Filed under: Developer

If you're a card-carrying iOS developer, trot on over to the developer page and grab the latest beta of iOS 4.1. As everyone is reporting, it's been about two weeks since 4.1 Beta 1 crash-landed, so maybe we're just a couple of weeks away from a release for the rest of us? That'd be nice, considering some iOS 4 woes on older iPhones, among other outstanding issues. If anything notable turns up, we'll let you know.

[thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

Have I mentioned how much I adore Xcode 4? I would marry it, bear its children and clean up after it -- that's how much I love it. But Xcode 4 hasn't been readily available for general use. Until now.

As of this evening, you can download Xcode 4 Preview 2 and throw yourself into its exuberant yum. At least you can if you're a member of one of the paid developer programs. Yes, all that Xcode 4 goodness is now yours to enjoy, whether you went to WWDC or not.

So point your browser over to Apple's developer site, log in with your Mac or iPhone paid developer credentials, and download yourself a big hot steaming pile of IDE yum. It's like the chocolate lava volcano cake of development tools.

Thanks, Luke Rhodes

With the imminent demise of UIGetScreenImage, a number of readers have asked me how they can use the newer AVFoundation approach to access screen data in their iPhone applications. I went ahead and built some sample code that, when I'm finished messing with it, will be part of chapter 7 of my revised cookbook. I have uploaded the current version to github. It consists of a simple helper class that allows you to start and stop a capture session.

You can request an image from this helper (namely, the last captured image from the buffer), which in this example is loaded into a central image view at the end-user's request. You can also ask it for a view with an embedded preview, using the current session. The example project adds that preview to the navigation bar.

I threw this example together pretty quickly, and as always, I welcome suggestions and improvements.

Did you miss the Mac IT track at this year's WWDC, with its lively cross-pollination of Mac managers and developers? Good news, then -- there's a new conference in town, and it aims to raise everyone's game when it comes to learning about the Mac.

The MacTech Conference will be taking place for three days in LA on 11/3-5, giving Mac IT managers and developers a chance to get it together with leading presenters and instructors. For $899 (or less -- see below for an early bird deal) participants will get a lively two-track event for IT folk and developers, including all meals, sessions and special activities like a behind-the-scenes visit to Griffith Observatory.

"The whole idea of the MacTech Conference is to allow members of the Apple community to meet and exchange ideas," said Edward Marczak, the Executive Editor of MacTech and the chair of the conference program. "This will be spurred on by presentations from some of the best and well-known experts in the community."

TUAW is happy to be a media sponsor of the conference, and we're looking forward to meeting some of you there. That special early-bird registration option gives you $200 off that $899 registration cost, if you sign up before July 22 -- just click here to register.

Unity CEO David Helgason gave a talk at the Develop conference, going on this week in Brighton, England, and had some harsh words for Steve Jobs on supporting iPhone gaming. Jobs previously said that using "middleware" like Unity to develop iPhone games "produces sub-standard apps," but Helgason fires back that Jobs "doesn't understand the economics of game development fundamentally." Most developers, Helgason seems to be saying, can't be jack-of-all-trades with their code -- they need libraries like Unity to do some of the lifting, especially on smaller-scale platforms like the App Store.

Stuart Dredge at Mobile Entertainment is doing a great job of covering all of the other iPhone gaming news coming out of Develop as well -- he's got talks by the developers of Ngmoco's Godfinger, Rolando's Simon Oliver, and Ideaworks Game Studio, the company that brought World at War: Zombies to the iPhone for Activision (that last talk sounds similar to the one we saw earlier this year at GDC).

If there's a theme among everything developers are saying, it's probably that they're finding flexibility a must on the App Store -- while an app may be developed with one feature or pay model in mind, things often have to change quickly during development or even after the app goes live. Lots of interesting things to read in there if you're interested in iPhone game development.

If you're looking for a simple and easy-to-follow introduction to iPhone 4's new backgrounding abilities, head on over to Oliver Drobnik's weblog and check out his latest write-up. You'll find a lovingly crafted graphic that walks you through the iPhone application lifecycle, showing how an application reacts to system changes like incoming phone calls or users' home button presses. A small portion of the chart appears at the top of this post.

Don't miss Drobnik's write-up in addition to his flowchart. I like the case he lays out for using applicationDidEnterBackground as the perfect place for saving state before giving up application control. As he points out, applicationWillTerminate will not get called in many application suspension cases.

Drobnik continues to refine his write-up, so keep checking back in for last-minute tuning and updates.

Disney has bought Tapulous outright, according to Techcrunch. The iPhone gaming company was one of the first on the App Store, and has been extremely successful with its Tap Tap Radiation and Tap Tap Revenge music titles.

There's no word yet on how much money was involved in the deal, but Disney has been interested in both gaming and the iDevices for a while, and obviously Tapulous proved that it could meet the Mouse House's needs. Bart Decrem, Tapulous' CEO, will reportedly become a VP at Disney.

Very impressive on Tapulous' part. There are more details coming, according to Techcrunch, so we'll update this post when we see any other news on the deal.

I've seen GameSalad around before (they had a big booth at this year's MacWorld, and we've mentioned them here on TUAW a few times), but I've never actually spoken to anyone who works for the Austin, TX based company. Fortunately, senior platform director Michael Herring found some time to come say hi at WWDC this week, and he spoke with me about the development system that hopes to bring iPhone and iPad app creation to everyone.

He did walk me through the app quickly, but since it's a free download over on their website, you can go see it for yourself if you want. The idea is that you set up a series of "actors," and then you add a set of rules for those actors (what happens when they touch or get directions from the keyboard, etc.) that will eventually make up a full game. GameSalad doesn't actually require any coding knowledge, but Herring told me that it did require a little bit of know-how in terms of how games work. You can easily make a game system with the app (and even veteran developers often use it for quick prototyping), but to actually make a working game that people will want to play, you'll have to bring your own trial-and-error patience and balancing effort.

Finally! The iPhone OS 4.0 SDK iOS 4 SDK is almost (but not quite) ready to roll for all members of Apple's developer program, not just the paid App Store developers. However it's likely to be a week or two before everyone gets access to the GM release. Right now, it's still going to be a release candidate.

Paid devs are almost ready to finally start shipping apps leveraging the new firmware's amazingly cool features. We can't wait until we start seeing VoiP and Game Center apps in action.

Today, you'll be able to head on over to Apple's developer site and start downloading your copy of the 4.0 SDK release candidate. Although the site still shows beta 4, the gold master release candidate, as Steve announced at the Keynote this morning, should be ready momentarily.

Of course, the iPad SDK is another matter. Any iPad SDK, when it appears (likely in the fall sometime), will remain under an ongoing NDA until that firmware and SDK is officially released. But the good news is that the new version of the iPhone firmware is just around the corner on June 21st.

UPDATE: The developer site is DOWN.

Barron's reports, you decide: According to Trip Chowdry, an analyst with Global Equities Research, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will have seven minutes of stage time at WWDC 2010.

[Wait, what now? –Ed.]

According to Chowdry, Ballmer's topic will be Visual Studio 2010, Microsoft's development suite.The supposed announcement will center on VS10's hypothetical ability to write native apps for iPhone, iPad, and (gasp) Mac OS. Currently, such apps can only be created in Apple's Xcode environment.

There are a couple of schools of thought that might discredit or support this rumor. On one hand, the current Xcode-only development regime requires a Mac. As many of us know, once you go Mac, it's difficult to go back; these iPhone and iPad developers may go on to make great Mac apps, too.

The flip side of this is that requiring Xcode, and thus a Mac, serves as a large barrier to entry for many developers and the apps that they could potentially make. VisualStudio may attract users who wouldn't switch desktop platforms to develop for the iPhone or iPad.

Given the notoriously secretive nature of Steve Jobs's keynotes, it's difficult to imagine that information like this, if true, could slip out. It's also hard to reconcile the full-court press against other IDEs for the iPhone (the notorious 3.3.1 clause) with the idea of letting Microsoft deliver a fully supported development platform for Apple's crown jewel devices.

[Translation: Trip Chowdry may have some bad intel here. –Ed.]

WWDC will begin on June 7, 2010.

[via MacRumors]

Ad Hoc provides a way to distribute signed, secure applications outside of App Store channels. With Ad Hoc, you can send your applications to up to 100 registered devices and run those applications using a special kind of mobile provision that allows the applications to execute under the iPhone's FairPlay restrictions. Ad Hoc distribution is especially useful for beta testing and for submitting review applications to news sites and magazines.

Apple is now 4 for 4.

Or at least Beta 4 for iPhone OS 4.0.

They have just posted the latest and greatest iPhone OS 4.0 beta. As with previous beta releases, this new beta update provides firmware for each of the supported devices (namely the iPhone 3GS, the iPhone 3G, and the 2nd and 3rd generation iPod touch).

Because of the ongoing NDA, the details of this release remain behind a wall of confidentiality. You'll need to visit the developer site and check out the specifications for yourself. Apple will be releasing 4.0 into the general iPhone population this summer. An iPad version will debut in the fall.

Apple's servers get slammed whenever a new SDK is released. You may want to wait a few hours if you encounter any problems connecting to the developer site.

Apple just posted its latest iPhone OS 4.0 beta. As with previous beta releases, this new beta update provides firmware for each of the supported devices (namely the iPhone 3GS, the iPhone 3G, and the 2nd and 3rd generation iPod touch).

As usual, the details of this release remain behind the NDA wall, so you'll need to visit the developer site and check them out yourself. Apple will be releasing 4.0 into the general iPhone population this summer. An iPad version will debut in the fall.

Apple's servers get slammed whenever a new SDK is released. You may want to wait a few hours if you encounter any problems connecting to the developer site.

UPDATE: Apple has pulled the beta for now. This has happened before and generally indicates some problem with the build (despite paranoia about leaked features). Please let us know when Beta 3 returns.

UPDATE 2: The beta is available for download once again. The beta returned around 9:30 PM (Pacific Time). Given that the beta was only pulled for less than one day, and judging from comments made by developers who managed to grab the beta this morning, chances are the reason for the beta being pulled may have been due to installation location problems. Now that the download is back, we'll find out soon enough.

Xomo's Jeff Sinclair took the stage on day two of this past weekend's Voices that Matter iPhone conference to the tune of the Olympic theme music -- his company (well his most recent company -- he's worked on a few other ventures previously) was formed for one purpose: to provide the official iPhone app for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Eleven months before the games, in March of 2009, Xomo was formed around the idea of "disposable apps" -- the thinking was that since most people only use an app for a period of weeks anyway, they would create event-based and location-based apps that had a built-in time limit. The eventual goal was to provide an Olympic app, and so even before the games knew they would want an app, Xomo started up to build one.

The story was actually pretty interesting -- Sinclair talks about the trials and tribulations of building both the app and building the funding and audience for it. Most iPhone developers start out with money and go from there, but Xomo really started out with the software, and then convinced the Olympics and their sponsors to pay for it. Read on to see how the award-winning app was eventually built.