simulator posts

I've always thought aquariums as screensavers were a no-brainer. Most are lacking, limiting themselves to small fish you'd find in just about any aquarium, freshwater or salt water. MyReef 3D Aquarium [iTunes Link] isn't going to shake up the genre, but it is certainly the most realistic, smoothest and most relaxing "fish simulator" I've used so far. It serves no purpose other than to completely mimic the function of a real aquarium: to sit there and look pretty and be relaxing. And it does a good job.

You can add many types of fish, some aquarium decorations and plants, and feed the fish or tap on the glass. You can pinch to zoom in, seeing quite pretty 3D fish. These are not 2D sprites flopping around a flat screen, these are real, OpenGL graphics and they look terrific. In fact, something I love about this app is the attention to detail. Fish behave as their species would behave, including group behaviors and dorsal fin indicators. Those small touches will really appeal to any fish fans out there -- and there are plenty.

If you're an aquarium hobbyist you will love this app. If you want a pretty thing to look at or mess around with or relax to, MyReef 3D Aquarium is quit nice. It doesn't "do" a lot, but what it does it does well. I think it's a fair value at $2.99.

Last week, TUAW showed you how to sign iPhone applications for informal developer-to-developer distribution. That approach lets you share applications between members of the iPhone developer program by using your signing credentials to authorize the application for use on your development units.

iPhone applications compiled for the Intel-based simulator can also be shared between developers. And, since the free developer program offers access to the simulator, the apps can be distributed even more widely than with the re-signing approach.

Simulator testing does not offer the full suite of device-specific capabilities. You cannot simulate the onboard camera or retrieve proper accelerometer feedback. The simulator does not vibrate or provide general multitouch input. (You can pinch, but that's about it.)

The strength of simulator-based distribution is that it lets you send out applications for early testing and feedback. Sim-only tests strengthen the preliminary design process; this approach helps solicit feedback on user interface and general program layout before the main development push gets underway.

Simulator-based apps are easy to transfer and easy to use, cutting out a layer of overhead that's needed for when you go to a full ad-hoc beta.

To distribute a simulator application, go to the Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/User/Applications/ folder in your home directory. There you'll find the application sandbox folders that are currently installed for your simulator. Each folder is named with a unique id (i.e. 56E66CE5...DC028F) that does not reflect the folder's contents.

You'll have to peek inside to determine which folder is which.The folder contains the application, and three sandbox directories: tmp, Library, and Documents.

To share a simulator folder compiled for 2.2.1 and earlier, you must zip up both the folder with the application and the .sb (sandbox) file that shares the same name as the folder. 3.0 and later applications do not use a .sb file. Just zip up and share the folder.

Install the shared app by decompressing its sandbox folder (and, for 2.x, its .sb file). The recipient must have installed the iPhone SDK. Drop it into the simulator's Applications folder on another machine and launch the simulator. The app should appear in the simulator, ready for testing.

When reverse engineering, it's sometimes hard to figure out exactly what you're looking at, and what it all means. For example, the iPhone's supported platforms include the following.

Platforms = (M68, N82, simulator); 
Platforms = (N45);

We know what the M68 platform is. It's the iPhone. And we know what N45 is, the iPod touch. So what's the N82? Could it be another member of the iPhone family? Perhaps. It's hard to make that call without any more data -- so rather than worry about N82, let's consider the next entry: "simulator."