Located amidst farming countryside in a converted barn, the new office provides a comfortable, creative and collaborative environment in which to write code and develop apps!

View the location in Google Maps

Train STA enables you to log in to your STA account and access your purchased training programmes. You can view the latest STA news, read the programme course texts and take the assessments within the app. When you have successfully completed an assessment, you can view, print or send your awarded certificates.

Please visit the Swimming Teachers’ Association website to learn more about the Association and this fantastic app for registered members.

The app supports iPad 1 and 2 devices running iOS 4.2 and later.

The iPad app was developed by Roy Goode using C#, Xamarin MonoTouch and the iOS 5.0 SDK, based on a design by Theo Millward of STA Resolute Technology and Mike Hince of Sans Deputy Creative. The JSON web services which the app relies upon for data synchronisation with the STA server were designed in collaboration and were developed by Daryl Tomkins of Outreach Office Ltd.

App development

If you are looking for a solution to support your business activities or you simply have a great idea for an app and would like to see it into fruition, Cellcode can help with the development process from start to finish. We support mobile-optimised web application development to suit all devices, as well as native applications for the world’s most popular mobile devices. Also, for an optional annual fee, we can also host and maintain your applications.

We support the following platforms:

• Apple iOS – Our platform of choice: target Apple’s extremely successful mobile devices, including the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.
• Android – Target a wide range of smartphones and tablets with integrated Google services from a variety of manufacturers.
• Microsoft Windows Phone 7 – Take advantage of Microsoft’s stylish mobile operating system, now Nokia’s smartphone platform of choice.
• Microsoft Windows 8 – Microsoft’s superb next generation operating system coming in 2012 for tablets and PCs.
• Microsoft Windows Mobile/CE – Target corporate PDAs and embedded devices.
• Web – Target the world’s most popular platform with a web app that works on virtually every smartphone, mobile device and computer available today.
• PC and Mac – We also develop software for desktop and laptop computers, should you require it. We offer custom software development for Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac OS.

Rich connectivity solutions

For a large portion of modern business applications, it is simply not enough to offer apps with limited connectivity options. Customers and users expect wireless data synchronisation with web services to take advantage of the always-on internet connections offered by modern smartphones and tablets. We believe that apps are actually a combination of services that work together so seamlessly that the transmission and synchronisation of data is completely transparent and inconsequential to the user. We are dedicated to delivering the whole experience – the applications to be released in the app stores and the web services and databases that run on your servers. We also support incorporating functionality from the most popular social networking APIs (such as Twitter and Facebook) as well as making the most of the targeted devices’ capabilities (such as GPS location services, accelerometers and motion sensors, cameras, etc).

Targeting multiple platforms

Creating a web app is usually the best approach if you want to target more than one platform with a single solution, because the vast majority of mobile devices available today provide sophisticated web browsers capable of rendering web pages to the same standard as personal computers. However, what you gain in cross compatibility, you will lose in rich functionality because web pages do not have access to the hardware functionality (such as device cameras) to provide the same level of experiences offered by native apps. If you would prefer to target multiple platforms with native apps, we can develop multiple apps that target the individual platforms with device-specific UIs, whilst sharing a common underlying structure between them.

Retail or ad-hoc deployment

Depending on the device(s) you wish to target, there are usually two avenues for releasing and deploying native apps: Retailers that enable consumers to purchase apps (such as the Apple App Store, the Google Android Market, the Amazon Appstore and the Windows Marketplace) or installation of the app directly on devices if it is not appropriate to offer the app to consumers. For example, if you wish to release an iPhone app, it can be offered via Apple’s App Store or installed directly on devices on an ad-hoc basis (subject to licence restrictions).

The development process

If you are interested in asking us to develop an app for you, here’s a brief overview of our approach to the development process:

1. Determine what you’re looking to achieve with your mobile app. You can hopefully provide us with a design brief, but we can discuss the objectives with you and produce the design brief for your review.
2. Evaluate the feasibility of the requirements. We will discuss the deliverability of the objectives outlined in the design brief and the relative timescales involved. Adjustments could be made to the design brief to allow for a phased delivery approach.
3. Produce the functional specifications document. The document will outline the milestones in the project and describe in detail all key areas of the development process, including the user interface design and functionality/workflow process design.
4. Produce the project plan. We will allocate delivery dates and timescales to the milestones outlined in the functional specifications document. Milestones indicate the completion of key elements of the project, usually at stages where testing can be conducted.
5. Develop the app. Once the project plan has been agreed, we will start the development process and communicate project status updates regularly.
6. Conduct alpha and beta testing. We will conduct alpha testing internally at early stages of the development process. In later stages, we will optionally open up beta testing cycles to select user groups.
7. Upload to the app retailer. We will submit the app for approval from the retailer (such as the Apple App Store). The approval process may result in changes that need to be made. When the app has been approved, it will be ready to release to the general public.
8. Seek your final approval. We will invite you to evaluate the final app and decide the prices to charge and the markets to sell it in. We will liaise with you to produce the marketing descriptions. screenshots to use and other marketing materials that should be uploaded to the app retailer.
9. Launch the app. The app goes on general sale in the requested territories.
10. Release app support updates. We will release updates to fix reported faults and defects free of charge under a 12 month warranty from the initial app release date. We will offer to support apps with further updates following the initial 12 month period for an annual support fee.
11. Release app enhancement updates. As part of the feasibility study in step 2, we may have agreed upon an incremental release cycle. This will involve repeating the cycle from step 3 to release further enhancements to the app via updates.

Their solution offers back office software to manage travel retail operations (including management and control of stock, assortments, revenue, promotions, reconciliation and logistics) as well as the handheld all-in-one sales and payment device.

I am pleased to announce that Cellcode has been invited to aid development and collaborate on the Initium Onboard product range on an ongoing basis.

You can read more about the product range on the Initium Onboard website. During my time as an employee of Initium Ltd from 2007 to 2010, I helped create their flagship back office product onBOS2, which is now a key product in the new company Initium Onboard’s current range.

DataPurity offers a simple and cost-effective way to manage and maximise the accuracy, availability and consistency of your data. HRintelligence allows you to quickly calculate, view, analyse and share key organisational and HR metrics.

I am pleased to announce that Cellcode has been invited to continue development and technical support for the HRintelligence Data Integration Services product line on an ongoing basis.

During my time as an employee of Activ8 Intelligence from 2010 to 2011, I was responsible for developing DataPurity and the HRintelligence Data Integration Services. The HRintelligence Data Integration Services is a suite of applications that provides HRintelligence, Activ8 Intelligence’s flagship web application and HR Analytics service, with the ability to collect, securely transfer, process and store data from clients’ source systems.

You can read more about these great products on the Activ8 Intelligence website and please do not hesitate to contact the Activ8 Intelligence sales team for more information about how DataPurity and HRintelligence can benefit your organisation.

Moshi Monsters Clay Buddies are a new pocket money collectible from E-max that combine Mind Candy’s popular Moshi Monsters characters with creative play. Kids can make their very own unique Moshling figurine using colourful plasticine and cardboard body parts.

http://www.myclaybuddies.com/

The website was developed for Sans Deputy Creative, who were commissioned by E-max and Click Distribution, manufacturers and distributors of the Clay Buddies products, to produce the website. The website and toy products were licensed and approved by Mind Candy, the creators and licensors of the Moshi Monsters brand.

The website content is maintained by the client using the built-in custom Content Management System (CMS).

TweetCompare enables you to log into your Twitter account and then select users from your Contacts directory (the people you follow on Twitter) to compare the number of tweets as well as the users’ Following, Followed and Listed counts in a distinctive and dynamic bar chart.

The app is now available in all territories on the iTunes App Store, priced at £0.69 / €0.79 / $0.99. Click here to visit the official App Store page for TweetCompare. You can also read more about the app by following this link.

The app supports the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad running iOS 4.0 and later.

The app is written in Objective-C using Xcode 4 and the Apple iOS 4.3 SDK.

Follow these instructions to add a website bookmark to your home screen – it works on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, but the screenshots are taken from the iPhone:

1. In Safari, visit the website you want to store as a bookmark icon then touch the action button.

2. On the popup menu, touch the “Add to Home Screen” option.

3. Change the name to suit you. Don’t choose a name that’s too long because it needs to fit under a standard icon. Touch the Add button when you’re ready.

4. You’ll return to the home screen, which is now showing a new icon.

You’ll notice that the icon displays a miniature screenshot of the website. However, if the website offers an iPhone icon, it will actually show the icon instead.

If you have a website and you would like to offer your iPhone, iPod touch and iPad visitors an icon for their home screens, please continue reading for a tutorial on how to do it.

Note: To continue, you should have (a) a basic understanding of an image editor application so that you can open the image you want to use as an icon and resize it to fit specific dimensions, and (b) knowledge of transferring files to your website’s server.

The easy method

The easiest way to add a single icon that suits both types of iPhone screens (standard resolution and Retina Display) and iPad screens is to create a single PNG image with the dimensions 150 x 150 pixels. The filename for the PNG image must be:

apple-touch-icon.png

You must then upload your new file to the root directory of your website, which is where Safari will look for it when adding the icon to the home screen. e.g. http://www.cellcode.co.uk/apple-touch-icon.png.

After you have uploaded the new icon image, you can then use the instructions earlier in the post to ensure it works properly when adding the icon to your home screen. Notice that by default iOS automatically resizes the icon, applies shimmer and gloss effects to it and then rounds the edges to match the standard icon shape, size and style.

You’ll also find that some third party apps make good use of the icon if it’s available. For example, this is a screenshot from Reeder for iPad showing the icon for the Cellcode RSS feed:

Using the style that suits your icon

You may have noticed that the icon I have used doesn’t look so great with the standard shimmer and gloss effects applied on the home screen – it interferes with the design of the logo. Luckily, Apple understands that there’s a need for icons without the effects applied and they offer us the ability to show the icon as-is by using the following filename for the PNG image in your website’s root directory instead:

apple-touch-icon-precomposed.png

Getting the icon exactly as you want it and sizing it correctly for different iOS screen resolutions

If you prefer to have the icon fully rendered exactly as you want it to look for each of the three supported iOS screen resolutions, you’ll need to use Adobe Photoshop or an equivalent package to create the icons for the right sizes. You can download a good Photoshop template to help you make your icons match the required shapes and sizes. When you are happy with the way each icon looks, you’ll need to export the icons with the following filenames and place them in the root directory of your website:

apple-touch-icon-57x57-precomposed.png

apple-touch-icon-114x114-precomposed.png

apple-touch-icon-72x72-precomposed.png

You can keep the default icon apple-touch-icon.png that you created earlier in the root directory of your website alongside these new resolution-specific icons. Usually, third party apps will use the default icon and Safari will automatically look for the icon filename that should suit the device best. Safari will only use the default icon or an incorrectly sized icon if it can’t find a file that best matches the screen resolution.

Now the icons look exactly as I want them to:

Having different icons for different pages

So far we have covered specifying icons for a whole website by placing the icon PNG files in the root directory of your website, but Apple also offers the ability to specify icons for individual pages with meta tags. Using this method, you are welcome to name the icon PNG files exactly as you wish because Safari will be looking for the value in the meta tag rather than the image in the root directory. For a single icon that suits all sizes, you should place the following meta tag after the <head> tag and before the </head> tag, where “my_icons/icon_filename.png” is the path location of the icon PNG file that you have created:

<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="my_icons/icon_filename.png"/>

If you have created resolution-specific icons, you should place the following meta tags after the <head> tag and before the </head> tag, replacing the href values with the actual location paths of the icons on your website:

<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="apple-touch-icon-iphone.png" />
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="72x72" href="apple-touch-icon-ipad.png" />
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="114x114" href="apple-touch-icon-retina-display.png" />

Now you can control the icon used for the home screen depending on whichever page the user wanted to bookmark. It is recommended that you keep the default icon apple-touch-icon.png in the root directory of your website to ensure there is always an icon available if the meta tags are not present on individual pages.

Thanks for reading!

Please check back soon for further developer tips. You can subscribe to my blog here. If you wish to get in touch with me, you can fill in the form on my Contact page, alternatively you’re welcome to leave Comments in the section below or mention @Cellcode on Twitter and I’ll see your messages.

I suspect a large number of the downloaders (if not all), wouldn’t have looked twice at the app if it hadn’t been free or hadn’t made a prominent appearance on Wired magazine, TechCrunch or Pocket-lint websites. However, if it wasn’t clear before, it is certain now that there is a very large worldwide audience for downloading apps on a variety of mobile platforms. As demand for these apps increase, so must the supply and everyone wants their slice of the market.

Apple has announced there’s now a whopping 500,000 apps in their App Store. Google’s Android Market is rapidly expanding with over 250,000 apps, and while lagging behind, the still quite-new Windows Marketplace contains 20,000 apps for Windows Phone 7. There are thousands of developers already creating mobile apps and many more (including me) are joining the ranks. But do you have to be a developer to make an app? Can anyone make an app? After all, the candidates on the Apprentice managed to release two apps without learning to program or write a single line of code.

The truth is that anyone can make an app. If you have an idea for an app, you need to find the right approach for the subject matter, your skills and your experience.

If you’re already a programmer or you’d like to try programming apps yourself, you could learn the programming languages you need to know for your target platforms, install the developer toolsets and get to work. For Apple iOS and Mac OS, that means working in Xcode and learning Objective-C and the Cocoa frameworks. For Android, it’s Java, the Android SDK and Eclipse (or Intelli-J). For Windows Phone 7, it’s C#, Silverlight and Microsoft Visual Studio. There are even third party cross-platform developer tools available that enable you to make use of the tools and languages that you’re already familiar with, such as using C# with the Mono framework or Unity.

Of course, not everyone is a programmer nor will everyone find the prospect of learning programming appealing. If this describes you, but you still want to try making apps yourself, there are options available to you. If you want to make a quick simple app that displays content from RSS and media feeds or web pages, take a look at AppMakr, which is free to use and does not require any programming experience. If you want to make a template-based app and release it on the App Store, AppMakr could be your best option. I have tried AppMakr and it works quite well for displaying feeds, although the app it created was a little slow in responding to touches compared to other apps on my iPhone 4 and it simply crashed on launch on an iPhone 3G.

If you have experience with designing or developing websites, you could give the free PhoneGap SDK a try. With this toolkit, you can convert HTML/CSS/Javascript/jQuery webpages into apps for several platforms. Of course, you should not expect to go beyond limited functionality (displaying content, lists, multimedia, etc) unless you really know your Javascript and use programming skills to take advantage of PhoneGap’s Javascript libraries for deep native integration (using the camera, photo library, using data etc). If you want to make an app with web technologies and you’re good with Javascript, PhoneGap could be your best option. Also, if you’re familiar with web technologies, why not just make a web app (accessible via the web browser) that works with all platforms anyway?

If you find none of the above options appealing, it’s pretty obvious that the do-it-yourself approach isn’t going to work for you. Just like most people wouldn’t do the plumbing, build an extension or fit double glazing themselves, it’s absolutely fine, you can still get that great app idea made and released in the app stores. You just need to find the right developer that can help you execute your idea. That’s the approach that the Apprentice candidates took.

That’s hopefully where I can help you. If you have an idea for an app and would like to release it in the App Store, why not hire me to make it for you? I would also consider working on a revenue-sharing basis, if that would suit you. You can get in touch with me on my Contact page, alternatively you’re welcome to leave Comments in the section below or mention @Cellcode on Twitter and I’ll see your messages.

Thanks for reading and please check back soon for further coverage on the app development process. You can subscribe to my blog here.

* iPhone apps called Slangatang and Ampi Apps have appeared on the App Store since the show was broadcast, but don’t be fooled, they are enterprising homages rather than the apps you saw being created on The Apprentice.

The final chosen logo is the amalgamation of two concepts, the data connectivity/network concept is embodied within the sphere, whilst enveloping that is a further network of honeycomb cells which not only represents the ‘cells of code’ but also the analogy of the ‘industrious bees’ creating the apps being used on the computers and mobile devices within the network. Read more…

The brief was to deliver a website that would best highlight the company’s products and skills, but also to accommodate two blogs, one for news and announcements, the other for more technical/tutorial posts and personal opinions that could allow interaction with visitors to the site. Read more…

You can also read a blog post about Sans Deputy Creative’s pitch for the design work here.