Hot off the trails of the news that Apress acquired the publishing rights to Kapsoft’s iPhone Application Sketch Book, comes the new iPhone Stencil.

In Detail

The new Apress Book is has been improved. A new cover. It’s now 1.5x scale (150% of actual size iPhone). Pages have been increased by 25 – that’s 50 more templates. And the pages have been perforated for easy tear out.

The Stencil is also 1.5x scale but includes a 1.0x scale iPhone should you need it. It is made of green plastic, much the same as most stencils you buy at a design store. It also features a nice little ruler on the side. Something extra that I had not anticipated, but find very handy. The stencil itself, features the majority of UIKit elements you will use in sketch design and comes in very handy. While, it is a bit on the larger end, it does fit nicely within the new sketchbook pages for carrying.

The Stencil will cost you $9.99 while the new Apress version of the Sketchbook comes in at $14.99.

Compared against Design Commission’s Stencil

While both stencils are larger scale than the actual iPhone size, the new Kapsoft one is a tad bit bigger. 1.5x the size of the iPhone. Design Comission’s stencil seems to be roughly 1.25x scale.

Kapsoft’s stencil is also cheaper in cost. $9.99 vs $17.95. Though, I’m sure that the material cost plays quite a role in this. Plastic against Stainless Steel.

I do find the Design Commission’s Stencil to be much more portable due to it’s smaller footprint. And the stainless steel material feels a bit more Apple-like and sturdier. Plastic can break easily.

Overall

You really can’t go wrong with either Stencil kit. And you definitely should be sketching designs before jumping into XCode. If you are planning to use the Apress Sketchbook, you’ll want to get the new Kapsoft Stencil due to the matching iPhone scale. Similarly, Design Commission offers both a downloadable PDF template and now a Sketchpad for $7.95 to go with their own Stencil Kit.

Gallery

The general questions were centered around: The importance of passion.

In the Boagworld podcast, there were quite a few thoughts and options to the questions since it was an interview with the Clearleft crew. So, you got the perspective of not only Paul Boag and Marcus Lillington from Headscape, but also Andy Budd and Jeremy Keith. The discussion centered mostly on how one finds the time to keep up with new trends, technologies, etc in the web design industry. The general consensus being that there’s a very blurry line between the work-life balance when it comes to this kind of thing. One of the important takeaways from listening to Andy talk about it, was that if it’s not making you all jumpy and gitty to want to know what’s changing, what the new hot trend is, or what new technologies are coming out, that it raises a red flag and you should really take a step back and re-evaluate if this is really your passion. Of course, you could just be burnt out. As Paul mentioned that he does the majority of his RSS feeds reading in bed on his own time, it’s important to remember, most of us would be doing this anyway because it’s what we love to do.

Although, not exactly the same question, the same topic was brought up in a different manner on the StackOverflow podcast. This time in regards to what technology to choose to learn for future profit. Specifically, the listener was not interested in coding in Objective-C for the rest of his life, yet concerned if Ruby on Rails would still be a viable way to make a living in the area he currently lives in. To this question, both Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky answered similarly with:

• “Joel and I concur: it probably doesn’t matter what language and toolchain you use, as long as it has a certain level of critical mass. What you should be more concerned about is the product you’re creating.
• If you’re happy with your current tool chain, then there’s no reason you need to switch. However, if you can’t list five things you hate about your favorite programming language, then I argue you don’t know it well enough yet to judge. It’s good to be aware of the alternatives, and have a healthy critical eye for whatever it is you’re using.
• Most programming languages don’t evolve particularly well over time. They’re usually replaced by other languages rather than new iterations of themselves. Why? What languages would you point to as the best example of growing and evolving in useful, relevant ways?”

While neither Joel or Jeff mentioned anything along the lines of picking something because it’ll make you a lot of money. I can’t imagine either of them would even come close to making any suggestion like that to anyone. Picking something just because it’s the new “money pot” or pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, is just asking for short term gain and potentially, long term unhappiness.

In the End

It’s my own opinion that you should not do or choose a path just because it has the potential to make you a lot of money if it doesn’t interest you at all. More so, if you have some inner hatred for Objective-C and think you should just suck it up and make something for the iPhone because it can net you a lot money. It’s not my recommendation, but do as you will.

What are your thoughts on Doing for the Money vs Doing for the Love?

The Art Pen

The Art Pen itself has a much bigger tip area than the Grip Pen that comes with the tablet. The Art Pen’s bigger tip area also doesn’t have the user swap-able color rings. One thing to note, the nibs do only fit in one way and they will rotate a bit during use. The nib won’t fall out, so you don’t have to worry about that when swapping nibs.

Even though the drivers for the Intuos4 are a bit old, they were able to successfully identify the Art Pen just fine from the start. Wacom just updated drivers for the new Bamboo Touch series, Graphire and Cintiq tablets for Windows and Mac OSX, but the Intuos set hasn’t been updated yet. As such, I still have to launch the 32-bit Settings for the tablet. Not a big deal.

After using the Art Pen with Corel Painter 11, I have noticed that I don’t have much of a tactile response from the pen during barrel rotation. As such, it’s really useful to have the Enhanced Brush Ghosting setting enabled while you get used to the feeling. It’s quite a bit different than the Grip Pen. After spending a bit of time getting used to it, I was able to turn off the ghosting setting again.

The Pen Stand

The Art Pen stand also has exactly enough slots for all of the Nibs that come with the Art Pen with one nib in the pen itself. It also fits the Professional Kit’s Nib Extractor in the middle spot of the stand just like the one that comes with the tablet and grip pen.

The Nibs

The Art Pen comes with 11 nibs. 1 on the pen itself and 10 replacement nibs. The 10 replacement nibs fit in nicely into the new housing of the Pen stand. The nibs have 1 shaft, just like the ones for all the other pens. This is a change from the Intuos3 Art Pen’s nibs which previously had 2 shafts. The difference being that the 2 shafts on the Intuos3 version, prevented a rotation effect on the nib when rotating the Art Pen.

The Details

The following come in the box:

• 2 Chisel POM Nibs
• 2 Chisel Felt Nibs
• 3 Bullet POM Nibs
• 3 Bullet Felt Nibs
• 1 Pen Stand
• 1 Art Pen with 1 Bullet POM Nib inside

Model #: KP701E
Price: $99.95

Final Thoughts

Although Wacom’s eStore states: “The Intuos4 Art Pen ships with the following accessories: 10 replacement nibs, a nib puller, and a weighted pen stand.” The package does NOT come with a nib puller. There was not one anywhere in the packaging and others from the ConceptArt forums have had the same results.

As for the Art Pen itself, I love it. Barrel rotation is definitely it’s main feature and it does it extremely well. It’s an amazing feature to have. Corel Painter 11 recognized the barrel rotation immediately, and it also works wonderfully with Illustrator using the 6D Art Brushes set or in Photoshop, by using the Wacom Brushes 3. All in all, it’s the one additional pen for the tablet that I need. I have very little use for the classic pen, airbrush pen or inking pen.

The Pictures

“I happened to be auditing the Stanford iPhone Programming course,” says Kaplan, “and one of the guest speakers discussed how he went about creating his user interface designs. Paper was one option he mentioned. Almost instantly the notebook idea light bulb went off. Other options of various computer programs were mentioned, but it always got back to paper and pencil. Subsequently, I did my own online survey that revealed designers prefer paper 95% of the time.” – theAppleBlog

The sketchbook contains 100 grid pages with an iPhone designed to scale on it. Each page has it’s own header that allows you to put in the name of the app and the name of the screen. The pages are big. There is ton of free space for taking side notes during group sessions and team meetings. The notebook itself is paperback, plastic spiral bound, and can be ordered from Amazon.com for $14.99.

Q & A with Dean Kaplan

1. What are your plans for the future of the sketchbook?
   “There will be a huge exciting announcement concerning the book next week. Stay tuned.”
2. Do you plan on creating a Stencil Kit similar to The Design Commission’s one? Or perhaps making the iPhone on the pages slightly larger to be more compatible with the Stencil Kit?
   “LOL. Are you spying on me? As for size….I guess you are saying size matters. And I’m listening to feedback and it is likely that you “might” see a version that is 1.5X actual very soon. (DC’s stencil is smaller then 1.5x and I don’t think its very useable. )”
3. Have you considered perforated pages for easier tear-off?
   “I’ve heard the perforated request once before. Not likely on that one. As one reviewer told me he like to tear the pages right out of the book and paste them on the frig.)”
4. A folder built-in either the front or back cover for keeping materials given from other team members or clients together?
   “I love that idea. It crossed my mind a few months ago. Likely in a future UBER Sketch Book.”

The Good

• Keeps all your apps and screens together instead of having multiple pieces of paper that can get easily lost.
• Grid pages are very handy for going from sketching to computer rendering.
• To scale iPhone keeps you in the restriction of the small space while also reminding you to beware of your font sizes.
• Cheap. $15! If you’re just getting into iPhone app design, this can definitely help you on your way in keeping your ideas organized.

The Bad

• Not compatible with The Design Commission has created an iPhone Stencil Kit. Different companies, Can’t really complain.
• The to scale iPhone on the page is also a bit harder to draw stuff inside it.
• Since there’s no stencil, you need to keep in mind what you get with the SDK and what needs to be custom made. Thought it’s not that big of a deal.

The Pictures

Final Thoughts

Right now, I’m using a Moleskine Squared Notebook to do my sketches for iPhone apps and other web related work. It’s much smaller than the iPhone sketchbook, but it does allow me to put other thoughts and ideas inside. For what the purpose it was designed for, the iPhone sketchbook delivers and does so very well. Compatibility with the Stencil Kit would definitely put it over the top. The last things that I would like included in the sketchbook, would be a small folder built in and perforated pages. Those are some very small personal requests though.

Special Note: If you order between September 10th and October 10th you’ll be entered to win ONE free ticket to the Voices That Matter iPhone Developers Conference 2009.

SitePoint’s amazing reference add-on CodeBurner is breaking free from FireBug and later this week, it will become a full-fledged FireFox add-on. CodeBurner provides reference material for HTML and CSS such as syntax, code samples, live demos, and browser compatibility information all in a handy dock at the bottom of the browser and can also be a window on it’s own.

The new main window

The reference material is linked to SitePoint’s Reference page. Clicking on a more link will open up a new browser window/tab for that item.

The Reference Page

The new plug-in will continue to hook into the DOM crumbtrail, adding options to look up a selected item (ie. search for it in the Reference panel) or to view a sample code example.

The new DOM view

Advantages over the FireBug version

• Specialized interface gives more room for the reference information
• works in Firefox 2 and has no other dependencies
• The new DOM can load any web site for referencing. Not just the current site. You don’t have to leave your current site to do your research.
• No longer requires you to have FireBug installed.

Disadvantages over the FireBug version

• No longer follows the FireBug inspector.

The new FireFox plug-in is much easier to launch. Instead of going to FireBug then selecting the Reference Tab, now you can just simply click on the CodeBurner icon.

Final Thoughts

With the FireBug version recently selected as one of the 13 Firefox Add-ons For Web Development, and the new FireFox version will be no exception. A web development reference resource just got better.  There’s absolutely no need for those HTML and CSS Cheatsheets with CodeBurner at your fingertips. Searching through a PDF or printout takes so much longer than simply opening up CodeBurner and using it’s brilliant search capabilities. Be sure to catch the new FireFox edition of the CodeBurner and get a free eBook Build Your Own Firefox Add-on later this week!

1. iphone-exif

   An Exif Tag library editor that enables direct viewing and editing of EXIF Meta Data tags in Jpeg files on the iPhone. The most obvious use is to manage Geo location tags into the image. However, it is also possible to edit any of the Exif tags or add your own that are not in the spec.
   This is really useful for image uploads from the phone for sites like Picasa and Flickr.

2. json-framework

   This framework implements a strict JSON parser and generator in Objective-C. You get free XML parsing support from the official iPhone SDK, but not JSON support. This is a way to add it.

3. openssl framework

   It is specifically intended for use in building secure iPhone
   applications alongside SQLCipher (http://www.zetetic.net/software/sqlcipher).

4. iphone-smtp

   This code implements a quick class for sending one off messages via SMTP on the iPhone.

5. cocos2d

   framework for building 2D games, demos, and other graphical/interactive applications. It is based on the cocos2d design: it uses the same API, but instead of using python it uses objective-c.

The guys over at the Design Commission [@designcom on Twitter] have gone and made an iPhone Stencil Kit as a follow up to their popular Website Stencil Kit. Initially they had 1,000 stencils made for sale, but due to popular demand, have since made many many more. I received mine on Monday and have started using it for an iPhone App that I am currently developing.

The details:

The kit costs $16.95 + shipping&handling [Domestic shipping is $4.95 and international is $15] and includes:

• One iPhone UI Stencil
• Zebra mechanical pencil
• 2 Design Commission stickers
• Downloadable .PDF letter-sized paper template

Using the kit

The kit is really created with the intended use of the printable PDF templates. It doesn’t have a full iPhone body stencil to draw your iPhone on a separate paper. It does do a decent job at half-skeleton of one though. You’ll have to fill in some missing lines yourself. The notable missing seems to be status bar, the section with the wifi, 3G, and battery icon area, not being stenciled. The other small problem I ran into so far is that it’s made of stainless steel. I can’t see what’s under the stencil as I try to approximate the needed spacing between Tab Bar icons. Although, I do need to keep in mind that it’s made of stainless steel to be more durable than plastic and also that I’m making prototype designs to show clients, not finalized work.

Overall, the only real downside I can see, is that you really do have to use a mechanical pencil. The one provided by Design Commission, is a Zebra, which are extremely good. But, if you use a regular #2 pencil, you will likely run into some trouble on some of the smaller stencil bits, requiring you to constantly sharpen your pencil tip. Other than that, it’s a really great addition to any iPhone developer’s arsenal.

Now of course, this is all for paper prototyping. And if you have been following Stanford’s CS193P iPhone Programming class on iTunes, Steve Marmon discussed the importance of paper prototyping for iPhone App design in his lecture How to Build an iPhone App that Doesn’t Suck [iTunes link.]

If you prefer digital prototyping, Balsamiq has updated their software to include iPhone designing, and  in my previous post: 5 Free iPhone Resources, I have links to Omnigraffle, Adobe Fireworks, Photoshop, and Illustrator stencil kits.

Joe Hewitt's Three20 Project

With Apple’s WWDC currently going on and the upcoming 3.0 iPhone OS getting closer to release, there are tons of new developers jumping onto the platform. Whether you’re a new developer or have been developing for a while, here are some great free resources for designing and developing your iPhone Apps.

1. Google Objective-C Data APIs

   Google generously provides a large set of their APIs in Objective-C for both Mac and iPhone development. These APIs include:

   • Google Base
   • Analytics
     
   • Blogger
   • Book Search
   • Calendar
   • Code Search
   • Contacts
   • Documents List
   • Finance
   • Health
   • Picasa Web Albums
   • Spreadsheets
   • Webmaster Tools
   • YouTube

   Check out my previous post on How to add the Google APIs to your iPhone App project.

2. Joe Hewitt’s Three20 Project

   Joe Hewitt is the developer behind the popular Facebook iPhone App and the Mozilla Firefox plugin Firebug. He’s created a new projected called Three20, which is a collection of iPhone UI classes, like a photo viewer, and general utilities, like an HTTP disk cache. The project and instructions on getting it into your iPhone App project are hosted up on GitHub.

3. iPhone Photoshop PSDs

   It’s always a good idea to start with a design before you start developing your iPhone App. It’s also easier to show a potential client a PSD mock-up of the app before doing actual development even though Interface Builder makes it an easy process. Here are a few Photoshop PSDs to get you going.

   • Smashing Magazine’s iPhone PSD Vector Kit
   • teehan+lax’s iPhone GUI PSD
   • 320480’s iPhone Interface PSD
   • FreshBooks iPhone GUI PSD

   Note: If you are planning on using these for making an iPhone Apps website, make sure either you or your client has gone through Apple’s Available on the iPhone App Store logo license program to avoid any legal issues. This can be found in your Apple Developer Connection Program Portal’s Distribution -> App Store tab.

4. OmniGraffle Stencil Kits

   If you’re on a Mac and use Omni Group’s OmniGraffle for wireframing or mindmapping web design, you can do the same with iPhone apps.Here are 3 iPhone Stencil sets for OmniGraffle. Also, Yahoo!’s set can be found on the Yahoo! Developer site with stencils for many other things and also in makes them available in Photoshop PSD format.

   • Theresa Neil’s iPhone Wire Frames
   • Patrick Crowley’s Ultimate iPhone Stencil
   • Yahoo!’s Mobile – iPhone

5. Glyphish – iPhone Toolbar Icons

   The Glyphish designer has generously put out 80 free icons for use in your iPhone App’s toolbar. These are all free and licensed under Creative Commons.

3 Bonus Resources

1. Mercury Intermedia’s iPhone UI Vector Elements for Adobe Illustrator.

   Working in Illustrator instead of Photoshop? These free vector elements great for designing.

2. eddit’s 120 iPhone Toolbar Icons

   While this one isn’t free, it is a really good and worthwhile one. Eddie Wilson over at eddit has created 120 iPhone Toolbar Icons for sale at $69. If you want the vector format, it’ll cost you a pretty $189 for the PSDs.

3. Open Source iPhone Apps

• WordPress iPhone App
• FreshBooks iPhone App

Have I missed any others? Do you have any more free resources? Please feel free to share them in the comments!

Edit 6/23/09:

An additional Adobe Fireworks set of UI elements has been found thanks to Building43.

Fireworks toolkit for creating iPhone UI mockups by MetaSpark

Also check out Building43’s video on designing iPhone Apps with Adobe Fireworks.

• Google Base
• Analytics – (Only available via SVN Trunk or manual download)
  
• Blogger
• Book Search
• Calendar
• Code Search
• Contacts
• Documents List
• Finance
• Health
• Picasa Web Albums
• Spreadsheets
• Webmaster Tools
• YouTube

Step 1

The first step, is to head on over to the Google Code website for the Objective-C Client, download and extract the zip file source code. Alternatively, you can get the latest and greatest version via Subversion using:

 svn checkout http://gdata-objectivec-client.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ gdata-objectivec-client-read-only

If you downloaded the zip file from the website, you’ll have version 1.7.0, and if you used the svn code you’ll have a -read-only folder.

Step 2

Open up the GData XCode Project from your downloaded folder as well as your iPhone App XCode project.

Step 3

Drag over the GData Sources Folder from the GData project to your iPhone App project and add it as reference [don't check the box for Copy items into destination group's folder (if needed).] You do not need to copy over all the files into your project. You can, but it’s not required.

This will add a ton of files to your project. You may delete the APIs you are not planning on using, but make sure that the files GDataXMLNode.m and GDataXMLNode.h in the Common/Optional/XMLSupport group are not removed from your project as they are required for iPhone builds.

Step 4

Open up the build settings for your iPhone App project. Located and set the following settings.

• Header Search Paths: /usr/include/libxml2
• Other Linker Flags: -lxml2

For the Debug build configuration only, add the Other C Flags setting so that the library’s debug-only code is included:

• Other C Flags: -DDEBUG=1

Step 5 (Optional for iPhone 3.0 Beta SDK)

If you downloaded the zip file version (1.7.0) of the API, you will also run into this error message when you attempt to first build your iPhone App project:

...Source/Networking/GDataHTTPFetcherLogging.m:224: error: 'NSTask' undeclared (first use in
...Source/Networking/GDataHTTPFetcherLogging.m:224: error: 'task' undeclared (first use in this
function)

Apple has removed the NSTask from the Foundations Framework in the iPhone 3.0 SDK. In order to fix this, simply open up the GDataDefines.h file, find the developer section and add:

#define  GDATA_SKIP_LOG_XMLFORMAT 1

Note: This fix is only needed if you downloaded version 1.7.0 of the GData Objective-C API and are using iPhone 3.0 Beta SDK. If you downloaded the latest Subversion read-only trunk of the code or are using iPhone 2.2.1 SDK, you do not need to do this.

Step 6

At this point, your iPhone XCode project should build successfully and you can begin using the Google APIs by simply importing the appropriate header files. ie.

#import "GDataAnalytics.h"

Step 7 (Optional if downloaded GData version 1.7.0 Zip file)

If you downloaded the zip file version (1.7.0) of the API, you will be missing the Analytics API. That has not yet been zipped up for the download. You may want to download those separately.

Additional Resources:

• Official Google Mac Blog: Using Google APIs in an iPhone App
• gdata-objectivec-client – Google Code
• Issue 24 – gdata-objectivec-client – Build failure due to removal of NSTask from IPhone SDK 3.0 – Google Code