If it had been any other time, the very first of the pale-faced, putrid undead would have stuck out like sore thumbs in polite society and been hastily disposed of by the city’s overfunded and underutilized (and thus rather bored) police force. End of story, as they say. As it was, however, the first victims of the highly-infectious RNA virus that transmogrified otherwise mild-mannered accountants and supermarket checkout clerks into flesh-hungry zombies blended in perfectly with the less ravenous participants in the Fifth Annual Zombie Pub Crawl, providing entertainment for the onlooking crowd as they attacked each other and caused all manner of mischief. Some in the audience even remarked at how real the screams of the other zombies sounded before adding their own to the rising cacophony as the infection spread from flesh to flesh. And that is how it came to be that the zombie horde swelled its ranks as it made its way through the previously-uncannibalistic (and sometimes even sunny) sea-side town of Brighton.

It was October 31st, 2009 and the zombie virus had picked the gay capital of the United Kingdom to make its debut. Not that it mattered. The virus didn’t discriminate.

* * *

Feel free to continue the story in the comments :)

You may have been wondering why I disappeared off the face of the earth for the past month after announcing that Evolutio – which I thought was going to be my first iPhone app – was going into Alpha.

Here's the reason: I realized that Evolut.io is going to need a good deal more work before it is ready for prime time and I also realized
that I really want to get an app up on the App Store. Thankfully, this coincided with an idea that I thought I could whip up "in a
weekend". So, about a month later, I'm at the point where I'm announcing it before embarking on a very short beta and then submitting it to the App Store (woot!)

The app is called 'avit. Watch a screencast of it in action at http://avitapp.com.

So what does it do?

Well, in a nutshell, if you're subscribed to Safari Books Online, you can scan the barcode from a book and start reading straight away. That is, if they have it (have it, 'av it, get it? Oh, the wit, the intelligence!) :)

If they don't have it, you can compare prices online (with automatic location detection that sends you to one of the three localized sites that Google Product Search supports in the UK, US, and Germany).

OK, so I'm not going to repeat everything that's in the screencast here. Check out the 'avit screencast here.

I'm going to be talking about lessons learned while developing it, the User Experience considerations, workflow/process etc., at BrightArray this evening (7pm at The Skiff, so come along if you're in Brighton).

I'm also flying to Denmark tomorrow to give a workshop on iPhone dev at Noma (Nordic Multimedia Academy) in Kolding so this is going to be one heckuva busy week! :)

So there you go, this is going to be my first iPhone app and I'm really excited. I hope you guys like what you see and I can't wait to see it up on the App Store! :)

Demoing iPhone apps during presentations is a bitch because Apple hasn't (yet) given us a way to mirror the screen like Steve Jobs does during his keynotes. The alternatives all suck to various degrees: use a camcorder, an Elmo (the projector, not the Muppet), or the iPhone Simulator. The iPhone Simulator is the easiest option and is fine unless you're trying to demo features only found on the device (like GPS, etc.) or make a demo video of your app being used in the field.

Although there isn't an Apple-sanctioned way of mirroring the screen via the Apple A/V cable (apart from for the iPod app), Rob Terrell shared some code a little while back that enables TV Out on a per-app basis based on Erica Sadun's discovery of an unpublished class in the MediaPlayer framework.

Rob's class worked like a charm (and still does, under 3.1), however The Evil Boss took it one step further today by releasing some code that displays touch indicators and rotation changes on the mirrored output. Watch his video, above, and read the full post, iPhone Video Output, for the details and to download the code that you can add to your app to enable this functionality.

Just make sure, however, that you don't accidentally submit your app to the App Store with this code enabled or it will probably mean a quick refusal.

Big thanks to both Rob Terrell and The Evil Boss for making this possible.

(PS. Apple, if you're listening, please, please, please enable the ability to mirror the iPhone's screen for any app in the next release. Just think of how much the quality of the demo videos for apps will improve and how much that will translate to increased sales. Oh, and why did you remove the private openURL:asPanel: method on UIApplication in 3.0? If we still had that we could actually demo apps that launch Safari for some bit of their functionality via this method.)

If you're with GoDaddy, just follow the instructions on Tender. If, however, you're running your own WHM (Web Host Manager)/CPanel setup and managing DNS yourself, read on.

Setting up Tender to use your own domain with WHM is pretty simple:

1. Sign in to WHM and select Edit DNS Zone
2. Choose the web site that you want to add Tender support to and press the Edit button
3. Scroll down to the Add New Entries Below this Line section and in the first empty box, type the subdomain you want to use for Tender (e.g., support)
4. For TTL, enter some value (I use 3600)
5. For Record Type (the "in" bit), choose CNAME from the drop-down list
6. In the Hostname box that appears, type tenderapp.com. (don't forget that trailing dot, it's required).
7. Press the Save button and you're done!

Don't forget to enter the domain you just set up in your Tender admin area under Site Settings → Site Configuration → Custom Domain.

Enjoy!

To book me for a corporate speaking event in The Netherlands, please contact my agent, Tessa Sterkenburg, at The Next Speaker.

See my Speaking page for more information on how to book me for conferences, etc.

I just recently made use of these features to create macros for Pinch Analytics so that I can easily turn it on or off for my builds. I previously voiced concerns on Twitter about the spyware-like ways that Pinch Analytics can be used and Keith blogged about his thoughts at the time (the mainstream tech press picked up on this a little while later; see my links from yesterday for other commentary on the issue, including Pinch Media's response by adding easy-to-implement opt-out).

Having read the various opinions as well as Pinch Analytic's list of features, I can say that (as a developer), I see how invaluable it can be in gathering anonymous usage data that can then be used to improve the user experience. This must, however, be balanced with privacy concerns. The issue comes down to whether or not users are informed that usage data is being collected and whether they can easily opt out of it.

Currently, I'm only considering using Pinch Analytics during pre-release testing. However, I'm undecided as to whether to include it in the final build. If I do include it, it will be with notice and an opt-out option. Since I haven't decided, I need a way to turn off all instances of it easily if I need to later. This is where precompiler directives, the Prefix.pch file, and conditional compilation come into play to make life much easier.

A quick how-to

In MyApp_Prefix.pch, start by declaring a few macros for the most commonly-used Pinch Analytics methods (so you don't have to litter your code with #ifdef/#endif blocks). The Prefix.pch file is global in scope so any functions you define there will be available in all of your classes (this is very useful!).

#ifdef PINCH_ANALYTICS_ON
#	define StartPinchAnalyticsSubBeacon(n, b) [[Beacon shared] startSubBeaconWithName:(n) timeSession:(b)];
#	define EndPinchAnalyticsSubBeacon(n) [[Beacon shared] endSubBeaconWithName:(n)];
#else
#	define StartPinchAnalyticsSubBeacon(...)
#	define EndPinchAnalyticsSubBeacon(...)
#endif

Add Pinch Analytics to your App Delegate, surrounded by an #ifdef:

- (void)applicationDidFinishLaunching:(UIApplication *)application {    

#ifdef PINCH_ANALYTICS_ON
    NSLog(@"Pinch Analytics is on.")
	NSString *applicationCode = @"NotMyRealApplicationCode";
    [Beacon initAndStartBeaconWithApplicationCode:applicationCode
								  useCoreLocation:NO useOnlyWiFi:NO];
#endif

And:

- (void)applicationWillTerminate:(UIApplication *)application {
#ifdef PINCH_ANALYTICS_ON
	[[Beacon shared] endBeacon];
#endif

From there on, whenever you need to add a sub-beacon, simply use the macros you created previously. e.g.,

StartPinchAnalyticsSubBeacon(kContantNameOfSomeSubBeacon, NO);

Finally, define the conditional flag:

1. Select Project → Edit Project Settings → Build and the Configuration(s) you want to apply the flag to.
2. Under GCC 4.2 – Preprocessing, add your flag to the Preprocessor Macros section (PINCH_ANALYTICS_ON=YES)

And you're set. If you want to turn Pinch Analytics off (e.g., when you're ready to do your final release build), simply remove the flag from your project preferences.

• Quicksilver
• TextMate
• Photoshop CS3
• Flash CS3
• Illustrator CS3 (it crashed the first time I tried File → New; ⌘-N but worked after relaunching it)
• Fluid and apps created by Fluid
• Tweetie for Mac
• My simple AIR app for signing in to T-Mobile WiFi networks
• My ClippyML AIR app for quickly visualizing copy/pasted HTML
• My little Turkish Characters AIR app
• Tweetdeck 0.26.4 (I'm assuming, thus, that AIR apps are OK under Snow Leopard)
• Little Snapper 1.5.1 (10082)
• AppZapper
• Zooom/2 2.2.5
• Charles 3.3.1
• Transmit 3.3.6
• VLC video player 0.9.8
• iAlertU (great for when you need to pop to the loo when in a cafe!)
• VMWare Fusion (if anything, it seemed really fast – tested with Ubuntu and Vista VMs – and I'm not even running the latest version)
• XCode 3.1.3 – Leopard version, not the Snow Leopard version that I'll be upgrading to later today – and the iPhone simulator.

Apps that I needed to tweak:

• Firefox 3.5.2: I had to re-enable my persona to get the top image back.
• Terminal Visor/Visor.bundle (see this simple workaround to get Visor for OSX working under Snow Leopard)

Apps that didn't work:

• The T-Mobile web 'n' walk USB Stick app (a horrible app that I don't use anyway; crashes on launch)

Overall, I have to say that apps just seem to work and, if anything, the OS feels snappier.

However, do see my note about the WiFi and 3G USB stick issues I had with Snow Leopard (and a workaround that may help).

Re-enabling it, thankfully, is very easy: Go to Applications → Utilities, ⌘-click Terminal.app and select Get Info (or press ⌘-i) and check the Open in 32-bit mode checkbox. Finally, start Terminal.app and you should have your beloved Visor back.

This tip comes to you courtesy of Tanja (the last comment in this blog post).

I just upgraded to Snow Leopard and immediately found myself severed from the Internet: I couldn't connect to the BTOpenZone WiFi network (or see any other networks) and neither could I connect with my T-Mobile USB stick.

Removing the Automatic location in System Preferences → Network → fixed the T-Mobile USB stick issue (you have to add a DIAG connection and set the telephone number to *99# since the web 'n' walk app that comes on the USB stick – which I wasn't using anyway – crashes under Snow Leopard).

After making this change and turning Airport off and on again, I was able to connect to the BTOpenZone network but the connection dropped out after a while and it returned to not being able to see the network. I restarted Airport again and initially it gave me the new Alert: No Internet Connection message (see screenshot) and then finally connected. Fingers crossed, it seems to be staying up this time. Although the BTOpenZone networks at Starbucks appear to be entirely unreliable themselves (frequently crashing and having to be restarted those times when the actual Internet connection itself isn't a roller coaster ride of dropouts and slowdowns), my iPhone had no trouble whatsoever seeing or connecting to the same network.

So, although the new usability enhancements in the Airport UI look good (e.g., telling you when you're connected to a network but don't have an Internet connection), it does appear that the actual connectivity is much less stable. Ah, as I was writing that it lost the WiFi connection again.

My T-Mobile USB stick connection, on the other hand, appears to be solid (and the dial up process is faster now) since I trashed the Automatic location.

I'm assuming I won't be the only one encountering WiFi issues with Snow Leopard so here's hoping there will be more workarounds and quite possibly a patch posted soon.

I would have loved my first post on Snow Leopard to have been on the user experience improvements, etc., but those don't really matter when the most fundamental feature (the Internet connectivity) takes a step back in terms of stability.

Whenever possible, I try to use existing icons for my apps. I do this for two reasons: firstly, designing a good icon is an art that takes a ridiculous amount of time and practice, and, secondly, using standard icons correctly in your applications makes your app consistent with other applications on the same platform and thus helps it meet user expectations.

When it comes to iPhone icons, Apple's Mobile HIG provides certain system icons with strictly defined semantics and use cases. Beyond those, there are several wonderful free and commercial icon sets available for app developers to use. These include Glyphish (120 free toolbar and tab bar icons released under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 US license by Joseph Wain) and PixelPress Icons (52 free toolbar icons released under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Canada license by Gary Gehiere). The set I am using for my application is a commercial one, the excellent iPhone UI Icon Set of 160 icons by Eddie Wilson (check out his awesome photos from his Flickr stream, follow him on Twitter) of eddit. These are an absolute steal at $69 and worth every penny. Eddie has taken great pains to tweak the icons to look just right on toolbar and tab bar controls (going as far as to create two different versions of each icon). As he used a pleasing shade of gray for the icons, they can also be used in buttons.

Although the eddit icons cover 99% of what I need for my application, there's one very common action in iPhone applications that doesn't have a system icon and neither have I been able to find an icon anywhere else to express it: open in external application.

Although the iPhone doesn't support running multiple applications simultaneously, iPhone applications are meant to be easy to switch between, with each one doing one or two things right and maybe even communicating with other apps to carry out more complex tasks. So it's a pretty common feature for one app to launch another application and cede control to it. In Tweetie, for example, you have a simple web browser view for viewing web sites that people have linked to in their tweets. Cleverly, it doesn't attempt to replace Mobile Safari. Instead, if you need to do more than simply glancing through what someone has linked to, it gives you the option to launch the site you're viewing in Mobile Safari.

In Tweetie, this feature is in an action sheet and Tweetie uses the Action icon from the standard system buttons provided by the iPhone SDK to launch the action sheet.

Since Tweetie is a UX dream come true and should be emulated as much as possible, I was also using this icon initially but I was altering its meaning by having it directly launch the site in Mobile Safari (instead of bringing up an action sheet with options). The Action icon has a set meaning in the HIG, which states that it "opens an action sheet that allows users to take an application-specific action". Aesthetically, I feel that the icon is rather a poor choice for what it officially represents and a much better candidate for "open in external application" but that's beside the point. Apple has bestowed it with meaning in the HIG and, like it or not, I need to respect that.

The Open In External App icon

Not having found an existing alternative, I – begrudgingly, mind you – started down the path of creating my own icon. Some research revealed Prof. Ravi Poovaiah's work on the Design of Signage Systems, including his case study on signage for Mumbai Hospitals. Apart from being an interesting read on the various linguistic and cultural constraints imposed on the design of signage in India, I found it to be hugely relevant to our field what with the huge costs involved in internationalization and localization of apps.

More pertinently, perhaps, the Exit Icon that Prof. Poovaiah ended up designing stood out as semantically analogous to what I wanted for my icon. The key meaning that the icon must convey is that the the user's action will cause a radical change in context; in this case, a jump from one application to another (which, although the oAuth folks, in their quest to jam what is a perfect solution for the web down the throats of mobile and desktop developers seem to not want to see, is actually as jarring a change in context as you can expect and one that should be avoided whenever possible and at the very least clearly labelled, demarcated, and managed.)

So, taking Ravi's icon, I proceeded to create versions of it for the iPhone tab bar and toolbar controls and two more – in blue – for use in buttons. I used the general shape of the Mobile Me icon in Eddie's set as the base of the form so as to have the icon fit visually with the rest of the icon set (and, thus, also my app's look and feel).

I've created two versions of the icons, one with an inner object that represents the actual object that the user will be opening/viewing in the external app (i.e., "open this in an external app") and another other without the inner object that conveys a more generic "open (in) external app". Visually, I like the simplicity of the latter, but I haven't decided whether the semantic correctness of the former outweighs the aesthetic simplicity of the latter.

In any case, I'm releasing the icons, including the PSD and an Xcode project demonstrating their use, for free under a very liberal Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 UK: England & Wales license in hopes that it will be used in other applications also.

The one thing I ask (my mini-HIG, if you will) is that you only use the icon to mean "open in external app". It would be nice to have this to become a standard iPhone icon for that particular action.

• Download the whole kahuna (Open in External App icon set PNGs, PSD, and XCode project; 596KB)
• Download the Open In External App icon set (.zip, PNGs only; 12KB).
• Download the Open In External App Xcode Project (.zip; 572KB)
• Download the Open in External App Photoshop file (.zip; 20KB)

If you do like the icon, please consider buying Eddie Wilson's iPhone UI Icon Set as it fits visually with the other icons there (hey, us independent creatives have to support one another!)

I'd love to hear from you if you do end up using the icon so please leave me a comment and a link to your app (if you're feeling overly generous, feel free to send me a copy to play with; I do loves me my iPhone apps, yessiree!)

Enjoy!