Standing on a growing professional community, AppCooker let’s you create mockups of iPhone and iPad Apps, in both portrait and landscape, in retina quality. Apple, Disney, Electronic Arts and other big companies are currently using AppCooker on a daily basis. Since the launch of AppCooker, more than 1 million sessions have been made by the community, thats almost 250 000 projects created. Many are now available on the AppStore, we couldn’t be happier when we started this project.

This update is also the occasion to announce the introduction of a forum and new tutorials video to help new-comers to get ready in no time. The team is already on the bridge to cook up some new features as well as preparing the support of iOS7.

AppCooker is a paid application available on the AppStore. Running exclusively on iPad, this version supports iOS5, that means that the App runs on your good old iPad!

Design your Apps like a Chef with AppCooker!

More information on www.appcooker.com

Here is the full list of what’s new inside the 1.5 version

General:
– iPhone 5 support. Use the 4″ screens to design in portrait and landscape
– AppCooker has been translated into 7 new languages: Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Russian
– Introducing Notepad, a simple way to keep track of things inside AppCooker
– Supporting Notes. Now you can add notes on any screen to share context with clients and coworkers
– New support with User Voice. Easier, faster, better
– New welcome interface
– New new project, the icon is not used anymore
– New highlight cursor in preview mode. Now it’s blue, and clearer
– Link to the online video tutorials available from the home screen
– Typos here and there, thanks for your feedback
– Fixing all keyboard management

Preview Screen:
– Bigger zoom available
– Get in a screen, copy some stuff, go out in a snap. No more saving when nothing has been changed
– Allow the user to rename a screen directly from the reorder menu

Player:
– Improved Play button
– Button in iPad play mode to simulate iPad mini size

Pricing:
– Number of iOS devices updated with latest figures
– Exporting Pricing as PDF in an email is working now

App Icon tool
– Mark as default Icon is now available

Graphic Editor:
– Add notes to any screen
– Improving performances
– Improved UNDO and REDO
– Updated Picto library, it’s now pixel perfect and available for you in a pack on www.appcooker.com
– Fixed an issue with images inside button
– Fixed bug with image import from Box
– Fixed a bug when copy/paste an image from Safari
– Fixed an issue with the back button on navigation bars
– Fixed the Table View crash in iOS 5
– Fixed a bug with Modal View in wireframe
– Fixed a bug with Button wireframe border
– Fixing a bug with tint bars color
– Fixed bug on ActionSheet and NavigationBar
– Fixed the bug that could messed up the z index when multiple objects are copied / pasted
– Fixed a potential crash in image picker
– Fixed a bug on Simple Line Text and Text Area + Auto-Resize Button
– Fixed a bug when pasting images that aren’t available
– Fix a lot of bugs on colors undo system
– Fixed a bug with the height of a row in Table Views.
– Fixed, the Slider and Progress View in wireframe were broken
– Fixed a bug with the back button
– Fixed a bug with changing Smart Back to Normal Link

Export:
– Export the map screen as a PDF (yes, we did it)
– Now there is a thin and light stroke around the screens in the PDF
– Allow icon, store info and pricing parts to be unselected from AppTaster export
– Overwrite in Dropbox works perfectly now
– Export button don’t disappear on Box and Dropbox anymore
– Fixed a bug when exporting to Dropbox two times in a row

The post AppCooker and AppTaster takes place among the greats appeared first on Hot Apps Factory.

Create retina assets for iOS and Android in 1 click with this Illustrator Script

Here is an Illustrator script for designers who use Adobe Illustrator to create iPhone and Android Apps. It exports your art boards in all needed sizes with the right names and folder management. Name your Ai file correctly (say “Project”)  as well as your art boards (say “VisualHomescreen”). When you run the script, it will export iOS files in a folder under the name: ProjectVisualHomescreen.png | For the Android files, it will create three different folders (one for each resolution) and name the files: project_visual_homescreen.png.

How to install

If you place the script in the Adobe Illustrator CS5/Presets/Scripts folder, the script will appear in the File > Scripts submenu.
If you place the script in another location on the hard disk, you can run the script in Illustrator by choosing File > Scripts > Browse.

How to use

Choose the folder where you want to save the files.
Optionally you can add a suffix to the files.
That’s it, all files will be saved with the appropriate names.

Notes

Locked layers visibility will be ignored and they will not be exported. This can be used to keep global layers visibility, like a background, or guide layers from being exported. This script is an improvement of Herkulano‘s script.

Click here to download the file

The post The Magic Illustrator Script – Ai to iOS & Android appeared first on Hot Apps Factory.

It’s complicated to get your own community, where do you start? I’ve learned about what a good community looks like, and how to proceed step by step to get it! Building a community around your start-up can be one of the cheapest ways to create momentum for your product. A community is much more than marketing campaigns, and can help you throughout your company’s life if you take the time to grow it right, and to look after it.

So, are you ready to get the recipe to cook a hot and delicious community?

1. Define your objectives!

Don’t  allocate resources into builing a community without defining your objectives.  The purpose could include support, digital marketing or networking, but there should also be some way for community members to meet their objectives.

2. Know who your users are!

To get the foundation of a good community, get to know all of your users one at time. What are they expecting about you, about your product and about their relationship with you?

3. Define your story 

On social media, your brand will be speaking, it’s important to humanize it! You have a history, values, quality, this is your personality! Now it is time to build your brand voice.

4. Establish guidelines

Create a policy that clearly identifies what community members can and can’t do, as well as how violations of the policy will be handled.

5. Take your time

Establishing your own community will not happen in a week. Build your community one person at time and take time to do it right.

6. Add social networking to your product

If you want people to share, make it really easy for them. Ask them to follow you on Twitter and like you on Facebook. Suggest opportunities for them to tweet or share with their friends.

7. Connect your members 

Having Twitter followers or likes doesn’t mean you have a community. By focusing on building a place where community members can talk to each other, not just you, you’re on the way to building a scalable community that can sustain itself. Make sure your community finds value out of their involvement — focus on building that value, and your community will not only stick around but become a huge supporter of your company’s.

8. Give privileges

The privileges for non-members and members should be different, thus providing an incentive to join the community. For example, you might allow members access to special content, to new information, discounted products, etc.

9. Highlight Influential Members

Influential members in a community have a direct impact on the behavior of other users in the community. By engaging and highlighting your “powerful” members, you’ll empower them to help you to develop your community.

10. Get insights

Social is measurable, note which of your efforts get the best responses, and try to do more like them.

Written by Hugo Vicard

Picture Icons: Alex Peattie

The post How to build a community from scratch appeared first on Hot Apps Factory.

Here is the new Twitter icon made in Ai CS6. It’s based on the circles that were supposedly used to create it. Simple, bubblicious and clean, this icon is ready for any kind of projects. I think it is improved, simplified and refined,  but I’m not just talking about graphics here. This little chap is still cute, but its stature now has a much greater air of confidence and intent.

It’s been sharpened but still retains the cutesy curves. It has now shed its duckling fluff and puppy fat curls, and in its place a bright, confident and proud adult has emerged. It’s uplifting and wants to encourage you to “speak up and out”. It’s broadcasting up and outward with vigor, enthusiasm and power. Just check the significant change in body language and position: let all hear me that want to hear me.

Great great work Twitter. Great work. This is a masterful refresh that is loaded to the hilt with positive meaning. This example shows, in the right hands of course, that a careful and sympathetic refresh of an existing logo mark can provide the most meaningful of results.

Click here to download the file

The post The New Twitter Icon in Vector Format appeared first on Hot Apps Factory.

I introduce you the new website of Hot Apps Factory, a french start up specialized in iOS Apps. If you want to know more about our Apps, App Cooker or App Taster, go visit the products page. And i’m, Hugo, the young intern in charge of the launching of the blog!

We start this blog to share with you and the all internet community our interests or findings. As IT pros, we spend a lot of time on the internet to learn about the latest technologies. And as a team compose with four specialized people, we have a set of skills (mainly development, design, and communication) and a wish : share our kwowledge.

So, you will read on this blog some articles about design and also get freebies and tutorials. Also we will post about coding in objective-C or how to be efficient with social medias and even more. Finally, we want to get your feedback, don’t hesitate to leave a comment or to send us, to tweet us or to send an email. We are very reactive and we will answer you as fast as possible !!

Thanks for reading !!

The post Welcome to our Blog appeared first on Hot Apps Factory.