O'Reilly News: iPhone

Embarrassment of Riches: Managing a Mountain of iPhone Apps - Josh Clark Shares His Tips for Organizing Your iPhone

2009-07-08T17:51:01Z

Guest blogger Josh Clark, the author of Best iPhone Apps: The Guide for Discriminating Downloaders, offers his tips for managing a mountain of iPhone apps. "A healthy collection of iPhone apps calls for an equally healthy hygiene regimen for your iPhone," says Josh. "Here are a few pointers for keeping your apps tidy and your data safe."

Keep Your iPhone Shipshape - New Book Excerpts Teach You How to Set Up, Maintain, and Troubleshoot Your iPhone

2009-07-08T16:41:50Z

If you're considering purchasing an iPhone, planning on developing applications for one, or if you prefer troubleshooting and maintaining your iPhone (rather than taking it to the Apple Store for a tuneup), you'll want to check out the new book excerpts we posted at oreilly.com/iphone.

Patrick Collison Puts the Squeeze on Wikipedia - How to Cram the Wikipedia onto an 8GB iPhone

2009-07-02T14:00:19Z

Think about Wikipedia, what some consider the most complete general survey of human knowledge we have at the moment. Now imagine squeezing it down to fit comfortably on an 8GB iPhone. Sound daunting? Well, that's just what Patrick Collison's iPhone application does. App Store purchasers of Collison's open source application can browser and search the full text of Wikipedia when stuck in a plane, or trapped in the middle of nowhere (or as defined by AT&T coverage...) Collison will be presenting a talk on how he did it at OSCON, O'Reilly's Open Source Convention at the end of July, and he spent some time talking to me about it recently.

Take Your iPhone to the Next Level--Best iPhone Apps Is Here - The essential guide for discriminating downloaders

2009-06-30T16:32:41Z

Josh Clark, author of O'Reilly's Best iPhone Apps: The Essential Guide for Discriminating Downloaders says he waited three decades until the iPhone finally arrived in 2007. "Apple's fabulous device is the only thing that's ever resembled my childhood notions of the 21st century, the first time the future got here," writes Clark. "A computer. In your pocket." And for his new book, Clark scoured the App Store to find the best apps that will make your iPhone shine and you more productive, more creative, more happy. The PDF of Clark's Best iPhone Apps is available now. Check these excerpts to find some of the cool apps Clark recommends.

Apple, the Boomer Tablet and the Matrix

2009-06-25T20:31:11Z

I have written about Apple's inevitable assault on the Tablet market before. What I hadn't factored until recently is how symbiotic such a device would be for Baby Boomers. Why Baby Boomers? Well, for the same two reasons that this demographic is unlikely to embrace the palm-sized iPhone en masse. One, such a bookish-sized tablet device -- I'll call it the Boomer Tablet -- would be tailor-made for home Wi-Fi setups, thereby obviating the mobile access costs associated with iPhone, a significant barrier for a generation that is programmed to keep mobile bills within a tight spending range. Two, because a larger-form factor device would offer Boomers a bigger viewing screen and "lifestyle" settings, like fatter keys and a more forgiving keyboard to ease input, and wizard-like shortcuts to simplify recurring tasks.

Tab bars and Navigation bars together

2009-06-24T19:33:00Z

The TableView is a common way to display data on an iPhone. Combining a tab bar with a table view and navigation bar isn't very difficult, but it took me forever to figure out how to do it properly. In my screencast, learn how to avoid common beginner errors and enjoy a practical follow-along exercise to build an app with a tab bar, navigation bar and table view controllers.

App Growth, PalmOS vs iPhoneOS

2009-06-24T05:19:22Z

There's a chart I've been meaning to put together for a while to explain why I'm expecting the iPhoneOS to be the dominant mobile platform for at least the next decade. I've been thinking of the role third-party applications played in helping Palm maintain its mobile platform dominance for about that same period, from 1996 to 2006. If you believe...

Big learning curve for iPhone development

2009-06-22T20:15:30Z

I just started learning how to develop for the iPhone. After helping to put together an iPhone workshop with my friend Joe Heck, I got really excited about this new platform. I've dabbled in Cocoa and Objective C before, many years ago, and figured it was time to relearn Mac development so I could write my own apps for the iPhone.

Pattern Recognition: Makers, Marketplaces and the Library of the Commons

2009-06-16T21:21:26Z

Finally, having a chance to decompress following his Maker Faire visit, Mark Sigal ruminates on what Maker Faire's 78K attendees means, concluding that it's all about creative destruction, mass customization and the rise of DIY (do it yourself) class.

Analysis: Apple WWDC Keynote - Punishing the Wizard, Part Two

2009-06-09T15:31:38Z

Fair or unfair, Apple has done such a good job of delivering technical wizardry over the years that when they merely execute, we hammer them because...well, we expect magic. With that in mind, this analysis of Apple's WWDC Keynote yesterday tries to make sense of the key storylines likely to play out for Apple in the coming months.

What the iPhone 3GS and 3.0 OS Means for Geo Devs

2009-06-09T09:21:48Z

Yesterday's announcements around the iPhone 3GS and new 3.0 OS were significant to consumers and developers. Here are some of the changes that will make geo devs happy. Google Maps Views (Mapkit) - Developers can now take advantage of Google Maps within their apps. This means that you no longer have to building your own mapping system for your...

3D Glasses: Virtual Reality, Meet the iPhone

2009-06-05T13:30:58Z

A light flickers from two distinct points in time. As a child in the early-1970s, one of my toys was a View-Master, a binoculars-like device for viewing 3D images (called stereograms), essentially a mini-program excerpted from popular destinations, TV shows, cartoons, events and the like. Flash forward to the present, and we are suddenly on the cusp of a game-changing event; one that I believe kicks the door open for 3D and VR apps to become mainstream. I am talking about the release of iPhone OS version 3.0.

Gruber's Fictional App Store Censor

2009-05-29T16:44:45Z

John Gruber's "Excerpts From the Diary of an App Store Reviewer" is cutting satire of the arbitrary decision making and capricious censorship that is generated by Apple's opaque App Store approval process. Read more about this brilliant commentary on the absurdity of the relationships between the Censor, the Censored, and "objectionable" material.

O'Reilly Week in Review for May 25th, 2009 - News and Commentary from O'Reilly Authors and Editors

2009-05-26T14:20:55Z

This week, we talk to Damien Stolarz, author of iPhone Hacks, about how hackable the iPhone really is. According to Damien, it's a great platform for developing your own personal applications, even if you never want to sell them in the iTunes store. We also chat with Andrew Stellman and Jennifer Greene about Beautiful Teams, and why personality can be more important than what processes you adopt.

Building Higher Performance RIAs for Smart Phones

2009-05-14T16:00:00Z

With the growing popularity of smart phones like the iPhone and Google’s Android, as well as new players on the market like Palm’s Pre, the idea of having an always-connected general computational device is finally being realized. Today’s smart phones are not only used for making calls, taking pictures, and listening to music; now people are using their phones to do business, build presentations, make quick edits to important files, and even surf the web. Yet contrary to what the commercials would have you believe, few smart phones provide a web experience equivalent even to a netbook.

2 Years Later, the Facebook App Platform is Still Thriving

2009-05-13T11:00:00Z

In a few weeks, the Facebook application platform will mark its second anniversary. While it garnered lots of press coverage in the months after it launched, the arrival of the iTunes app store shifted attention away from Facebook's vibrant ecosystem. The media glow is understandable: among other things, the younger iTunes platform is adding apps at a much faster rate than Facebook or Myspace.

A Hardware Music Keyboard for the iPhone

2009-05-05T20:18:03Z

There are scads of piano-keyboard apps for the iPhone, but I find the lack of tactile feedback frustrating. With Apple opening the dock connector to outside developers in OS 3, couldn't someone create a true music keyboard?

NiN's Rob Sheridan on iPhone Application Rejection

2009-05-05T15:21:13Z

In this interview with Rob Sheridan (@rob_sheridan), Nine Inch Nails' Artistic Director, Rob discusses the experience of getting the rejection letter from Apple, and what effect it has on the band's plans to build community applications on the iPhone platform. You'll hear Sheridan express an uneasiness that Apple can act as judge and jury without providing any transparency into the approval process.

Apple Learns The Perils of Gatekeeping - With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility, and an Administrative Headache

2009-05-04T17:02:00Z

It hasn't been a good year for Apple's iPhone App Store. Child welfare advocates threw a fit over the notorious Baby Shaker application. App Store developers started to complain about slow payment of royalties from Apple. The ubiquity of iPhone flatulence applications became a running joke. And now comes word that popular industial rockers Nine Inch Nails have had their iPhone app turned down, because of naughty language. Which all leads to the question: Why is Apple in the business of selling iPhone applications anyway? One possible answer is that Apple needs to gate-keep iPhone applications because otherwise they could screw up their deal with AT&T.

The iTunes App Store and One-hit Wonders

2009-05-01T11:00:00Z

Thousands of sellers created the 40,000 apps that have appeared in the U.S. iTunes app store. Measured in terms of apps per seller, developer and vendor engagement has gotten stronger over time. The above average (mean) is somewhat misleading: 52% of sellers have produced just one app, and 80% have released 3 or fewer. Certain types of apps (e.g. electronic books) are easier to create, thus inflating the overall average app per seller. The disparity in complexity across categories is captured in the chart below. Aside from Books, Travel and Education apps also tend to be easy to develop and launch. The number of apps per seller also depends on whether one is interested in Paid or Free apps.

iPhone Web Audio Playlist Hack

2009-04-23T20:31:11Z

Mobile Safari, the iPhone's web browser, has surprisingly weak audio support. But here's a hack I discovered to embed audio playlists.

Locavore's Open Data

2009-04-23T19:54:10Z

Buster McLeod is taking an "open data" policy towards his latest project, Locavore the iPhone app, by revealing the first month's stats. Locavore is a great app that helps you eat locally by showing you what produce is in season near you and what farmer's markets you can buy it at. It's a well-designed app that I look forward...