I-phone – Page 3636 – Blancer.com Tutorials and projects

Apple and Google headed for round two with Senate privacy hearings

Following the first round of Senate hearings on privacy last week, representatives from Apple and Google will appear before the US Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Insurance on May 19, according to CNET. In attendance for Apple will be Vice President of Worldwide Government affairs Catherine Novelli, while Google is sending its director of public policy for the Americas, Alan Davidson. Facebook is also attending this round of privacy hearings, sending its Chief Technology Officer, Bret Taylor. Microsoft apparently wasn’t asked to attend.

The hearing will address “consumer privacy and protection in the mobile marketplace,” and unlike the first round of privacy hearings, the US Department of Justice isn’t in attendance. No doubt the recent “Locationgate” controversy will be addressed in spite of Apple addressing it to a large extent with the recent iOS 4.3.3 software update. However, given that a representative from Facebook is in attendance this time, it’s possible the hearing will focus on more generalized attitudes toward consumer privacy from the main pillars of the tech community.

Google didn’t appear to fare particularly well during the first round of hearings; its representative’s repeated refrains of “openness” wound up being about the worst argument the company could put forward during a hearing on privacy matters. If the Senate chooses to focus on online advertising, particularly in light of recently introduced “do not track” legislation, both Google and Facebook may find themselves beneath a very uncomfortable microscope. That’s not to say that Apple is entirely blameless in privacy matters, but with “Locationgate” largely out of the spotlight, it’s possible Apple won’t be the central focus of this next round of hearings.

Apple and Google headed for round two with Senate privacy hearings originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 17 May 2011 01:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tutorial: Instance Variables In Objective-C Categories

Categories in Objective-C are very useful allowing you to add methods to existing classes without the need to extend those classes. This is extremely useful – but what if you needed to add an instance variable to the class?

With associative references it is possible to fake instance variables in your Objective-C categories thus making categories a much more useful feature.

Ole Begemann has written a tutorial demonstrating this functionality by demonstrating this principle with a UIView category.

You can find the tutorial on his website here:
Faking Instance Variables In Obj-C Categories

A very useful tip which can make for some much cleaner code.

Tutorial: Adding Metadata to iOS Images

The camera app in iOS adds metdata such as the geolocation to your images, but adding this metadata to images in your own camera or imagee editing app is not exactly straightforward.

While working on his own image app Gustavo became frustrated at the lack of detailed documentation on how to add metadata to your own images and decided to create his own tutorial. After figuring things out Gustava decided to provide an open source library allowing you to easily do so yourself.

You can read Gustavo’s tutorial on his website here:
Adding Metadata To iOS Images The Easy Way

You can find the Github for the image metadata classes here:
https://github.com/gpambrozio/GusUtils

Very useful if you are creating any kind of app that uses pictures.

Open Source: iPad Air Hockey Game Created With The Corona SDK

Recently I posted about an example Fruit Ninja example game created with the Corona SDK. The guys at Ansca Mobile have come up with another great example, this time an Air Hockey game for the iPad.

Air hockey has been a staple in the app store since the very beginning, and it’s also a great example for anyone getting started with game development. This is definitely an idea you can build off of, and with the bigger screen on the iPad air hockey games are especially fun.

You can find the example on Github here:
https://github.com/ansca/Air-Hockey

The example is an especially great example of how simple it can be to code physics with the Corona SDK.

How to receive text data from server in iPhone.

In this application we will see how to fetch data from server and replace it to the view in iPhone. This is very simple example. So let see how it will work.

Step 1: Open a Xcode, Create a View base application. Give the application name ”ReceiveData”.

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: We need to add one UIViewController class in the project. So select the project -> New File -> Cocoa Touch -> ViewController subclass and give the class name “DisplayData”.

Step 4: In the ReceiveDataViewController.h file, we need to define DisplayData class , create instance of UIButton class and define one IBAction: method. So make the following changes:

#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>
@class DisplayData;

@interface ReceiveDataViewController : UIViewController {

UIButton *button;
DisplayData *displayData;

}

@property(nonatomic,retain) IBOutlet UIButton *button;

–(IBAction)DisplayData:(id)sender;

@end

Step 5: Double click the ReceiveDataViewController.xib file and open it to the Interface Builder. First drag the button from the library and place it to the view window. Select the UIButton and bring up Connection Inspector, connect Touch Up Inside to File’s Owner icon and select DisplayData: method. Now save the Interface Builder and go back to the Xcode.

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

#import "ReceiveDataViewController.h"
#import "DisplayData.h"

@implementation ReceiveDataViewController

@synthesize button;

–(IBAction)DisplayData:(id)sender
{
displayData = [[DisplayData alloc]
initWithNibName:@"DisplayData"
bundle:nil];
[self.view addSubview:displayData.view];
}

– (void)dealloc
{
[super dealloc];
}

– (void)didReceiveMemoryWarning
{
[super didReceiveMemoryWarning];

}

#pragma mark – View lifecycle

– (void)viewDidUnload
{
[super viewDidUnload];

}

– (BOOL)shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation:(UIInterfaceOrientation)interfaceOrientation
{
// Return YES for supported orientations
return (interfaceOrientation == UIInterfaceOrientationPortrait);
}

@end

Step 7: Now open DisplayData.h file and make the following changes:

#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>

@interface DisplayData : UIViewController {

NSMutableData *webData;
UIScrollView *titleScrollView;
UITextView *textView;
UIActivityIndicatorView* loadIndicator;
}

@property(nonatomic, retain) NSMutableData *webData;
@property(nonatomic,retain) IBOutlet UIScrollView *titleScrollView;
@property (nonatomic, retain) UIActivityIndicatorView *loadIndicator;
– (void)ActivityIndigator;

@end

Step 8: Double click the DisplayData.xib file and open it to the Interface Builder, first drag the scrollview from the library and place it to the view window and connect File’s Owner icon to the view window and select titleScrollView. Now save the .xib file and go back to the Xcode.

Step 9: Open the DisplayData.m file and make the following changes:

#import "DisplayData.h"

@implementation DisplayData

@synthesize webData,titleScrollView,loadIndicator;

– (id)initWithNibName:(NSString *)nibNameOrNil bundle:(NSBundle *)nibBundleOrNil
{
self = [super initWithNibName:nibNameOrNil bundle:nibBundleOrNil];
if (self) {
// Custom initialization
}
return self;
}

– (void)dealloc
{
[super dealloc];
}

– (void)didReceiveMemoryWarning
{
// Releases the view if it doesn’t have a superview.
[super didReceiveMemoryWarning];

// Release any cached data, images, etc that aren’t in use.
}

#pragma mark – View lifecycle

– (void)ActivityIndigator
{
loadIndicator =
[[UIActivityIndicatorView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(130, 200, 40, 40)];
loadIndicator.activityIndicatorViewStyle = UIActivityIndicatorViewStyleWhiteLarge;

[loadIndicator startAnimating];

[self.view addSubview:loadIndicator];

[loadIndicator release];

}

– (void)viewDidLoad
{
[super viewDidLoad];
// Do any additional setup after loading the view from its nib.

[self ActivityIndigator];
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:@"http://www.chakrainteractive.com/mob//ReceiveData/Data.txt"];
NSMutableURLRequest *theRequest = [NSMutableURLRequest requestWithURL:url];

NSURLConnection *theConnection = [[NSURLConnection alloc] initWithRequest:theRequest delegate:self];

if( theConnection )
{
webData = [[NSMutableData data] retain];

}
else
{

}

–(void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didReceiveResponse:(NSURLResponse *)response
{
[webData setLength: 0];
}
–(void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didReceiveData:(NSData *)data
{

[webData appendData:data];

}
–(void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didFailWithError:(NSError *)error
{

UIAlertView *alert = [[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle:@"Error"
message : @"An error has occured.Please verify your internet connection."
delegate:nil
cancelButtonTitle :@"OK"
otherButtonTitles :nil];
[alert show];
[alert release];

[loadIndicator removeFromSuperview ];

[connection release];
[webData release];
}
–(void)connectionDidFinishLoading:(NSURLConnection *)connection
{

NSLog(@"DONE. Received Bytes: %d", [webData length]);

NSString *loginStatus = [[NSString alloc] initWithBytes: [webData mutableBytes] length:[webData length] encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];

textView = [[UITextView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(5, 30, 320,400)]; //size.height-30 )];
textView.text = loginStatus;
[textView setFont:[UIFont systemFontOfSize:14]];
[textView setBackgroundColor:[UIColor clearColor]];
[textView setTextColor:[UIColor blackColor]];
textView.editable = NO;
textView.dataDetectorTypes = UIDataDetectorTypeNone;

[loadIndicator removeFromSuperview ];

[titleScrollView addSubview:textView];

[loginStatus release];

[textView release];

[connection release];
[webData release];

}

– (void)viewDidUnload
{
[super viewDidUnload];
// Release any retained subviews of the main view.
// e.g. self.myOutlet = nil;
}

@end

Step 10: Now Compile and run the application in Simulator.

You can Download SourceCode from here ReceiveData

Toshiba 4-inch 720p display for Apple?

Toshiba announced their lineup of products that will be displayed at their booth at SID 2011. Among their products will be a 4-inch 720p display for mobile phones. Rumors have been floating around for a while now that Apple was investing in a Toshiba-owned manufacturing facility for retina displays and a 720p display on an iPhone would certainly qualify as retina. As the press release points out, Toshiba’s displays will feature other new technologies including high-contrast (up to 1,500:1), high-color (up to 92% NTSC), and wide viewing angle (up to H/V 176º/176º).

However, if Apple is indeed planning on using a 4-inch display in an upcoming iPhone, it probably won’t be the next one. Most of the rumors point to the fifth-generation iPhone, presumably set to debut in September, keeping the same form factor as the current iPhone 4. There’s also the app scaling factor Apple would need to take into account and devs might not be happy about having to release their apps for two different sized screens. That being said, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Apple using a 4-inch 720p display in a sixth generation iPhone. Rumors have been floating around for a while now that Apple is working on an iPhone with an edge-to-edge screen and they could conceivably use a 4-inch display in such a device without increasing the size of the iPhone’s body.

Toshiba 4-inch 720p display for Apple? originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 16 May 2011 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Condé Nast adds additional publications to iPad subscription options

Condé Nast was rumored to be reconsidering its pricing of subscription content on the iPad, but apparently that won’t keep the publisher from expanding its offerings anyway. The company is going to be offering Allure, Glamour, Golf Digest and Vanity Fair on the mix, so users who want to subscribe to that content will be able to so do soon.

In-app subscriptions will run $19.99, with options available for monthly subscriptions or just individual back issues. And of course, if you’re already a print subscriber to any of those publications, there will be a way to enter your information and get free access to the iPad content.

That all seems like good news for both Condé Nast and its subscribers. There were a few kinks to work out with iPad subscriptions early on, but it seems like the market is settling down into a place where everyone considers the prices and the options agreeable.

Condé Nast adds additional publications to iPad subscription options originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 16 May 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple job posting points to Sprint iPhone

Apple has posted a new job listing that points to Sprint as a future iPhone carrier. The listing was posted on April 2nd and is for a “Carrier Engineer” located in Kansas City, MO. The position seeks a new “member of the Carrier Engineering team that supports taking products through technical approval at the carriers. A Carrier Engineer team is responsible for day-to-day technical interactions with the one or more carriers to track down issues reported by the carrier, assist the carrier with testing they might be conducting and working with program management, software development and test teams to get products approved by the carriers.”

Of course, the unusual thing about this position is that it’s located in Kansas City, MO. As noted by Stop it, AT&T, that could mean that this Carrier Engineer employee will work directly with Sprint, whose headquarters is located in Kansas City. The odd location of this position fits nicely with the rumors that Apple will add Sprint and T-Mobile as US iPhone carrier by the end of the year.

Apple job posting points to Sprint iPhone originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 16 May 2011 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Munster: Mac sales off to ‘slow’ start in April, but Q3 looks good

Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster issued a report on Apple’s Mac sales so far this quarter. According to U.S. sales data compiled by NPD, Apple was off to a “slow” start in April, with only 9% year over year growth from April 2010 sales. However, Munster points out that by the same timeframe in 2010 Apple had updated their MacBook and MacBook Pro lines, which spiked sales. This year so far only the MacBook Pros have been updated.

Wall Street is expecting Apple to post 22% sales growth for Q3, which ends in June. Munster says Apple shouldn’t have a problem hitting that number, despite the slow April start. Munster says the “Comps [comparable timeframe sales] ease dramatically in the month of June,” which only had an 11% YOY growth last year. Munster also notes that iPod sales seem to be tracking better than expected. He had originally expected iPod sales to decline by 10-15%, but now says the unit decline could be better than he was expecting.

Munster: Mac sales off to ‘slow’ start in April, but Q3 looks good originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 16 May 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Roundup of Kickstarter Apple-related projects for 5/16

For many tech startups, Kickstarter is a great way to raise funding to get a new company off the ground. Each week, TUAW takes a close look at recent Apple-related Kickstarter projects for those of you interested in supporting one of the many entrepreneurs who are waiting to bring the next big thing to market.

SoundJaw Sound Booster

This little device is the brainstorm of Denver-based MBA candidate and would-be entrepreneur Matt McLachlan. The idea behind the SoundJaw Sound Booster is to direct the sound from the speakers of the iPad and iPhone towards a user who is looking at the screen. Matt came up with a small plastic device that clips onto the thin profile of an iPad 2 and directs the speaker sound to the front of the iPad. The SoundJaw also works with the original iPad and the Kickstarter page says that it’s also iPhone compatible.

The project currently has 30 backers for a total of US$831, and needs $7,000 by June 7, 2011 to be fully funded. Pledge $20 and you’ll get a SoundJaw when and if manufacturing starts.

Continue reading Roundup of Kickstarter Apple-related projects for 5/16

Roundup of Kickstarter Apple-related projects for 5/16 originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 16 May 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MobileMe mail service experiencing problems

I’ve been having problems getting MobileMe email all day today. So have lots of other people. The problems seem to be with both IMAP servers and on accessing email on the MobileMe member page. To be fair, some of us at TUAW haven’t had any problems with MobileMe today and Apple’s MobileMe status page also mentions that only some MobileMe subscribers are experiencing problems.

I actually love MobileMe. It’s a godsend how integrated it is into OS X and iOS. However, the service has had a history of spottiness ever since its launch in 2008 — something Steve Jobs has been keenly aware of and frustrated with. In last week’s Fortune “Inside Apple” article Steve Jobs was reported to have been very upset with the MobileMe team regarding the poor launch and negative media reception to the service.

Jobs reportedly assembled the entire MobileMe team to a Town Hall meeting and accused them of “tarnishing Apple’s reputation.” Then he told them that they “should [all] hate each other for having let each other down” before he named new MobileMe executives on the spot. But the best quote from the impromptu meeting came after Steve Jobs asked the MobileMe team, “Can anyone tell me what MobileMe is supposed to do?” After the team answered him, Jobs then asked, “So why the fuck doesn’t it do that?”

MobileMe mail service experiencing problems originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 16 May 2011 17:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ifoAppleStore celebrates Apple Store anniversary with a road trip

As you may have heard, Apple’s retail arm is celebrating 10 years of existence this May, and the guys at ifoAppleStore.com are doing something special to celebrate. Gary Allen will be driving from California all the way out to Virginia for the opening of the Apple Store at Tyson’s Corner there, documenting his trip both on the blog and on his Twitter account. It’s a great trip, both because of the Apple tie-in, and because it’s Gary just experiencing America first-hand. I’ve driven from the Midwest out to California a few times (and many times from St. Louis up to New York for my college career), and there’s nothing more fun than exploring out on the open road.

Gary also says that while he’s not sure if Apple will do anything official to celebrate the retail anniversary, he does hear that the stores will quietly be doing something on the 19th or 20th of this month. So stay tuned — if we hear about anything special next Friday, we’ll let you know.

In the meantime, you can follow Gary on his trip, and check out the recording of our TUAW Talkcast — Gary was our guest on the show Sunday night, and he chatted about his trip and the anniversary.

ifoAppleStore celebrates Apple Store anniversary with a road trip originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 16 May 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Rumor: Apple planning something in stores for retail anniversary

Just this morning we were hearing rumors that Apple was planning some sort of event for this weekend’s retail anniversary, and now BGR has heard that there’s a flurry of activity behind the counter at Apple Stores. There’s some overnight shifts planned for this weekend, black curtains to go up and hide the storefronts, secret information going out to managers and trainers, and mandatory meetings for all employees on Sunday.

BGR speculates that it’s a secret product launch, but that’s a little overblown — it’s highly unlikely Apple would launch a product directly in the retail stores. More likely is a simple store refresh; a rollout like this is basically standard procedure for switching up the displays, and especially since most of the storefronts are still featuring the MacBook Air and the iPad 2, they’re due for a refresh anyway. Apple’s not much for anniversaries, but ten years is a milestone for the very popular retail effort, so there may even be a congratulatory line or two in any new displays.

Fortunately, we won’t have to wait long. If the black curtains go up this weekend, everything Apple’s working on will be public by Sunday. We’ll keep an eye out and if you happen to know more about what’s going on, be sure to let us know.

Rumor: Apple planning something in stores for retail anniversary originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 16 May 2011 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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FX Photo Studio now for Mac OS X

I took a look at FX Photo Studio on the iPad earlier this year and gave it a positive review. Now the app has migrated to the Mac App Store, so that users who want to work on a desktop or laptop Mac can modify, adjust and remake their images using similar tools to the iOS versions. I’ve been using FX Photo Studio Pro for about a week and imported many of my images to see how it worked. The app is no substitute for Photoshop, but for the casual photographer who wants to explore filters, do basic sharpening, level adjustments, color balance, crop, rotate and change the color saturation of images, I think the app is worthwhile.

With 159 filters, you can dramatically change your image. As with all filters, you are more likely to mess the image up rather than improve it, but if you are after a big collection of effects, you’ll find them here. I thought the black and white conversion was nice and clean, and some of the vignette effects were also good. Things like night vision effects and some color glows that look like LSD-induced nightmares aren’t my cup of tea, but some people will love them. That’s the strength of having lots of filters. Use what you want and forget the rest. You can also create your own variations on the filters and save them for re-use. Images can be shared from within the app via Twitter, Facebook, email, Tumblr and Flickr.

The app has a handy split screen mode, so you can see before and after your changes, and of course, there is undo.

Gallery: FX Photo Studio Pro for Mac OS X

Continue reading FX Photo Studio now for Mac OS X

FX Photo Studio now for Mac OS X originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 16 May 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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TUAW’s Daily Mac App: MenuPop

Have you ever wished you had more power from your context menu? That you could have all the menu bar options at your cursor without having to switch your focus to the top of the screen and the menu bar itself?

MenuPop shoehorns all of the menu bar options into a contextual app dependent upon a pop-up menu that appears right next to your cursor. The app allows you to control any function in virtually any program from a menu that can be activated with an alternate mouse click or a keyboard shortcut. If you’re one of the increasing numbers of dual-screen, large-monitor users, having all of the options the menu bar easily accessible via mouse keep your focus on the task at hand and speeds up common operations for non-keyboard jockeys.

The keyboard shortcut or mouse button is user customizable, although those with a two-button mouse will be limited to the keyboard shortcut. Text size is user controllable as well, with the option to show the Apple and Application menus, too.

MenuPop is available for US$4.99 from the Mac App Store.

TUAW’s Daily Mac App: MenuPop originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 16 May 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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