NOTE: It’s not clear if the information in this essay is covered by the NDA or not. The instructions presented here are either referenced on Apple’s own site or referenced in the publicly available version of Xcode. If requested, I will remove this post. During Steve Jobs’ WWDC Keynote the announcement of Ad Hoc distribution [...]
A major feature of the App Store are the user reviews about the software being offered. There’s just one problem: software is not music. I’ve never had an MP3 crash or lack features. Applications also evolve and improve; I’m pretty sure the Jimi Hendrix track I’m listening to right now is the same one he [...]
It’s pretty clear that the App Store is a huge hit. We’re all loving the ability to customize our iPhones and iPod touches with cool new software! But with any big new release, there are problems that didn’t pop up while beta testing. As iPhone developers, we’re finding ourselves in a position where we can’t [...]
For many graphics applications, plug-ins are a way of life. This essay presents a method that minimizes the amount of work required to support different host applications, or even different versions of the same host. I used these techniques in our IconBuilder plug-in for Photoshop. These instructions have already helped one fellow developer; with the [...]
Wow. There’s no denying the physical beauty of the award or the cool prizes that accompany it. But in this “day after” the thing that I’m finding most rewarding is the outpouring of support and congratulations. The six weeks of eating, sleeping, and breathing [REDACTED] preceded by months of digging through class-dump and respondsToSelector output [...]
In this election year, there is an issue facing Macintosh developers. Ask yourself the following: How can you develop new products for Leopard when you need to have Tiger installed for supporting your legacy applications? How easy is it to test a new feature on Mac OS X 10.4.11 when you’re running 10.5? How quickly [...]
Unless you’ve been stranded on a remote Pacific isle, you’re no doubt aware of the current furor over third party iPhone applications not being able to run in the background. To be blunt, I’ve never seen so many experts without a fricken’ clue. If you haven’t written code using the jailbreak tool chain, your opinions [...]
The big day has come and passed. And you know what? We’re still in uncharted territory: for most of us Mac developers, the App Store is something new and strange. Let’s start by looking at Apple’s cut in the deal. Is 30% reasonable? My first impression was that it seemed a little high, but acceptable. [...]
Welcome! Many people arrive at this page while searching for information about developing iPhone applications. The ideas from this article are expanded upon in my book, iPhone App Development: The Missing Manual. As we’re all waiting with bated breath for the release of the iPhone SDK later this month, now would be a good time [...]
Piracy is a fact of life for software developers. There are always douche-bags who think they should get your hard work for free. Sometimes this takes the form of distributing serial numbers, sometimes it’s kracking the application to eliminate the checks. I’ve come to accept this as part of running a software business. Recently, however, [...]