XCode

Start building iOS Apps Today

Mike Hudson Leave a comment

Apple have recently released what can only be described as slightly overdue, yet completely perfect. A ‘complete’ start to finish guide on how to jump into iOS application development. Although not a coveted secret, sometimes starting out in iOS application development can be a mysterious and painful place to be!

This guide now walks you through 13 major steps to get you up and running:

  1. Introduction to iOS development
  2. Installing Tools
  3. Jump Right In
  4. Tools
  5. Language
  6. Basic Tasks
  7. Frameworks
  8. Design Patterns
  9. Human Interface Design
  10. App Design
  11. App Store
  12. Finding Information
  13. Where to go from here

Ok, ok so the last two are technically major steps – but do offer some very helpful advice..

The guide is broken down into small ‘bite size’ chunks, that leave out the over complicated ‘waffle’ and stick to the basics. It’s perfect if you’re just starting out.

But don’t stop there… Once you’ve worked your way through the guide, I’d strongly recommend checking out and subscribing to Stanford University’s iPad and Application Development series in iTunes U.

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How-To: Loose __MyCompanyName__ from Xcode

Mike Hudson Leave a comment

So you’ve downloaded your fresh copy of Xcode, and are itching to get started.. But what’s this? All your code files are getting stamped with the mysterious __MyCompanyName__?  Frustrated huh?

Well despite what some of the tutorials say out on the net, there’s no .plist’s to edit, no terminal commands to execute and no degree in meta physics required.

The company name detail is actually taken directly from the stock ‘Address Book’ application. By now you should have already set up your address book contact, and linked it to your user account.

Open up Address Book, and find your ‘Me’ account, now set the company name on your record and save it. Even if you don’t want to actually publish apps as a company, enter the name you want to appear in the comments, and then save the changes to the record.

That’s it.. No… Honestly, that’s all you need to do! Now close down Xcode. The next time you create a new file the company name will automatically be placed in the comments of the files. Simple really!

Have fun developing!

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How to: Remove Xcode

Mike Hudson 3 Comments

I came up against a bit of an issue today, I realised my Xcode was stuck on version 4.1 and the AppStore wasn’t detecting the update available to v4.2. Now normally this wouldn’t be an issue, however version 4.1 doesn’t include the iOS 5.* SDK’s.

So I decided the only way around the issue, would be to completely remove the old version, then install the fresh version 4.2 straight from the AppStore.

This seemed to do the trick for me:

  1. Open Finder
  2. Open the Utilities folder
  3. Open a terminal window
  4. Copy and paste the following line in:
  5. Press return
  6. When prompted, enter your password
  7. Press return

Xcode should then eventually uninstall. This may take some time depending on the speed on your machine.

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Upload to FTP using Automator

Mike Hudson Leave a comment

If you spend allot of time uploading files to FTP sites then you may well find this automator add-on invaluable. Essentially this enables you to create a ‘drop box’ type folder in which you can drop files. Then hit the Automator application shortcut, which will automatically ‘chuck’ them up to an FTP folder of your choice.

This is a whole load easier then opening your FTP client each time and logging in then navigating etc etc etc.
To give you some ideas of what you could use this for, I have a couple of variations.. I use one to upload screenshots to a location on my web server for my blog posts. I also have one for uploading important backups to another FTP location. The download also comes with an example workflow to upload to a dropbox account. Perfect if you like drop box, but don’t like the cumbersome dropbox client.
There is also an example which resizes the images before it uploads them!
You can download the add-on from the official homepage. Alternatively download a copy of the XCode source from here.
I guess if you wanted to build on this script, you could even program it to monitor the folder for changes and upload as soon as it happens..? The possibilities are endless.

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