HTML code along with the text when I used the built-in web browser to capture content, but these problems were few and far between. Overall, ReaddleDocs is a very capable and very flexible document reader and file manager. With a price tag of $5, it’s a no-brainer for iPad owners. You can grab ReaddleDocs from the App Store.

Daily iPad App: ReaddleDocs originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 03 Nov 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dear Aunt TUAW,

I want to use AirDrop between my older iMac and my new MacBook Air. How can I do this? They’re both running Lion but AirDrop is only enabled on the MBA.

Your loving nephew,

Fredrik

Dear Fredrik,

You can enable AirDrop for many older Lion systems at the Terminal command line. Enter:

 defaults write com.apple.NetworkBrowser BrowseAllInterfaces 1

After setting the defaults, you’ll need to restart Finder:

 killall Finder

Once you do, you should be able to use AirDrop on your local Wi-Fi network. Auntie is currently using AirDrop from her early 2009 Mac mini without any trouble.

Hugs,

Auntie T.

Dear Aunt TUAW: How do I enable AirDrop on my older Mac? originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 03 Nov 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Gem Keeper is a relatively new game from developer NCSoft, which usually makes Korean MMO titles for the PC. The company has released a couple of apps for iOS, but this is the first full game made for North American audiences — and it’s a good one. It’s a pretty basic tower defense title, but the polish and complexity on this one really makes it shine, even among the many offerings in the genre.

As you can see from the screenshot, the look is great — it’s bright and colorful, and very easy to tell just what’s happening on screen and where you need to step up your defenses. The game’s balance is very good as well. I would say that it’s a little tougher than a lot of tower defense games, but only because not only do foes have to reach your stash of gems and steal them, but they have to wander back out as well, which means that the stakes are upped twice as high as games where you’re just trying to prevent an invasion. Gem Keeper also offers multiple places for waves to come through, which adds a little more strategy to how you set things up, and extra units like moveable towers and bombs mix things up even more. The game’s currency flows fast and easy, especially in the lower levels of difficulty, so you always feel powerful, even when you’re being flooded by invaders.

There is plenty of content to play through — there are over 30 levels with three difficulty variants each, and a recent update added an endless mode which you can compete in on Game Center leaderboards as well. Gem Keeper is a great game — it’s on the App Store as a universal version right now for $2.99. Here’s hoping we see some more quality titles like this from NCSoft in the future.

Daily iPhone App: Gem Keeper originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 03 Nov 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you don’t want to accidentally marry your colleague, make sure you watch your phrasing when talking to Siri.

Following a relationship with a contact without using some kind of relative pronoun like “that” or “about” may confuse your voice assistant, as shown in the screenshot here.

Instead of saying “Tell my wife, Erica Sadun is coming for dinner,” insert “that.” Saying “Tell my wife that…” followed by your statement helps separate the relationship from the contact that follows.

Siri does such a good job interpreting speech that sometimes it’s hard to remember she’s just a bunch of algorithms in a North Carolina data center. Be sensitive to interpretation quirks, and try to avoid them where possible.

Siri tips: Don’t transform your coworker into your spouse originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 03 Nov 2011 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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