Re: starting development for IOS devices
- From: Florian-achtige <florianbeijers@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2011 10:34:34 +0100
Ok, time for me to step in.
I've actually been reading up on this, trying some things and I can
agree and disagree with the following points:
- jailbreaking: Even if you jailbreak your phone, you are probably
still going to need a mac to develop apps. Keep in mind that a lot of
apps Apple rejected from the appstore end up in the cydia jailbreak
store. There's of course web apps and tweaks that can perhaps be
written in straight c or html+some sort of API on windows, but you are
still going to need a mac for any serious stuff. Furthermore, last
year it has been decided that jailbreaking is in fact legal.
Installing cracked apps is not, of course, but jailbreaking is. After
all, you should be allowed to do whatever the heck you wish with your
device no? You bought it. While it is true that apple does adhere to
the interface guidelines, it does not mean that the jailbreak
community would like to see controls laid out in a haphazard way, it
will just have the same effect.
- simulator: The simulator in xCode 3.x is actually not accessible at
all, and voiceOver cannot be toggled on. In xCode 4, the simulator is
somewhat accessible, meaning you can navigate your UI using the mac's
voiceOver. Not the voiceOver that comes built into IOS.
For xCode 4.x however you already need to pay for a developer
subscription I believe.
- laying out GUI's: InterfaceBuilder is, both in xCode 3 and 4, as
good as completely inaccessible when it comes to actual control
layout. You can bring up some properties most of the time, but that's
it. There is indeed a way to do it in code but it is rather
masochistic and should be avoided if possible. At least, that is how
people describe it on conventional cocoa lists. For IOS however, it is
our only way. Try finding documentation about xCode before
interfaceBuilder was created. It's a while ago, but might help you
find the guiding to create UI's by code. For Mac OS, there is the
ernaissanceX framework to do xml-GUI's. Sort of like how wpf handles
things with its xaml. This does not exist for IOS yet but I believe
it's being worked on.
Good luck,
Florian
2011/6/30, Kerneels Roos <kerneels@xxxxxxxxx>:
> Hi,
> This is something I really would like to try also, but it's quite a
> mission. See my comments below, I'll tell you as much as I know.
>
> On 6/30/2011 7:12 AM, Littlefield, Tyler wrote:
>> Hello all:
>> I was kind of curious what all it takes to get IOS development
>> working. The process looks rather lengthy and requires you stand on
>> your head while singing the national anthem backwards and making
>> faces. What sort of issues have people ran into while creating IOS
>> applications?
> Yeah, you can't just download a SDK and get cracking. I believe if you
> do jailbrake development it is far simpler since the SDKs is cross
> platform and you can very easily get the app onto your device
> (jailbraked of course). I think the whole jailbrake thing is illegal and
> obviously no hope for the App Store there.
> It looks to me like the *right* way to go about things is like this:
> 1. Get an INTEL, note INTEL based Mac as recent as possible.
> 1.5. Learn how to use VoiceOver on the Mac.
> 2. Use your Mac to register for free as a developer at developer.apple.com.
> 3. Download the Xcode + iOS bundle of about 4 GB unless your Mac is very
> recent and came with it installed or on a DVD.
> 4. Install Xcode and IOS SDK.
> 5. Use Xcode and help docs and examples to create a first app.
> 5.5. Learn ObjectiveC and the Cocoa and Cocoa Touch APIs.
> 6. Test it on the simulator.
> 7. Upgrade your free developer account to a paid for one -- I think it's
> $99 per year.
> 8. Use the certificate you get from Apple to sign your app and actually
> get it onto a iOS device for real testing.
>
> As you can see, quite a process.
> There is however another way.
> * Web Apps
> * Adobe Flex via the Flex SDK (free) or Flex / Flash Builder which runs
> on Windows also.
> Apparently it's possible to create fully installable Flex apps for iOS
> devices and there are many successful such apps on the App Store.
> This is made possible by Apple relaxing the license agreement last
> September allowing developers to use other tools for development and
> signing. I suspect the Flex solution is actually at it's core a Web Kit
> browser running HTML5, JavaScript and CSS type web apps, and that you
> then don't have full access to what the phone or pad can do, yet it's
> still a stand alone app that people can buy on the app store.
>
>> How do you lay out controls so that they look ok for someone who is
>> sighted? Does the IOS simulator work on the mac?
>
> I'm positive the iOS simulator works on the mac, probably to such an
> extent that you can enable VoiceOver on the actual simulator. As to GUI
> screen layouts I don't know if the designer part of the Xcode suite is
> accessible -- probably not. You would probably be able to do the layout
> by hand, by code, but keep in mind if your aim is the App Store that
> Apple has interface design guidelines or rather requirements which you
> have to comply by else they won't accept your app.
>>
>>
>
> --
> Kerneels Roos
> Cell: +27 (0)82 309 1998
> Skype: cornelis.roos
>
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