How to develop iPhone and iPad apps

Apple’s new ‘Start Developing iOS Apps Today’ guide has been launched. Aimed at aspiring iOS app developers, the 13-step guide splits up the process of app development into five key areas.
“The road map provides you with a breadth of knowledge to get you started, and the last page, Where to Go from Here, includes links to documents you should read next,” says the guide. “After you finish the road map, you will be prepared to delve deeper into any individual topic. You’ll have the knowledge, tools, and skills to start developing iOS apps,” promises Apple.
Sounds great. However, you will have to have some level of digital know how.
“Before you begin writing a line of code, you should make some critical design decisions,” suggest Apple. “Be as specific as possible about your app’s purpose and features. Choose the kind of data model your app will use. Decide on a user interface style for your app; for example, should it follow a master-detail pattern or that of a utility app? Do you want your app to be universal—that is, an app that runs on iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch?”
Well … to be honest I just want to write and develop the next Angry Birds. Is that too much to ask?

The 25 billion app countdown

Very soon, someone, somewhere on the planet will download the 25 billionth app from Apple’s app store. To celebrate, Apple will give that person a $10,000 dollar gift card to spend on apps from the app store.
“The countdown has started. And there’s going to be a winner,” says Apple. “As the 25 billionth download approaches, we want to say thank you. Download any of the a lot more than 500,000 apps on the App Retailer for iPhone, iPod touch or iPad – if you download the 25 billionth app, you could win a $10,000 App Retailer Gift Card.”
The app store opened its virtual doors in July 2008 and has been an enormous success for Apple. Within two and a half years 10 billion apps had been downloaded. Six months later this figure reached 15 billion and now, just eight months down the line, it is close to 25,000,000,000.

The app that could win an Oscar

If you haven’t heard of Moonbot Studios, and you have kids and an iPad, then you’re in for a treat. Moonbot creates quirky and beautiful iPad apps for kids, one of which The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore was extended into a short animated film. An Oscar-nominated film.
The short animation “draws its inspiration from Hurricane Katrina, Buster Keaton, The Wizard of Oz, and a love for books”. It’s a remarkable piece of work and a creation that is destined to win awards. The first app to win an Oscar perhaps?

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore from Moonbot Studios on Vimeo.

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore iPad App Trailer from Moonbot Studios on Vimeo.

Android Marketplace booming

The Android platform is fast becoming the biggest in the world, it has now been activated on over 250 million devices worldwide. That’s up 50 million since November 2010.
Meanwhile, the Android Marketplace has managed to fly past its 11 billionth download. Apple’s App Store, which is around three months older, passed its 18 billionth download in December 2011. Most downloaded apps are free. Estimates suggest just 10% of apps downloaded are paid for but this is rising as apps become more sophisticated and useful and people are willing to pay for them.

Facebook’s planet of social apps

Facebook has announced many new types of post descriptions (verbs). For example, previously people just ‘Liked’ something. Now they can share with their network that they ‘Bought’ something or ‘Read’ something or that they ‘Want’ something.
Facebook also recently announced 60 more Timeline applications that will now let users publish information to Facebook automatically. Most of the apps are newer versions of online and mobile apps like Foodily, Goodreads and Slacker.
Facebook wants its users to share all the data of their lives and wants thousands more apps to have the automatic share function. A user’s Facebook Timeline will then become a living stream of information that is updated automatically – for example – whenever that user buys a concert ticket, books a holiday or reads a recipe.
‘Our vision for Timeline and our vision for the application platform is whatever you love and whatever story you want to tell, you can add that to your Timeline,’ said Carl Sjogreen, director of product management for Facebook.

iPad app allows kids to publish books

This is cute, a new free iPad app that allows kids to create and physically publish their own books. Scribble Press is a chain of three stores in the US (California) that wants to go global with its product.
Using the iPad app, kids can choose various templates before they advance to designing their own books from scratch. The printed books ordered through the Scribble Press iPad app will cost $9.95 plus postage in the US.

Three billion iPad apps downloaded since 2010

If further proof was needed that the iPad is transforming the publishing (books, magazines, games, video) industry, it came with new ABI research that shows three billion iPad apps have been downloaded since it first launched in 2010. This represents nearly 20% of all iOS (Apple native app) downloads.
“The iPhone took as long as two years before being able to achieve this level of downloads, while the iPad made it within nearly a year and a half. In comparison, Android tablets only have around 440 million downloads thus far,” states ABI.
While there are just 120,000+ apps specifically for the iPad, iPad users can expect a deluge of new, high quality apps for the iPad in the next two years.
Publishers, on the other hand, can be comforted by the fact that iPad users are willing to pay for good quality apps, whether they be books, games or web services. It is also easier for publishers to sell in-app advertising thanks to the size of the iPad screen.

The first great app orgy of consumption

The last month of 2011 was, for the app sector, the most astonishing time it has ever witnessed. According to analytics form Flurry, 1.2 billion apps were downloaded in the last week of December alone, as people unwrapped millions of iPhones, Androids, iPads and Android tablets all over the world during Christmas.
The US gobbled up half of the downloads, followed by China and the UK. The UK had 81 million downloads followed by Canada (41 million), Germany (40 million) and France (40 million).
“Looking forward to 2012, Flurry expects breaking the one billion download barrier per week will become more commonplace,” said the company’s blog.
It is estimated nearly seven million Android devices and iPhones were activated on Christmas Day 2011 alone. Now that’s smart.

Want to do better in exams? There’s an app for that

A new iPhone app – created by a 25 year old Irishman, Cormac Moore – aims to help second and third level students perform better in exams. Moore, a published researcher in the area of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) – the study of successful thinking patterns of outstanding individuals – developed the Headcase app with the help of 30 top ranking college students and app builder Kablingy Software.
“I took the successful learning patterns of these top performing students and literally ‘downloaded’ them using the tools of NLP,” he says. These learning patterns were taken and tested on underperforming students. The improvements turned out to be dramatic, with all 50 students in the three pilot programs making substantial improvements.
“I developed the app so that students won’t need to fork out hard earned cash to do repeats, or hand over another €2,000 to repeat an entire year of college,” says Moore.
The iPhone app is available in the iTunes App store and costs €2.39, but is free to download until Sunday the 4th of December.

Pull a cracker, beat a world record and help the Simon Community

Carphone Warehouse and the Simon Community will attempt to break the world record for the highest number of simultaneous Christmas cracker pulls, this December 2nd on Hanover Quay, Grand Canal, Dublin 2. The event will take place at 12.30 pm and is open to the public to join in.
The record currently stands at 1,478, and they are aiming to top that by achieving 1,600 cracker pulls at once. If the record is broken, Carphone Warehouse will donate “a generous amount” to the Simon Community.
As well as the world record attempt, Carphone Warehouse is donating all profits from its annual in-store gift-wrap to the charity. That means a 50c donation for each and every gift that’s wrapped. It will further donate €1 for every new fan on its Facebook page until they hit 22,000. Carphone Warehouse hopes to raise over €10,000 for the Simon Community through this initiative.
Carphone Warehouse extends an invitation to the public to take part in the record breaking attempt. On the day, there will be treats available for anyone who takes part, in addition to Christmas carol sing-along with some special Irish music acts.

INVITE: WORLD RECORD CRACKER PULLING ATTEMPT
Where? Hanover Quay, Grand Canal, Dublin 2.
When? December 2nd, 2011, at 12:30pm.

Partners