Credit: Billy Alexander

A guest post by Mike Smithwick, author of Distant Suns 2 for the iPhone and blogger at distantsuns.com. Mike is a seasoned iPhone developer who has developed numerous iPhone applications. Follow Mike’s work on Twitter for more information.

Okay, okay, so why yet another column on beginning iPhone programming when the net is gravid with similar articles?

Well, when I was asked to start a semi-irregular column by the kind folks at www.iPhoneness.com the general topic would be from an app author’s point of view. So I really need to start at the very beginning (from which I understand is a very good place to start).

It was just about two years ago when the first version of the SDK (Software Developer’s Kit) was unleashed upon the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. While iPhone homebrew was out and about through the dedicated efforts of folks like the iPhone Dev Team, setting up the initial development environment was not for the faint of heart and would bring a frown upon the brow of the mothership once the official app store was open for business.  So if you care about being able to proudly point out your app in iTunes to your friends, you gotta play by the rules. And that means Apple’s SDK and Apple’s restrictions.

There are good reasons for this: Apple wanted to assure to their customers that the apps have been proven to be safe from malicious code and were future-proofed by using the approved library calls. The latter would be essential, especially in the early days of the iPhone’s operating system, as it would likely be updated frequently. Apple would need the flexibility to tinker with the underlying “private” calls without having to worry about breaking existing applications. And as various systems mature we can (hopefully) expect more of the secret sauce to be approved for outside development.

So with this in mind what does it take to write a cool app and make a million bucks? (Uh, start with a cool app idea and two million bucks?) Read the rest of the story.

A guest post by Mike Smithwick, author of Distant Suns 2 for the iPhone and blogger at distantsuns.com. Mike is a seasoned iPhone developer who has developed numerous iPhone applications. Follow Mike’s work on Twitter for more information.

In 1987, Steve Jobs introduced to the world the wonderful and somewhat puzzling NeXT “Cube.” It was designed as the computer for the college student who could also afford a $6000 machine with no floppy drive.  For all of the ridicule and head scratching the machine provoked, it pioneered a number of great technologies. Perhaps the most well known of these powers every Mac and iPhone now being made today: OS-X.

One of the other less successful aspects of the NeXT episode was Jobs’ software distribution model. Considering that the Cube was meant to be a networked based system, all software distribution would be via the net (either that or via the $150 Canon “floptical” disks that would price most applications out of the reach of the demographics). Jobs’ proposed electronic means of purchasing and distribution of NeXT applications would have been pretty cool. Except for one small detail: there was no general solution for handling small secure transactions over the Internet. That is, no way to pay. His dream quickly vanished and vendors ultimately would have to sell their wares by permitting stores to copy them onto the customer’s own disks.

It would take 22 years, but finally that vision would be realized in the form of the iPhone’s App Store. It’s not bad…for a first attempt that is. But there remains a lot to be done from both the developer’s and customer’s standpoints.

For developers, managing the app and gleaning sales trends is unwieldy at best. For customers, discovering great apps is tedious and a hit-or-miss affair. Go with the safe stuff, the stuff on the top-100, and you’ll be okay. If your app is one of the 134,115 other apps not on the list, tough.

I imagine that the success of the store and the SDK caught Apple by surprise, and as such the store worked fine for small numbers of applications, but in the end proved not to be very scalable and soon started bustin’ the seams. Read the rest of article…

A guest post by Mike Smithwick, author of Distant Suns 2 for the iPhone and blogger at distantsuns.com. Mike is a seasoned iPhone developer who has developed numerous iPhone applications. Follow Mike’s work on Twitter for more information.

So it looks like the Apple fanboi community is whipping itself up to the near-ritualistic semi-annual frenzy in speculation over the much rumored, and denied, and rumored again tablet device.

In the spy biz, it’s called “chatter.” That is, when the communications circuits of various targets-of-interest come alive one can safely conclude that something big is about to happen. And the chatter on the Mac-circuits is deafening.

In the weeks before each new iPhone or iPod is released, the chatter slowly reveals each tasty morsel via leaks, rumors of rumors, hidden codes buried deep within web server logs, photos from Mr. Blurrycam (that may or may not be faked), and cases from Chinese companies who bribed the manufacturers into getting a peek so they could get a head start on things. And when it comes to the long and tortured history of the mythical tablet, this nerdly striptease might finally be reaching its apex.

We now know that Apple is planning a “major product announcement” on January 26 in San Francisco. Supposedly a few select developers have been contacted to ensure their apps could run on larger screened devices. References to an iPhone OS “4.0” have been showing up in web servers and the supply chains for screens larger than an iPhone and smaller then a MacBook have cranked into overdrive.

In Apple’s history, they may not have always been the first to the party with a particular technology, but they always push the envelope when they finally arrive. Part of the Apple design ethos is to examine an existing technology, find its weaknesses and improve it. Too many companies do things that are cool just for coolness’ sake, or take the attitude that “good enough is good enough,” whereas Apple waits to get things right. Read the rest of article…

A guest post by Mike Smithwick, author of Distant Suns 2 for the iPhone and blogger at distantsuns.com. Mike is a seasoned iPhone developer who has developed numerous iPhone applications. Follow Mike’s work on Twitter for more information.

It’s no secret that the iPhone has become a phenomenally successful development target among both seasoned professional engineers, and midnight hobbyist fanboys alike. Some of the most interesting and innovative mobile apps are delivered regularly, courtesy of the Appstore, and are just as likely to be developed by one guy after work with a six-pack of Mountain Dew as a large and well-financed software studio.

As a result, ever since that memorable summer day, back in August of aught-7 when the first iPhone hack was announced, the iPhone/iPod app scene has really become nothing short of a worldwide phenomenon.

When I started the Distant Suns port,(what? Another shameless plug?), it was very cool to say to people with an air of superiority “Oh, me? I’m just doing some iPhone stuff.” I would then pause for the genuflections and the bombarding of flashes from the paparazzi. Nowadays the response is more like “so, who isn’t?”

So what makes the iPhone such a compelling platform? There have been many other smart phones out there. Palm, Windows Mobile, J2ME (Java) based systems, Symbian, and so on. Each of these has available public SDKs, and some even come with free dev tools. And there have also been sites and storefronts aplenty for third party apps.

So then, what makes the iPhone development scene different from all of the others that have been around for years? Read the rest of article…

A guest post by Mike Smithwick, author of Distant Suns 2 for the iPhone and blogger at distantsuns.com. Mike is a seasoned iPhone developer who has developed numerous iPhone applications. Follow Mike’s work on Twitter for more information.

It has now been just a little over a 20 months since Apple changed the industry, (yet again), by releasing the iPhone SDK. Had anyone back then predicted that less than two years later, less than two circuits around an average yellow star in the outer arm of the galaxy, the Appstore would be bulging under the weight of over 100,000 applications, they would have been carried away, hidden and fed raw cabbage for about 12 years.

But here we are. I personally have 5 apps up on the store (Distant Suns, Distant Suns (lite), Grand Tour, Weather Planet, and the Live365 player), with one more on the launching pad.

Perhaps one of the keys to this explosion of creativity among the app development communities, is that it revives the notion of solo-programmer applications. In the early days of the PC, the very first software packages were generally created by one or two people on their kitchen table. Heck, they probably even used zip-lock bags as their “packaging.” The systems were small as were expectations for the applications. A “major” game might take only a couple of months for one guy to develop, with perhaps a little additional help from a single artist. As the machines grew larger and more feature-filled the expectations grew as well. Simple 8-bit pixilated images gave way to complicated 3D renderings. Basic static splash-screens were replaced with new cinema-quality animated intros. Cheesy electronic soundtracks were shunted aside for fully orchestrated mini-symphonies. And with the latest game titles, for example, such as Spore or Grand Tourismo, the budgets and manpower approach those of Hollywood feature films costing tens of millions of dollars.

The original version of my first app, Distant Suns (back then called “Galileo 1.0”), was developed over a year of spare evenings on a budget of about $2000 on a floppy based Commodore Amiga 1000 with two meg of RAM. With the advent of the iPhone version, the good ol’ desktop version has now been officially retired. But with few exceptions, up to the very end, DS was still a solo-programmer desktop product and held the distinction of being one of the last vestiges of a more, dare I say, “romantic” nerd era. (If of course “romantic” and “nerd” can be used in the same sentence.) Likewise, it has also been a point of personal pride. Read the rest of this entry »