If you follow me on Twitter or App.net, you might know I attended the App.net Hackathon this last weekend were I unvailed NetWall, a billboard-style iOS client for App.net.

What is NetWall?

Netwall is an App.net client that displays incoming posts based on a feed (personal, global, hashtag, keyword, etc) in a billboard-like manner. It’s meant to be used at events, being displayed on a projector for everyone to see what people are posting on a certain hashtag during the event, for example.

It can also be used as a slight distraction while on your desk in while your device is in kiosk mode.

I introduced a working prototype at the App.net Hackathon on March 2nd, 2013. No immediate release date yet, but I can tell you it will be supported on all iOS devices.

Check out the demo from the hackathon below:

More Info & Updates

To keep updated on NetWall and it’s happenings, follow the official @NetWall account on App.net. You can also follow me @joshjones on App.net or @appsbynight on Twitter.

Thanks again for the support and ideas from all the developers at the hackathon and also to the App.net crew for hosting a great event!

When you create any kind of app that will go on Apple’s App Store, they require you to have an icon for your app. Well because of the number of different devices and resolutions out there, you’ll need multiple copies of this icon before submission. This script can do that for you in a few seconds!

What Are the Icons For?

Here is a chart that explains the current icons:

Requirements

In order to do this you’re going to need:

• Photoshop
• A square PNG image 1024×1024 or greater
• The script itself which can be downloaded from here.

Usage

The script itself it just a text file with a funky extension that Adobe products understand. To use this in Photoshop you’re going to want to place it in the Photoshop scripts directory.

On Mac that’s usually located: Applications/Adobe Photoshop CS6/Presets/Scripts (Or whatever your version of Photoshop is)

On Windows that’s usually located at: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS6 (64 Bit)\Presets\Scripts

One you place the file here, load up Photoshop and look under “File -> Scripts” and you should see “Create iOS Icons”

Here is a video showing how it works in action:

Final Notes

The original script was created by Matt Di Pasquale who shared it on GitHub 2 years ago. I added some extra checks, a couple missing icons, and the ability to output to a file.

If you find this script useful, please let me know! Feel free to “fork” it, as they say in GitHub land. I’m sure this could also be automated to be part of the Xcode build process as well, but I’ll leave that as a project for another day.

If you’re immersed in the online social media world enough, you might have heard of “App.net” or at least scrolled by a news headline on one of your feeds. What most don’t know is that many of us techies and developers are really excited about it!

What is App.net?

On the surface it looks like a 2008 version of Twitter that you have to pay for. The short answer is no one knows what App.net will become yet. What it becomes is up to the developers and users.

The longer answer is focused around Twitter and Facebook’s customers. These are mainly the advertisers. All of the rest of us are part of the product. Since we’re not the customers, we don’t have much say into what Twitter and Facebook choose to do with their service.

You hate the new Timeline view? Too bad! What are you going to do about it? Stop using Facebook? Probably not. More than often users will use Facebook to complain about Facebook and then forget about how much they hate timeline 2 weeks later. Facebook knows this.

App.net’s main goal is to have a service that doesn’t rely on advertisers to keep it alive. Now that the users are the customers, we have a large say in what we want App.net to become. That excites developers to no end.

A New Playground

Imagine that you’re in elementary school and every few days they add a new thing to the playground. That’s what App.net is like right now for developers. As a developer myself I’m constantly thinking of different projects I could create with this service. While I’d be developing it, I would have tons of great feedback from random users on the service, which as of this writing is around 19,000+ users.

Because of the $50/year fee ($100/year for developers), most of the people using the service are exited about using it. I personally find watching the global feed mesmerizing. The quality of posts on App.net are far superior than Twitter’s global feed. I like to compare it to paying a little bit more rent to live in a nicer neighborhood.

Developers! Developers!

Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer’s “developers” hype is what I’m currently noticing with App.net. There are already many applications that developers have created to work with the service including mobile apps, desktop apps, web tools, and more! So many of them seem to be in a race to make the next cool App.net “thing”, yet they all seem to be helping each other out.

The App.net community is growing fast and more users are coming on board every day, so fast that developers can’t write the code fast enough!

Excited Yet?

If you’re interested in learning more about App.net, head over to http://join.app.net and watch the video and read up on the features. App.net is definitely not for everyone yet, but I have a feeling once developers start creating some creative applications, more and more people will be willing to pay more rent to live in the nicer neighborhood that is App.net.

Thanks again for reading! You can follow me on App.net via @joshjones to see what I’m up to over there.

Long time no update! Well there’s a reason for that. There is updates available on 2 of the existing apps: Traditional Sales Aid and CTGolfer Mobile.

Traditional Sales Aid 2.0

This is a huge update to the original that was created in 2010. It’s now a universal app meaning it runs on any iOS device! It was exciting challenge to turn an iPad app into an iPhone app which i’ll talk about in a future blog posting.

The app itself it built for fundraising organizations to help them manage orders from customers. Don’t let that stop you from checking it out, though! It’s a free download!

CTGolfer Mobile 1.0.2

A few minor updates have been done here as well. Push notifications, improved searching, map updates, and improved stability!

You can check it out here!

More Frequent Updates

In the next few weeks expect more blog updates as well as iDevBlogADay postings. I have lots to say and have been jotting down notes to remember it during all these app updates. Thanks again for reading.

Another app has been pushed out to the world! CTGolfer Mobile is the ultimate app directory for all of your golf needs in Connecticut.

The app is a convenient way to access the information on their website ctgolfer.com

If you live in Connecticut and love golf, this app is a must-have! Head over to the CT Golfer Mobile app page to learn more and download it from the app store!

This week I’d like to share a piece of a project I’m currently working on that I use to figure out how big my sprites should be on the screen.

The Pixel Ruler

I took a pixel ruler and used that to get a good idea of how big sprites should be on a particular device. This works for any iOS 5 device and uses retina displays when need be.

Here is a video of it’s basic functionality running on the iPad (non-retina):

Feel free to try it on your iOS device. You can grab the project from github here.

Let me know what you think, if it helps you, needs improvement, etc.

I was recently asked to do an interview for a new website dedicated to starting out in iOS development (In case you’re wondering, iOS is the operating system that runs all of the mobile Apple devices).

I was casually walking back to my car when my right ankle buckled. In order to prevent me from twisting my ankle, my body reacted by falling appropriately. Unfortunately for me, I was holding my new 3rd generation iPad (64GB with 4G) at the time.

Long Story, Short On How It Happened

Earlier that day I was on a sailboat and I bent my right ankle in an awkward way when helping tie one of the lines to the dock. This made my ankle weak for the rest of the day.

When I was walking back to the car, I stepped down from a grass area to a parking lot when my ankle buckled and I started going down. When the iPad flew out of my hands, it was like watching it in slow motion when it hit face-down on the pavement.

Good News / Bad News

The good news is that the iPad still works. I can still use it but not too much unless I want shards of glass in my fingertips. What’s more important is I can back it up before having to bring it to the Apple Store.

The bad news is that no warranty covers this, which means I’m going to have to pay Apple more money to get it “fixed”. They don’t technically fix iPad’s in this condition. They give you a refurbished version of the same model with a new warranty.

The Apple Store

Not even 10 minutes after dropping the iPad, I used my iPhone to make an appointment for the next morning at the Apple Store. Some quick Google searching revealed that Apple has a flat price for repairs; which is $299 in my case.

This means no matter what the damage, even minor, you pay $299. This seems to be standard for some hardware companies; I know Nintendo does this as well. There’s bad sides to that system, especially if you only have a small crack in your screen. The flip side is that you can practically take a sledgehammer to the iPad and only pay $299. (DON’T ACTUALLY DO THIS!)

Lesson Learned

That slip and fall in the parking lot cost me $299 + tax, but it also bummed me out to the point where I couldn’t do any productive work for the rest of the day.

I did turn the negative into a positive by writing a blog post about it. The big lesson here is simply be more careful when handling your devices, and be prepared by having recent backups, and a little money saved up for times like this.

Oddly enough, I get this question a lot. Many of the iOS developers I hang out with are in the game development business and iOS games in general are a hot commodity right now (about 40% of the App Store!).

Brief Game Dev History

I received my Bachelors degree from DigiPen Institute of Technology which is known as “Nintendo University” to most people. We were required to create one game project per year, eventually creating our “epic game” on the last year. The one I worked on was a side-scrolling collect-a-thon called Skip Lancer.

This being the case it should be a no-brainer that I’m making games for a living, right?

Why Apps?

Anyone that has ever worked in a game studio will tell you it’s not easy work. The hours are demanding and game projects can be very unpredictable. I know some who have zero interest in games because of it and I didn’t want to be in that same place.

I like playing games and I liked creating games, but I didn’t want to get burnt out in the process. Apps are less complicated in that respect.

Games By Night?

Thanks to the mobile application space, simple games are making a comeback. People are making very profitable titles with only 1-2 people on a project and this isn’t going to change anytime soon.

As someone with a game development bug within me I feel like I should give it another go. That being said, I’m in the workings of some prototypes of what could be considered a game. Details are still fuzzy, but I’ll announce any news here first.

Your Thoughts

What do you think of the state of the industry? Is games the way to go or should you stick to app development? Have you have similar experiences with this? Leave your comments or questions is the section below.

There hasn’t been a blog post in the last couple of weeks because Apps By Night has been busy working on getting client projects out the door!

Projects, Projects, Projects

What kind of projects? Well I can’t reveal too much yet, but there are 3 projects in the queue as we speak. One is almost finished! Once it is I’ll be talking all about it here.

There are many projects lined up beyond the 2 as well, and not just app projects! Many things that involve the website, the company, and branching out to other audiences so stay tuned for updates.

Your Turn

Is there anything you’d like to see? This can include blog post topics, web site materials, videos, webinars, etc.

Let us know by contacting us or posting in the comments below. Thanks again for reading!