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Filed under: SDK

Beta 4 of iPhone SDK 3 is out

Just a quick heads-up on the flood of tips in our inbox this morning: Beta 4 of the iPhone 3.0 SDK is available now, along with a preliminary build of iTunes 8.2.

New features noted by readers include support for additional over-the-air PIM synchronization sources (including Google and Yahoo in iTunes, per Joachim), copy and paste in Calculator, continued tethering support, and a basic UI for managing an iTunes store account. Update: reports coming in that Notes syncing requires Mac OS X 10.5.7, yet another broad hint that the OS revision is due momentarily.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in.

Filed under: iPod Family, Developer, iPhone

iPhone Dev Camp 2

iPhoneDevCamp 2
If you lost out on the chance to attend WWDC 2008 and your development focus is the iPhone, you're in luck. iPhoneDevCamp 2 is scheduled for August 1 - 3, 2008 at the Adobe offices in San Francisco. A follow-up to the first iPhoneDevCamp held in early July of 2007, iPhoneDevCamp 2 is a non-profit event dedicated solely to development of applications for iPhone and iPod Touch using the native SDK and web standards.

As an attendee, you'll work with other developers to create new iPhone/iPod Touch apps, learn how to migrate Mac apps to the Apple handheld platform, and find out how to test and optimize your apps. If you're a Cocoa Touch developer, web developer, UI designer, or tester, this is the place to be the first weekend of August. The registration links aren't yet up and running, but be sure to bookmark the iPhoneDevCamp 2 site for future reference.

A big TUAW thank you to Raven for the tip!

Filed under: TUAW Business, Podcasts

Talkcast reminder, 10 pm ET tonight

If you haven't checked out last week's show yet, by all means grab a copy. We were joined by Craig Hockenberry and Gedeon Maheux from Iconfactory, who gave us the lowdown on the history of the company, the origins of Twitterrific, the coevolution of Twitter with the now-dominant Mac client, and the promise of the upcoming iPhone development explosion. Download direct, listen in your browser or subscribe to the TalkShoe feed in iTunes.

Speaking of iPhone... We are live tonight (Sunday 3/9) for this week's talkcast, 10 pm ET, talking about iPhone for enterprise and the SDK -- featuring a taped segment with Erica Sadun and Apollo IM developer Alex Schaefer, who couldn't make the regular Sunday night show but felt they had to say something after 72+ hours deep in the SDK.

Join me, Scott, Dave and Mike Schramm tonight for the social. Bring your own ice cream!

Continue readingTalkcast reminder, 10 pm ET tonight

Filed under: iPhone

First fruits of the iPhone SDK: ToDo App


Sometime yesterday afternoon, as soon as her download finished, our friend and colleague turned up her iTunes, closed her office door and tore into the iPhone SDK with all the excitement of a kitten attacking a new skein of yarn. 24 hours, not much sleep and a diet of flat food later, she emerges with her quarry: a shiny new application for iPhone and iPod touch, ToDo App.

This marathon initial effort provides basic todo list features -- adding, listing and deleting. Here's the catch: for now, the only place you can run it is inside the Aspen simulator in Xcode; as soon as Apple starts delivering signing keys to registered and paid developers, those will allow the app to be loaded and tested on physical phones.

In addition to the coding frenzy, Erica found the time to revise her iPhone frameworks documentation and header notes to version 1.2, which reflects the SDK edition. After a long sojourn in the wildnerness of the community toolchain, the iPhone devs can see what appears to be the promised land. Here's to the crazy ones.

Filed under: iPod Family, Developer, iPhone

iPhone SDK MiniBarCamp at SXSW Austin

Want to get your hack on with the iPhone beta SDK? If you're in Austin, TX, you're in luck. As part of BarCamp in Austin, a bunch of iPhone SDK hackers are putting together an iPhone track tomorrow (Saturday). There will be tutorial sessions, demos and hands-on hacking.

The fun starts at 10AM and goes until 10PM and will be held GSD&M|idea city, 828 West 6th Street in Austin. For more information, contact Bart Decrem of Gogo Apps, an iPhone startup (bartd@gogoapps.com). Confirmed attendees include Daniel "Pumpkin" Peebles, Sean "iAppADay" Heber, Thomas Muldowney, and Layton "Polarbear Farms" Duncan.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Multimedia, Cool tools, Hacks, iPhone

Use your iPhone as an XBMC remote

I have to say, as much as everyone whined about the lack of an iPhone SDK, I am nothing but impressed at how far people are bending over backwards to provide functionality to the iPhone. Yes it makes you wonder how much we could do if there was an SDK, but on the other hand, developers are really showing us just how much can be done with just a browser.

Take, for example, the Xbox Media Center iPhone Remote. If you're still using your old Xbox as a media center, Tom Robinson has devised a setup that will let you actually log in to your Xbox from your iPhone, essentially using the iPhone as a very expensive (but very functional) remote control. Basically, you FTP the code onto your Xbox (or just install it over the web), and then login to the Xbox's IP from MobileSafari, and you can use it to browse media, view information on playing media, and even use transport and audio controls. Wild.

My only question is how secure this is-- without having used it, it seems like all you need to get full access to the Xbox is the IP address. There may be something in the code that confines access to a local network, but if you can install this script from the web, it seems like you could also log in to control an Xbox from afar after it's been installed. At any rate, it's a really interesting idea, and just another example of how creative people are getting in developing functionality on the iPhone.

Thanks, Dave!

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Tips and tricks, Internet Tools, iPhone

Google creates iPhone-specific demo to show off API [Updated]

Google, says Scoble, has created a brand new just-for-iPhone demo page for their search engine-- yes, apparently they're still doing search. I used it within my browser (using my standard search engine test word: "Batman"), and it seemed to work just fine. It's all Javascript, as well, so it's fast and simple. The one drawback is that you can't actually go back after you've done a search (since it all loads in the same window), but it's Google, so odds are you'll find what you're looking for right away.

But the problem with this goes right back to what Scott was talking about the other day-- we aren't supposed to be getting half the web on the iPhone, we're supposed to be getting the real web. In this case, there's not much to complain about-- this really is Google, minus the extra content and the ads. However, the links actually go to regular browser windows (not iPhone formatted sites), and if you hit "More Results" at the bottom of the page, it takes you to a normal, full-screen Google page anyway. So what's the point? Yes, this is just a demo, but why bother making an iPhone specific page in the first place? iPhone users should be able to browse to the Google homepage like everyone else.

Thanks, Josh!

Update: This page is not quite what it seems-- it's not actually an iPhone version of Google. A Google spokesperson contacted us to say that it's actually a Google demo for how web developers can use the Google AJAX search API in their iPhone apps. That explains why it's not much more than the main Google page, and why it has no ads. It's not designed to replace the Google main page (although, as a side bonus, that's a pretty good one). Instead, it was created by the Google API devs to show off how the AJAX search API can be used to make apps for the iPhone.

Filed under: Rumors, WWDC, Developer, iPhone

NYTimes: iPhone SDK at WWDC?

Uncle Steve hinted last week that 3rd party software development would be coming on the iPhone sometime in the future. Gruber wondered aloud over at Daring Fireball just where the iPhone SDK might be that would make this possible. Well according to the New York Times, something is coming at WWDC. An anonymous source "briefed on Apple's plans" said that at WWDC, "Apple intends to announce that it will make it possible for developers of small programs written for the Macintosh to easily convert them to run on the iPhone."

Hmm... "small programs"? That sounds a lot like widgets to me. The obvious question is just how limiting that will be. After all some dashboard widgets out now already tie into the Mac pretty deeply. So even if 3rd party devs are limited to widgets it's still likely that quite a lot will be possible. If we're lucky "small" may just refer to the binary size, and full cocoa apps will be allowed as well.

Tip of the Day

Use Spotlight as a reference tool. Type any word in the Spotlight box and one of the top entries will be a definition. Click on it, and it will bring up the dictionary application to check the word in either the dictionary, thesaurus, Apple database, or Wikipedia.


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