Apple technology evangelists and engineers will soon be traveling the globe bringing iPhone development expertise to a city near you. Learn about the tools and technologies you’ll use to create great iPhone applications, then work with the experts to optimize your code, refine your user interface, and apply the knowledge you gain from the sessions to enhance the capabilities of your iPhone application.

The 12-hour sessions will focus on Objective-C, interface design, game development, maximising iPhone performance, submitting apps to the app store and much more.

The talks will be available in the following cities on the following dates:

North America

• Oct 22 San Francisco(FULL)
• Oct 24 Los Angeles
• Nov 03 Austin
• Nov 05 Chicago
• Dec 02 New York(FULL)
• Dec 04 Toronto
• Dec 09 Seattle

Europe

• Oct 22 Paris
• Oct 24 Munich
• Nov 03 Amsterdam
• Nov 07 London
• Nov 10 Berlin
• Nov 11 Madrid
• Nov 14 Copenhagen
• Nov 17 Zurich
• Nov 19 Rome
• Dec 08 Stockholm

India

• Nov 24 Bangalore
• Nov 27 Delhi

Asia Pacific

• Oct 30 Tokyo
• Nov 04 Singapore
• Nov 10 Hong Kong
• Nov 19 Sydney
• Nov 21 Melbourne

“We put the NDA in place because the iPhone OS includes many Apple inventions and innovations that we would like to protect, so that others don’t steal our work. It has happened before,” reads a company statement.

“While we have filed for hundreds of patents on iPhone technology, the NDA added yet another level of protection. We put it in place as one more way to help protect the iPhone from being ripped off by others.”

Within the statement Apple admits that the NDA caused “too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in helping further the iPhone’s success, so we are dropping it for released software.”

Apple also announced that it is currently drafting a new agreement without an NDA covering released software that developers will have to sign later this month.

Image courtesy of Wired.com

iPhone OS 2.2 which was released to developers late this week reportedly includes some changes to the layout of MobileSafari. As seen in the screenshot (old MobileSafari on left, new on right) Apple has moved the refresh button into the address bar and given Google search its own box.

[Image courtesy of Wired.com]

Apple simply lists “compatibility testing” as the description of the release so it is still unclear whether the latest build has background push notifications built-in.

Mac Rumors also points towards a post on its own forums where one user claims to have received a response from Steve Jobs on the where abouts of push notifications.

We’re running a bit late. We want to get it 100% right the first time.

Steve

While I enjoy the updates, editing of playlists is not implemented as well as it could be. For example, deleting songs from a playlist must be done one at a time, which is reminiscent of deleting mail prior to the 2.0 update. Adding songs allows you to select multiple songs at once, but neglects to allow you to deselect them if you change your mind. In the end, however, it is nice to be able to have more control via the Remote app and I welcome the update with open arms. Head on over to the App Store to download or update to Remote 1.1 (iTunes link)

Via AppleInsider, one of their readers received the following response from Jobs:

“This is a known iPhone bug that is being fixed in the next software update in September”

And while the latest firmware update (2.0.2) was supposed to correct the 3G performance issues, there are still some users claiming that it had absolutely no beneficial effect.

Apple needs to fix these problems soon or the hoped-for halo effect will turn into a sinkhole.

Many report the iPhone 2.0 firmware suddenly failing to load non-default apps regardless of their nature, briefly loading them before abruptly jumping back to the home screen.

The bug occurs both with freshly downloaded software and with updates, but is reported as never having a definite fix; although some report successfully deleting and re-downloading apps to regain access, others find the solution either having no effect or gradually decaying over time to where the apps again fail to run. Restoring the iPhone also seldom works.

Jobs replied with a one-line answer:

“This is a known iPhone bug that is being fixed in the next software update in September.”

Beta 4 of iPhone firmware version 2.1 comes with the usual “bug fixes” description but completely removes any support for Apple’s Push Notification Service which will help apps communicate via the Internet in the background without the app running.

Apple does offer an explanation for the removal of PNS stating that “further development” is required, but offers no timeframe on when it will return.

iPhone firmware 2.1 is expected in mid-September.

“We have made our navigation system run on the iPhone; it looks good and works very well,” said Dutch-based company TomTom, in a statement to msnbc.com. “We will have to look more closely to Apple’s strategy before we can say more about what kind of opportunities this will bring us.”

It is currently unknown what exactly the delay is in bringing such applications to market but it was believed that a limitation in the iPhone SDK prevented deployment of GPS navigation applications. This was later debunked by Greg Joswiak who said that the situation was “complicated”.

Version 2.1 (beta 1, build 5F90) of the iPhone OS is said to include new Core Location features suggesting that turn-by-turn GPS could be on the horizon. Core Location is said to be able to track your direction and speed.

Also included within the new OS is some early push notification APIs that allow applications to receive notifications in the background.

In addition to GearLive’s report MacNN is noting that some developers have found hints relating to copy and paste functionality.

One notes that in exploring the Localizable.strings entry under English.lproj in the current iPhone WebKit framework, there are entries for several commands the firmware does not currently support, including cutting, copying and pasting.

Apple’s own Greg Joswiak has recently stated that copy/paste functionality has not been high enough on the priority list so far, but suggested that there it could be coming in the future.

Apple also seeded a new version of the iPhone SDK to developers but the new SDK can not be used to submit Apps to the current App Store.

App Store on iTunes

The majority of apps appear to be Free or priced at $9.99 (£5.99).

Apple has also included an application that it has built in-house called Remote (iTunes Link). Remote is available for free and is described as having the ability to control music on your computer or Apple TV from an iPhone or iPod touch.

To ensure your application can be considered for the exciting launch of the App Store, submit your application by 12 PM PDT, on July 7, 2008. We will continue to accept applications after this time, however your application may not be available until after the launch of the App Store.

The update will be a free update to current iPhone owners and should come pre-installed on the iPhone 3G.

Gizmodo also posts some screenshots from iTunes 7.7 which includes preferences to look for iPod touch and iPhone remotes.

Image courtesy of Mac Rumors

The App Store is expected to go live on July 11.

The iPhone firmware version is 5A345, builds ending in numbers are usually of a stable nature.

In the readme for the iTunes installer, there is a hint at some kind of remote control application that can be installed on the iPhone/iPod touch:

Use iTunes 7.7 to sync music, video, and more with iPhone 3G, and download applications from the iTunes Store exclusively designed for iPhone and iPod touch with software version 2.0 or later. Also use the new Remote application for iPhone or iPod touch to control iTunes playback from anywhere in your home — a free download from the App Store.

The application will presumably allow the control of iTunes over a WiFi network from an iPhone or iPod touch.

Apple is expected to release the iPhone 2.0 firmware and App Store on July 11.

According to the post users will be able to choose between a QWERTY-keyboard and a Japanese mobile phone style keyboard and from there can select either a multi-tap style kana keyboard or a sliding keyboard.

The post explains, “Japanese kana letters are organized in groups of five according to a beginning letter and corresponding vowels (a i u e o), so you can either put in the first letter and then hit the same key between 1-5 times to get the right sound (multi-tap), or you can put the first letter in and then tap and slide through to see all five sounds and pick the right one.”

Video after jump.

We have a version that’s working on the emulation. This is still on the computer and you know, we have to continue to move it from a test environment onto the device and continue to make it work. So we are pleased with the internal progress that we’ve made to date.

It should be noted that Steve Jobs and Apple have been critical of Flash so Adobe doesn’t only have a technical hurdle but also a business one.

Also a good time to remind readers of Walt Mossberg’s announcement last July that Adobe would be bring Flash to the iPhone in an upcoming software update.

The article details how applications are uploaded using iTunes Connect and have a maximum file size of 2GB, Apple has reportedly not stated whether this is a technical limitation.

Certain applications can be limited to geographic regions and games are given content ratings. Apple has stated that no games with an adult rating will be allowed on the App Store.

Pricing of applications is limited to between $0.99 and $999.99. Alternatively applications can be given away for free.

Although Apple has officially stated that the App Store will launch in early-July, but those familiar with the matter suggest that the App Store will launch on July 11 the same day as the iPhone 3G release.

“Our navigation system runs on the iPhone already,” the TomTom spokesman said after Apple announced a new version of the iPhone that will include global positioning (GPS) capability.

Registered iPhone Developers can download the latest beta from the iPhone Dev centre.

During the Keynote Steve Jobs, Phil Schiller and Scott Forstall discussed iPhone software development, MobileMe and introduced iPhone 3G.

[Update] Keynote is now available to download via the Apple Keynote Podcast.

[Update 2] Also available in HD.

“Developer reaction to the features, power and simplicity of the iPhone SDK has been incredible,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “We are seeing some truly amazing native apps from our developers and think users are going to love the breadth and depth of the applications available from the App Store.”

Leading developers such as AOL, Cisco, eBay, Electronic Arts, Epocrates, TypePad, Salesforce.com and Sega have demonstrated impressive native applications developed using the iPhone SDK.

“The SDK allowed us to build a groundbreaking new AIM client in record time,” said Kevin Conroy, executive vice president, AOL. “The platform’s elegance and ease of use has inspired our developers to create innovative new web and SDK based experiences for iPhone and iPod touch.”

“The iPhone SDK has given us an excellent set of tools and APIs to create mobile extensions for FIM’s entire portfolio of web brands including MySpace, IGN and Photobucket in the near term, and other properties such as FOXSports.com down the road,” said John Smelzer, senior vice president of Mobile for Fox Interactive Media. “The popularity of the iPhone, along with the high demand for applications, gives us an amazing opportunity to create groundbreaking mobile experiences.”

“Cocoa-touch is a compact and robust application framework that handles all the heavy lifting for developers so they can concentrate on building their applications in record time with the legendary Apple finesse we’ve come to expect,” said David Krantz, president of YELLOWPAGES.COM.“ iPhone has been a game changer since it launched, and the availability of our YELLOWPAGES.COM application on the App Store is going to make a great device even better.”

“As mobile developers with primarily J2ME and BREW experience, we were up and running with the iPhone within two weeks,” said Jonathan Backer, manager of Mobile Engineering, The Walt Disney Company. “The hardware is stable and full-featured, while the software development tools are intuitive and represent a level of polish rarely seen in the mobile arena.”

“Since the launch of the iPhone we have seen a steady rise in traffic to the MLB.com mobile site so it made perfect sense to develop a rich client application for the App Store,” said Adam Ritter, vice president, Wireless Major League Baseball, Advanced Media. “Our development staff was excited to work on an iPhone application and reported that the SDK was robust and straight forward and contained helpful development tools. All combined we were able to expedite our development and deliver an application we know baseball fans will enjoy.”

Image courtesy of Engadget

On the run-up to Macworld 2008 it was rumoured that Sling would be showing off a native iPhone SlingPlayer but the rumour never came to fruition.

According to Engadget the application is very much alpha and is being held back by Apple failing to accept Sling into the iPhone developer program.

Video included below.

The information which reportedly comes from a firm developing iPhone software alludes to the launch of the App Store which would be necessary to install native iPhone applications.

New iPhone icon (left), current iPhone icon (right)

The icon file appears to show clear differences around the edge of the display and the outer rim of the phone.

Strings Point towards 3G

With the release of the latest iPhone OS 2.0 beta developers have discovered the addition of more strings pointing towards the 3G iPhone. Earlier this month it was discovered that Apple has built-in a switch to turn 3G on and off, new strings now reveal that Apple has added warnings when users try and turn off 3G during a call.

• “Disabling 3G will end your phone call. Are you sure you want to disable 3G?”
• “Enabling 3G will end your phone call. Are you sure you want to enable 3G?”

No details of what is new in the Beta have been released but Apple is expected to be wrapping up development of the beta to coincide with a late-June release.

On a more quiet note Apple gave a select group of developers access to the latest iPhone OS 2.0 build, build 5A308 comes on the heels of a build last week that added the addition of geo-tagging.

The latest build is said to speed up the iPhone OS significantly.

BusinessWeek is reporting that the first two companies out of over 1,700 have been chosen to receive some of the $100 million capital.

Pelago is said to be a developer of on-the-go lifestyle application, the company reportedly was the first to receive funding for iPhone version of its Whrrl application. Whrrl takes advantage of the iPhones mapping abilities and tries to make it easy to find information about business, restaurants, etc, in the local area.

iControl allows users to control multiple appliances in the home

Joining Pelago as the only other company to receive funding was iControl, makers of home automation software. The application is said to give users control over air con units, lighting and window shades to name just a few.

BusinessWeek also adds that it expects Apple to release the 3G iPhone at the forth coming Worldwide Developers Conference which kicks off on June 9th. The opening keynote may also demonstrate one of the aforementioned applications.

According to AppleInsider the latest build 5A292g contains photo geo-tagging, the current iPhone appears to make use of WiFi and cellular network position but the next-generation iPhone is expected to feature GPS abilities.

The feature which currently does not work was discovered when the Camera application asked permission to use the users current location, the ability to report location can be turned off in the preferences.

The Beta 5 SDK is available as a free download to members of the iPhone Development Centre, the update is 1.08GB in size and is listed as build 9M2173a.

Full release notes here.

Apple has changed the Apple.com homepage to remind those wishing to attend WWDC 2008 that early registration ends on April 25th.

iPhone SDK Beta 4 Released

Apple has also released a new beta of the iPhone SDK. Beta 4 contains numerous bug fixes and additions.

The fourth beta version of the iPhone SDK includes Xcode IDE, iPhone simulator with Open GL ES support, Interface Builder, Instruments, frameworks and samples, compilers, and Shark analysis tool.

You can download the SDK update by logging into the iPhone Dev center and clicking the download link.

TUAW has excellent coverage of the new beta and writes the following piece of interest:

“There are definitely some very interesting methods added to UIApplication’s delegate, including methods for badging the Springboard icon, and methods related to gaining and resigning “active” status - seems like background apps may be permitted somehow.”

The feature works in a similar way to how it works in Safari where by the user simply holds their finger on the image causing a menu to pop-up offering several options including saving to the camera roll.

Engadget has posted a gallery of screenshots from the latest beta of the iPhone OS 2.0.

The only two improvements appear to be contact searching and Meeting Invites.

The previous version of the iPhone OS (build 9a2151) ceased to function as of 12.01am on April 8th, causing developers across America to be greeted with the “Pink Screen of Death” and display the text “This device is expired. Please install a newer version of the OS”.

It took Apple the majority of April 8th to release the updated iPhone OS causing much annoyance amongst developers.

The latest build of the iPhone OS 2.0 reportedly contains a number of fixes surrounding Exchange integration including; additional abilities of receiving and accepting meeting invitations, searching for contacts in the global address list, auto-complete email addresses in the global address list, and setting up an exchange account using Autodiscovery.

The iPhone OS 2.0 is expected to be released to the public in June and will be free for iPhone users but iPod touch owners may pay a small charge.

Interface Builder is a tool to allow allow developers to build a visual user interface.

Apple originally released the iPhone SDK Beta on March 6th and will allow developers to build native applications for the iPhone.

As a tinkerer and technologically interested dude, I find myself working on lots of projects that require software. Writing your own programs is all well and good, but usually it’s better to try to get a hold of some software people have already written. You may be able to find some shareware that will do the trick. Free is better though, and the open source community is steeped with cool stuff that you can modify to your purposes.

My largest software project has been in progress for over two years now. I began planning to create a modular dorm room automation system during my first year of boarding school, and I continue to add pieces to it and make the system more streamlined. My documentation page for the whole project is on my website.

It’s all well and good to be able to control your music, or turn your lights on with scripts and Quicksilver key commands, but some of us have gotten our mitts on a nifty web enabled piece of equipment: the iPhone or iPod Touch. So how does one control their computer from the internet?

There are two solutions available for Macs. The shareware solution is Remote Buddy. This is a great option. IOSpirit recently added this “AJAX Remote” feature to the main Remote Buddy program, and it’s very, very nice.

Setup is a breeze, just install Remote Buddy to your computer and access the web server it automatically sets up and runs from a secured port on your computer. The interface is clean and streamlined, and if you don’t want to get down and dirty with some code, this is the way to go. No futzing around, just install and you’re immediately controlling your iTunes, moving the mouse and typing, viewing your webcam, and browsing your filesystem to launch movies.

Free is always better for me. Always. I spent a few weeks uninstalling and reinstalling Remote Buddy to stay inside the trial period, but there’s only so much effort you can put into that sort of thing. Then I found Telekinesis.

Interesting where that link leads, isn’t it? That’s right, Telekinesis is brought to you by the same fine people who make Quicksilver. They have a few other projects, as a programmer I find Visor particularly useful, but I digress.

Telekinesis is quick to set up for basic functionality. Just keep that program running and you can access your webcam, browse files, and have rudimentary control over your screen and a pseudo Apple Remote. That’s all well and good, but Telekinesis’s main strength is expandability.

Every button on the Telekinesis home screen is linked to a file with the extension “.tapp”. This is just a little made up extension like “.app” that hides a regular folder. You can make your own programs for Telekinesis very easily with a little PHP and some elbow grease, and there are a couple plugins already written on the Telekinesis Google Code site. Specifically, “Now Playing” is particularly handy to install, as it allows you to browse your computer’s music library and have almost complete control over it. It has some downfalls, namely that it tries to load your entire music library (and that doesn’t fly with my huge collection), but it’s open source so you can edit this part of the program.

Installing the .tapp files is really easy. The Telekinesis help page on creating applications tells you that you should install each .tapp in this folder:
~/Library/Application Support/iPhone Remote/Apps/.tapp
This puts your installed applications on the bottom of the webpage, in alphabetical order after the pre-installed .tapps. I’ve found a little nicer way to install these.

Since iPhone Remote has the default .tapps installed when you open it up the first time, you can tell that it’s got them somewhere easy for the program to access. This is likely either in the Application Support folder, which we’ve already looked at to install the regular .tapps, or in the .app file itself.

Right click the iPhone Remote application and select “Show Package Contents”. this brings up a new window with all of the files inside of the application. Usually you don’t want to mess with this stuff, but if you look under iPhone Remote/Contents/Resources you’ll find a folder called “www”. This folder is also inside of Remote Buddy’s package contents. This is the root folder for the web server that both programs run on your computer.

The “www” folder contains the usual web server stuff, an index file, a folder for images, but you’ll notice the “tapps” folder. This is your friend where all the default .tapps are installed. Plop your own applications in here, and they don’t get pushed to the bottom of the page any longer. You can even grab the .tapps that are already written and edit them for your own purposes. I found the file system browser easy to edit to access specific folders more quickly, and the webcam application can be quickly changed to refresh the image when it loads instead of requiring you to click on it.

Telekinesis is a very nifty program for controlling your computer from the web on your iPod Touch or iPhone. It’s easy to set up, highly customizable, and free. Try it, you’ll like it.

PS: You may also want to note that since you can access the web files in Remote Buddy it may be possible to transfer these PHP files into Telekinesis. The method calls are slightly different, but the principle remains the same.

Last week developers who applied for entry into the iPhone SDK program recieved the following email:

Dear Registered iPhone Developer,

iPhone Developer Program

Initially this email was taken as a “you’ve been rejected email” but Apple today sent out another email clarifying the status and offering some helpful development links:

“We have many more requests than we can serve during this initial beta period,” states the email, “so we must limit the Program at this time. We plan to expand it during the beta period, and we will contact you regarding your enrollment status at the appropriate time. We appreciate your patience.”

The email also offers links to getting Started videos, documents as well as sample code and how to’s.

EA confirmed to the tech site that Spore will be “the first 3rd party game on the iPhone.” but won’t be available until September.

EA also confirmed that there are “other games in early stages of development.” and that it was “actively using the new iPhone SDK to develop games for the iPhone OS.”

“The animation technology in the iPhone OS enables us to build awesome games,” said John Riccitiello, CEO of Electronic Arts. “I think iPhone consumers are going to be blown away by the games we create for this platform.”

The site also notes that Apple is expected to take a “small percentage” of revenue from iPhone application sales. The site was unable to ascertain information about free application distribution, but Electronista has previously reported that Apple would not restrict the distribution of free applications.

Finally MacScoop also reports that the SDK will require Mac OS X 10.5 and will come in the form of an updated version of Xcode.

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