Indeed I was able to complete my application in the time frame I set out for. The application itself worked pretty well. I know I could have made it a lot better if I were actually able to get the application onto my iPhone during the development phase or have the simulator use the iTunes library as the basis for its library. I am now debating whether or not I want to put the application up on Apple’s App Store.

My final conclusion regarding the iPhone SDK and Objective-C shouldn’t be surprising – yes the SDK made development simple. Other than the weird memory management of Objective-C, it too was also fairly easy to learn. But at the end of the day, a language is just a language. The SDK has to be fairly robust in order to attract developers as well as help with the interaction of the phone. I’d almost say it was a pleasure to develop for the iPhone, but I won’t. I won’t because due to Apple’s policies on how the app gets onto a phone (even if you want to use a development phone), made developing for it pretty rough. Development would have been much better if I didn’t have a media player aspect to my application, however it did and since the simulator cannot simulate playing media off an iPhone’s library and since there were a thousand hoops that needed to be jumped through in order to get the app on the phone itself, it just made everything much rougher than it should have been. One can argue that you really only have to jump through the hoops once, but even in this case, once is far too much. Allow applications to be easily put on your own iPhone, Apple. Why do I have to pay you $100/year for the privilege of getting applications that I write onto my own phone?

I’m so glad that it is easy to jailbreak iPhones. Any developer that wants to develop applications for personal use for the iPhone should just jailbreak their iPhone and upload it that way. Don’t pay Apple money for something as asinine as this.

A couple of nights ago I decided that I should just start with my application and learn as I go. This actually turned out to be a pretty good idea. I didn’t have much time code at full stream, so I took the opportunity and what little time I had to set up the bare bones application, and by that I mean take what I learned in the “Hello, World” iPhone development example. I set up the buttons and label using Interface Builder as well as all the code that links up to the buttons and label.

There are two main parts left in my application: firing events and music control. Firing events I am working on right now which seems to be pretty straight forward. To be honest, if I wasn’t goofing around using NSLog I would probably be done with it right now. I am watching Star Wars as I code so my attention is split pretty evenly between the two.

Sunday, once I finish with some family time, I will get into the bulk of the music player. Thankfully I started this project after iPhone software 3.0 was released because, as it seems, controlling/playing music was not available to developers in earlier versions.

Wat?

Not sure how Apple could have thought that was a good idea. At least they saw the errors of their ways.

Thoughts so far: this is much easier than I had anticipated. Also setting up a new iPhone application from scratch and using Interface Builder is much easier the second time around.

Thoughts so far: Why did Apple take the idea of Visual Basic’s interface builder and seemingly make it more complicated to use? And really, a NIB file (read about it)? Also, development without a mouse or a second monitor is barbaric. I think that the hardest part of this experiment is living without a second monitor or mouse. Sadly due to the way my environment is set up at home, a second monitor or mouse is not easy to use with a laptop.

Tonight’s main objective is to get through the “Hello, World!” iPhone application and write that out long with the example and go through the demo application that kind of has to do with what I want to do with the application that I am writing. If there is time, I’d like to start the application tonight. I don’t think that will happen though, not because I am lazy, but looking up unknown Objective-C and iPhone API references will probably take a while. Getting familiar with Xcode also will be a hassle, I believe.

Thoughts so far: Why would anyone go to such far lengths to push their language onto everyone?

Note: If I get about half way into this and it is looking to be somewhat impossible, I will be switching gears and rewriting the application in another language, not because I am going to give up on iPhone development (unless what I want to do proves impossible due to Apple’s limitations on the iPhone SDK) but more so because I want this working application for a trip I am going on next Thursday (2009-07-23). I would continue with this application once I get back.

I am not really sure on how much detail I can get into without breaking Apple’s NDA (yes I should figure that out) but I estimate a prototype application to be written in a language that I already know in about 6-10 hours time. Since I will only have about 3-5 hours a night to sit down, learn Objective-C and the iPhone SDK, then apply everything I know I am actually pretty curious myself to see how this goes.

From this Apple press release:

“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.”

I can’t help but think what I want to do is simple and can be done in the allotted time. I think it is going to be pretty interesting getting over my own preconceived notions on Objective-C. That will probably be my first real order of business beyond sitting down with some “Learn Objective-C basics” webpages.

<Name>, did you know you can earn free chips by playing other Zynga games? Todays[sic] featured game is World Scamble! http://budurl.com/<blah blah blah> [I am not putting the url to their game]

I don’t know what application of yours I downloaded to make you think that I want to be a part of your text messaging spam, however I can tell you this: I will never be downloading any of your applications from now on.  I will make it a point to tell everyone about your shady application-promotion strategy so they no one else uses your applications.  I’ve gone even as far as to contact Apple about what you’ve done. What you’ve done is unacceptable.

Update: Here is a screen shot of the text message I got:

Zynga Spam

I guess the next course of action is to file a complain with the FCC.