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iPhone Development Tech Talks 2009 - San Jose

Author: Tim | Posted: 2. November 2009 05:49 0

On Thursday I made the trip down to San Jose for the day to participate in the Tech Talks 2009 seminars for iPhone Development. I learned a lot about some of the more advanced programming techniques, and I got many of my questions answered. On top of the breakout sessions, I really liked their decision to dedicate one room to questions and answers, and hands-on help from Apple employees all day! That was pretty cool. I met some pretty awesome and knowledgeable people, including the young man who is in charge of the Facebook for iPhone app now.

The biggest disappointment of the day for me was to find out that the Apple gurus there who were making the presentations (also known as "evangelists" which I find kinda humorous) didn't have anything substantial to say about the fact that the UIImagePicker control only returns a UIImage object and does not contain any extra information such as the date and time the photo was taken, or even more importantly, the location (latitude and longitude) of the photo. There are several apps out there on the app store that clearly tap into this functionality using private APIs, but nobody wants to talk about that lol. One "evangelist" was even very rude and cold with me about it when I asked him about it saying that he could not comment. After talking to two of the other "evangelists" I was finally able to find one of them who was cool enough with me to talk about it and said that it is embarrassing to him that Apple doesn't allow this basic ability and he hopes Apple will add it soon. Wishful thinking? I sure hope not! He did suggest to file a duplicate bug report about it. I plan to do that soon. I just see so much potential to be able to tap into this kind of functionality, and right now we have our hands tied. I say that Apple needs to get their act together soon about the limitations they enforce on their developers, because being treated like an untrustworthy child can only be tolerated for so long by the developer community. I hear Android is making some noise (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPYM-XTqcec) and will be for some time. :-)

Choosing which breakout seminars to attend was hard, and almost made me feel like I was at GYC again, lol. I chose to attended the following seminars:

  • Effective iPhone App Development - Part 1
  • Preparing and Delivering Video for iPhone
  • Working with Core Data
  • Finding Your Way with Location and Maps
  • Implementing Push Notification

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Complete EGW Writings for iPhone

Author: Tim | Posted: 13. October 2009 06:28 2
On my old Windows Mobile cell phone, I used to have all of EGW's writings as a part of Laridian's PocketBible application. Thankfully for us iPhone/iTouch users, this convenience is finally about to come to our mobile devices! Several of my friends and family members have been asking me for updates about this so I decided to just blog about it.
I've been in touch with the guys at Laridian and the guys at the White Estate regarding this milestone for a while, and today my friend at the White Estate was gracious enough to give my iPhone access to these writings through the PocketBible app enabling me to get a sneak peak at what will become available hopefully by the end of November to the general public.
As my previous blog post mentions, you can already download "The Conflict" of the Ages series for iPhone. To the latest of my knowledge, the developer of that iPhone app is still working with the White Estate to get all of EGW's writings ported into his app as well. Even though this release with PocketBible is exciting, I still think there is room for another app to have her writings as well. I say this because there are currently some downfalls to the way PocketBible treats the EGW books that "The Conflict" doesn't have. Some of these downfalls include no ability to highlight a paragraph, and awkward navigation (no ability to scroll through content, only paging). Both of these limitations are not present with the currently available "The Conflict" app.
As for the most popular question I've been getting, the White Estate is estimating the price of their mobile CD to be around $20 which will include her writings for other smart phone platforms as well. This CD should be available for purchase off of the White Estate website hopefully by the end of November.
Now if we can just get EGW's writings to run on the Mac OS easily without having to use an emulator! That is one of my next endeavors.

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My Favorite iPhone Apps

Author: Tim | Posted: 12. October 2009 06:23 1

When I fist bought my iPhone, I was thrilled to run into other iPhone owners who could tell me what their favorite apps were so that I could be sure to get the most out of my new phone. I have owned an iPhone for about 2 months now, and I finally feel like I have seen most of the really cool apps out there. Maybe you are one of those new iPhone/iTouch users, or perhaps you just don't like to spend time on the app store. Allow me to suggest to you some of my favorite apps:

  • Ping! - a clone of the messages app that lets you send free SMS to other iPhone/iTouch users. This app was a little rough around the edges at first, but they recently updated it to fix most of it's issues. The best part about this app is that it also works over WiFi so you don't have to even be in cell signal!
  • Mint.com (FREE) - an expansion of the free mint.com financial service that gives you complete awareness of your financial situation at all times. It even lets you tap into multiple banks, accounts, etc.
  • PocketBible (FREE) - by far the best Bible app out there for iPhone. It lets you combine dictionaries, language tools, Bible reading plans, etc. all in one app. The navigation is a bit awkward, but if you can get used to it, it's a powerful study tool.
  • The Conflict - a friend of mine made this app which brings EGW's Conflict of the Ages series to iPhone. It allows for highlighting, searching, bookmarks, etc.
  • Documents 2 - an excel spreadsheet creator/editor that syncs easily with your google docs (gmail) account. It's much cheaper than the other office apps out there, and it does what I need it to.
  • gFlashPro - a flash card study tool that works off of excel documents, and also integrates well with your google docs account. I particularly find it handy to use this app in combination with the Documents 2.
  • Files - this app lets you turn your iPhone into a WiFi jump drive. Especially if you own a mac, it's super easy to copy files to and from your iPhone over WiFi. It even gives you the ability to view your documents (movies, pictures, PDFs, Word Documents, etc.) from your iPhone. I especially find the built-in PDF viewer to be worth the price they're asking.
  • PresenterPro - a quick reference tool that gives you quick tips and guidelines to help you create and refine any kind of presentation (a lecture, sermon, etc.) to become an effective presenter.
  • StoreItPro - this app is by far the most customizable mobile storage solution. It basically lets you create your own local database to store any kind of data in. Complete with customizable data structures, it will save you money in the long run.
  • Bump (FREE) - a quick and easy way to exchange contact information with other iPhone/iTouch users.
  • Vonage (FREE) - under the name of "cheap long distance" this app lets you place free local calls anywhere in the USA! There's a slight change that they may charge your vonage account $0.35/month, but even if that's true, it's so cheap it's practically free. It works over WiFi as well so if you have AT&T cell coverage problems (like I do), or if you just have an iTouch, this app is VERY handy, as it even syncs your VOIP Vonage account with your actual caller ID!

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