Beginning iPhone Development 216
Cory Foy writes "When my wife got a Touch several months back, the first thing I wanted to do was build some applications for it. Who wouldn't want to play with a device that has accelerometers, position sensors and multi-touch gestures? But being new to the Mac world, I needed something to help guide me along. Beginning iPhone Development aims to be that guide. But does it live up to the challenge of teaching a newbie Mac and iPhone developer?" Read below for the rest of Cory's review.
The first thing you'll need to do is head over to the Apple Developers Site and register for an account. You can then download the iPhone API. Note that while the API download and simulator are free — deploying to a real iPhone or iTouch is not, even if it is your own. To do that you have to apply to the iPhone Developer Program which is $99. For the book, you'll be fine with just the simulator with the exception of any accelerometer application, since the simulator doesn't have that feature.| Beginning iPhone Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK | |
| author | Dave Mark, Jeff LaMarche |
| pages | 536 |
| publisher | Apress |
| rating | Five $1000 Rubies |
| reviewer | Cory Foy |
| ISBN | 978-1-4302-1626-1 |
| summary | A great introduction to the iPhone SDK and getting into iPhone Development |
With that out of the way, I was quite impressed with the book. Although I've done quite a bit of development in the past, I haven't worked with Objective-C before, and was a little concerned if I would be in over my head. If you are in that position, don't fear — the authors do a great job of walking you through, and you'll find yourself working with it in no time.
The first chapters introduce you to the basics of the iPhone and development, starting with the canonical "Hello, World" application. The book walks you through how to get and install Xcode and the iPhone API. It then introduces you to Interface Builder, the partner-in-crime to Xcode. Even in the first chapter, the authors show their attention to detail, explaining common issues you might run into (like trying to Build and Run while your iPhone or iTouch is plugged in to your Mac).
Chapter 3 introduces the Model-View-Controller paradigm, a pattern that is probably one of the most misunderstood patterns in UI development. They give you enough information to be familiar with the terms you'll be using, and they very much mean it when they tell you not to worry if you aren't understanding something — they always loop back around to make sure you understand it.
Chapter 4 was a long chapter for me, but introduces some important concepts around user interaction and controls. By the end, you have an interface which has a variety of controls which interact with each other. As with the other chapters, the authors introduce tips and tricks to make things easier (for example, Option->Cmd->Up Arrow to switch from the header to implementation file in Xcode).
Chapter 5 covers autorotation and basic animations, including linking in the Core Graphics Framework. I especially like how the authors gave three different ways of making your app auto-rotation aware, describing the benefits and drawbacks of each. Chapter 6 follows this up by introducing multi-view interfaces, something very necessary as you get into more complex iPhone development.
Chapters 7-9 describe various methods to presenting information to users, including toolbars, table views, hierarchical navigation and hierarchical lists. However, it isn't all drag-n-drop, the authors get into some good (and sometimes deep) conversations about what you are doing. For example, in Chapter 8, they talk about issues with NSDictionary and how to create deep mutable copies.
Chapters 10-13 are the last of the "fundamentals" — application settings, basic data management, custom drawing using Quartz and Open GL, and taking inputs (including gestures and multi-touch). As someone who spends most of his time as far away from graphics libraries as possible, I was quite impressed with the basics that were introduced and what someone like me could get up and running.
Finally we get into the fun. Chapter 14 introduces Core Location, allowing to figure out where in the world you are. The book goes through a discussion about the various ways to get location information, and drawbacks of each. (Helpful tip: no matter which method, if you are polling every second, you'll drain the battery pretty quickly). For the simulator-only users, this is when things start to become tricky. Chapter 14 does work, though you aren't prompted for access to Core Location.
Chapter 15, however, is useless without an actual phone, even though it's perhaps the most fun. In this chapter, the book goes through the accelerometer and all the interesting things you can do with it. There's even a small discussion on the physics (but just enough!). Both apps you create (Shake and Break and the Marble game) are quite fun for someone just starting out with all of this. It's a shame Apple couldn't figure out a way yet to include the accelerometer in the simulator.
Chapter 16 covers using the iPhone camera and Photo Library. It's short, but it shows the power of the simple interfaces Apple provides. In just 9 pages you'll be capturing images right from the iPhone.
The final two chapters I thought were quite fitting — Localization and Follow-Ups. In the localization chapter, the book covers extracting strings out to resource files and using locale to read them in. Having a day job which ships our software in 12 different languages, I know first-hand how difficult localization can be to get right, so I was glad to see this chapter. The final chapter is just a wrap-up of resources you can reach out to for help and information.
All in all I was very surprised and pleased with the book. I've had the fortune of reading many technical books, and few do a great job of walking someone through the basics without making them feel like a dolt. It felt like every time I was stuck or unsure there was a tip, hint or paragraph which explained what was going on.
The main drawback to me is the fee to deploy apps to your own phone. This wasn't something I ran into doing either J2ME or Windows Mobile apps in the past, and it is a shame that to even work on your own phone you have to pay a fee. However, since the fee does give you the ability to submit apps to the App Store, then I guess it's a consolation. I'd rather Apple lock deployments to one iPhone (or iTouch) for the truly casual people who just want to do interesting things on their own phone.
In summary, I give this book five $1000 Rubys for making a clean, concise, easy-to-read and follow introduction to iPhone development. Great job guys!
You can purchase Beginning iPhone Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews — to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
iTouch what? (Score:2, Funny)
What the hell is an iTouch? Sounds like something from a sex store.
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They are a UK based company with a logo that the designer obviously didn't think carefully about... http://www.itouch.co.uk/ [itouch.co.uk]
A company I used to work for was acquired by them.
Objective-C, not too bad... (Score:5, Informative)
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Best hand-holder? He gave his wife an iTouch. They're beyond hand-holding, know what I mean, know what I mean, nudge nudge, say no more?
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I've coded a fair amount in both languages: in fact I coded in both languages before breakfast this morning, and I cannot imagine thinking that it was easier to learn C++. I've been paid to write C++ for 12 years and template notation still confuses me.
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Re:The C Programming Disease (Score:5, Informative)
1. The language discussed is Objective C, not C.
2. If no one programs in languages like C, you can say goodbye to modern computing. There's no way you're going to program an operating system in Python.
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Say it as often as you want but some people will try [jtauber.com].
Re:The C Programming Disease (Score:4, Interesting)
Unfortunately Objective-C is designed such that it combines the worst parts of C with the worst parts of dynamic languages, so your point doesn't really hold. Method dispatch is all dynamic, and in the best case seems to be twice as slow as a C++ vcall. But it only gets that speed by building runtime dispatch caches, ie, trading off memory against CPU. On phones memory is also very limited.
It really is an amazingly stupid language. I am not surprised no-one except Apple uses it. This is the language that thinks it's a good idea to redefine boolean to be YES and NO.
That sort of weird syntax quirk is not a big deal though, it's just a time-waster. The real problems start when you realize that calling a method on a NULL object doesn't crash. Instead it returns zero, another NULL or if the method returns a struct, garbage. So what would be a clean kill with a nice stack trace in any sane language in Objective-C turns into silent propagation through your code of NULL pointers and zeros, until you save state and blow away the users data.
On the iPhone there's no garbage collection. Yes it's back to the days of ref counting, whoopie-doo. The best they have to offer is a kludge called an "auto release pool", which basically just scopes lifetime to the current GUI event. Pretty useless for anything that lasts longer than a button push. It also massively complicates exception handling due to the rules around how auto-release pools stack (yes really [apple.com]).
Then there's the lack of features. No namespaces. No abstract classes. No stack allocation thus no RAII. No operator overloading. No generics, really no type safety at all (calling a non-existant method is a warning not an error). Your code is trivial to decompile. And of course the only really supported development environment is a Mac.
Java might be a stupid language to use on a phone as well, but seriously, I'll take that kind of stupid any day over Objective-C.
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From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objective-C)
"Objective-C, like Smalltalk, can use dynamic typing: an object can be sent a message that is not specified in its interface. This can allow for increased flexibility â" in Objective-C an object can "capture" this message, and depending on the object, can send the message off again to a different object (who can respond to the message correctly and appropriately, or likewise send the message on again). This behavior is known as message forwarding
Re:The C Programming Disease (Score:4, Informative)
It does, but I think the OP point was that "nil" effectively implements all methods and returns 0, nil, or 0XDEADBEEF1374, like a bottom class without the semantic consistency of languages with true bottom types.
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C++ only does that if you are trying to pass classes by value, which is almost always a bad idea. I agree it's unintuitive but then a lot of C++ is, you don't lose anything if you simply never pass subclasses by value. If you use references the whole problem disappears.
Re:The C Programming Disease (Score:4, Informative)
Personally I find Objective C really rather neat. Of course it undoubtably helps that I grew up with C and can hack it upside down and backwards. I never really used C++ to anything like the same degree (having moved on to other things) and so when I started playing around with the iPhone recently this was my first taste of Objective C.
It's syntax really is weird I agree, but once you get past that - and it's no worse than many other languages - it's just hunky dory. Certainly the freedom of not having C++'s bondage style language features and ridiculous complexity really is rather refreshing. And no gabage-collection - well if you're just coding something the size of an iPhone app and you can't handle your own garbage then really you should go stick to visual basic in a nice safe environment.
Objective-C: dynamic language with access to C (Score:4, Informative)
There are many resources available for iPhone/Cocoa programmers. The earliest versions of Cocoa shipped commercially in 1988, and the most used features and patterns haven't changed much. Here is a good place to start: http://www.cocoadev.com/index.pl?CocoaPrerequisites [cocoadev.com]
Why does Objective-C use BOOl and YES,NO instead of bool and true/false? One reason is that Objective-C predates the addition of the bool type to standard C by 11 years.
If you don't like dynamic languages, you won't like Objective-C. Bruce Eckel makes an interesting argument for dynamic languages at http://www.mindview.net/WebLog/log-0025 [mindview.net].
I think the ability to seamlessly use and intermix the world of C and C++ software with Objective-C outweighs and criticism that Objective-C includes C.
You must keep an open mind - There are an infinite number of different ways to solve every programming problem. Many programming languages and reusable software libraries use different approaches to solve common problems. There is a good chance that Objective-C and Cocoa use a substantially different approach from other languages and frameworks you may have used. That doesn't make either approach better or worse automatically. Every commercial software development technology has advantages in at least some cases or the technology would not exist. Cocoa is renowned for enabling very high programmer productivity without constraining the set of problems that can be solved, but programmer's opinions will always vary and software development environments are subject to aesthetic judgments irrespective of abstract technical merit. Many programmers are enthralled by Objective-C and Cocoa. You might be enthralled too. Or, you may never like Objective-C and Cocoa from an aesthetic standpoint, and there isn't really anything anyone can do to change that without affecting the aesthetics for others.
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Actually, I agree with the original poster on many points, and it's more than aesthetics. While I love Interface Builder, Objective-C development is like pulling teeth. Things don't fail fast, the compiler catches way fewer bugs up-front, and it's a much harder language to introspect and offer lint-like analysis on than many modern languages. To someone who develops in Java all day, Objective-C is like having teeth pulled. I put up with it because I really like the iPhone, but Apple would be doing way b
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Let me try to explain to people who don't run companies real quickly why Objective-C is really appealing to apple by asking several questions.
Who drives the Objective-C language spec? Who drives the Objective-C runtime? Who does Apple need to ask permissions from to make modifications to the language or runtime? Ok then.
Let's pretend for a moment Apple decides to switch to Java. Who drives the Java language spec? Who drives the Java runtimes? Who would apple need to ask permissions from to make modificatio
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Sounds like you really didn't use Objective-C/Cocoa long enough to even remotely start to grok it.
- Runtime dispatch caches: what, you think all those vtables that C++ generates don't take up memory?
- Definition of boolean: Objective-C & Cocoa were around long before C added a proper bool type, so yes, they used typedef char, just like every other C framework in existence.
- Messaging null: different, but neither a wholelot worse nor better. If you care about propagation of return values, you'd best be
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* Going out and buying an overpriced Mac that is useless for anything other than running the Apple devtools
You can build a cheap Intel box out of spare parts and run a hacked copy of Mac OS X on it.
* Having to waste time hooking up monitor and keyboard switches to your work environment just for the Mac hardware
See my comment above.
* Wasting time learning Objective C that no other company uses except Apple
If someone's only goal is to write for Apple, and that's the world they live in, then that is a viable option to them. If its not for you, go about your life and leave them alone. They will live or die with their platform of choice.
* Having your application be at the total whim of Apple who could at any moment or for any reason decide to reject your app or pull your app from the Apple store
This comes down to a business decision. If you are a company (even if you're just an individual developer), you have to real
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Actually, you can do all sorts of things with a Mac - it's a general purpose computer.
It's not a waste of time if you can make some money out of the apps you write with it.
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That was a good article for me. I have the iPhone Dev Kit, have signed up for the developer program and paid my fee, and purchased the book reviewed above. Unfortunately, having not done any Mac development before, and not really getting Objective-C at all, it's been rough getting started. But I'm a passable C# programmer, and may just switch my efforts to Mono. I don't expect to develop anything that requires "to-the-metal" performance, so if the Mono business causes a little loss in performance, so be
Code-Signing (Score:3, Informative)
> Note that while the API download and simulator are free â" deploying to a real iPhone or iTouch is not, even if it is your own.
Not necessarily true. There are ways to circument [246tnt.com] the code-signing.
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There are ways to circument [246tnt.com] the code-signing.
Apparently, there are also ways to circumvent the letter "v".
API? (Score:3, Funny)
You can then download the iPhone API
I was under the impression that this was called a SDK, and not an API?
Then again, maybe I am just being Lord Pedantro the Quarrelsome.
First Step (Score:5, Informative)
Re:First Step (Score:5, Insightful)
As opposed to developing for Windows Mobile, where one can create applications just by thinking them into existence? Oh wait, I have to buy a PC to do WM development! Bummer.
Re:First Step (Score:5, Insightful)
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Given that there is a greater than 90% chance that a person wanting to jump into Windows Mobile development will already have a machine capable of doing the development, and a less than 10% chance that a person wanting to jump into iPhone development will already have a Mac capable of doing the development means that the OP has a very valid point.
Sorry, you're not being logical here. I very much doubt that those specific groups of developers have computer ownership patterns that match the general population's. Also, buying a new computer is a very different sort of "barrier" to a developer than the general populace - the kind of barrier that might be called an "incentive" or an "excuse".
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His right, indeed. And what to the other 0.009% own, in your estimation?
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Theres probably a 90% chance that any machine capable of developing a vista app is probably more than capable of running OS X well enough to develop an iPhone app, assuming you don't mind futzing with OS X enough to get it to boot on your pc (which may be as simple as downloading an install image for most people now days).
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You don't work with stats regularly, or you would realise how wrong you are.
Or do you think that there is exactly the same chance of a developer for Windows getting into iPhone development, as it is for a Mac Developer? Or do you think it is more likely that a Mac Developer, who already knows objective-c, Xcode, Quartz, mac development, would get into iphone? Since it would take a few hours for a Mac Developer to produce an iphone app, I think that they would be much more likely.
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10% chance?
Since when were computers randomly distributed among people?
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Well, I just built an iPhone app (http://www.pharceapp.com) and I had to buy a MacBook Pro to do it.
I agree there's a correlation between people using Macs and people writing code for iPhones, but it's nowhere near 100%.
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"Given that there is a greater than 90% chance that a person wanting to jump into Windows Mobile development will already have a machine capable of doing the development..."
Actually, you're correct that I already own a machine that can do Windows Mobile development. It's a 24" iMac that runs XP under Parallels.
And given that much "development" these days is for the web, you might be surprised at the number of developers who own Macs vs. Windows boxes. The 90% number is the general population as a whole, and
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Even if you assume the developer already has free access to MS Windows, MS Visual Studio is not cheap by any standard for personal software development.
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Is there something about Bootcamp that prevents you from doing WM development on a Mac?
That being said, he never said or really implied that WM development would be different. He was just commenting on the topic.
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I would, however, be willing to paying $50 to someone who can tell me how to reliable compile Windows Mobile 6.x - ARM programs using OS X (Intel and/or PPC) native programs. Email in profile.
The Rules (Score:2)
Start with a large one.
Not any Mac... (Score:2)
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I have an N810 and I can write applications in c, c++, python, shell scripts, assembling or fucking BINARY for that matter!
It's time for mobile companies to stop trying to control hardware they have already sold. Would you buy a car if you knew that you were forbidden from changing the engine or using a no-name-brand oil???
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There are also 2 (read that Apple, TWO) on screen keyboards to chose from. One is 1/3 the screen, the other is full-screen (with a text-box in the top-left corner).
As for the physical keyboard, it is VERY handy (I use it 80% of the time). I can "almost" touch-type on it, but I find I end up using only my index through middle-finger
Re:First Step (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the big disconnect between the average open source, linux geek and the general public is that the general public likes treating computers and computer based products as appliances that just work.
The whole walled garden approach has worked out pretty well for Apple with the iPod and iPhone. If that doesn't fit your needs though, that's fine. Just don't assume that it isn't the best choice for anyone else because of your needs or opinions.
The difference between what Apple is doing with the iPhone and what the cell companies are doing is that Apple is attempting to provide a user focused UI. Whereas the cell companies are trying to figure out how to charge for as much as possible for anything on their network.
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Whereas the cell companies are trying to figure out how to charge for as much as possible for anything on their network.
And Apple isn't? They signed an exclusivity agreement with AT&T, then added code to their devices to enforce it. They also require $100 to develop software (even if you don't release it), then take 30% from EVERY sale on the store.
Face it, Apple is just as bad as the companies who run the networks that their phones run on.
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It was a five-year exclusivity contract in order to get the phone out the door. Carriers are notorious for refusing to put phones on their network unless there's something in it for them. Remember the Razr craze a few years ago? It's was exclusive to Cingular for the first year and a half or so. Then they started unlocking them, and now you can get them on Verizon and AT&T, etc.
It's because the cellphone service market is a sad oligopolis. Your carrier doesn't give a damn about the quality of their
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then you need the phone
Obviously it would be better to have the phone, or an iPod Touch, but the SDK does come with an iPhone emulator. It's not essential to have the device.
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I wonder if the latest news items about the "kids" making $40k in two days for iFart and $100k in a couple of months for iSteam isn't just Apple propaganda so that devs fork out for macs.
Accelerometer (Score:5, Informative)
It's possible to link up an iPhone's accelerometer to the simulator, and it's also possible to link up the accelerometer in a MacBook to the simulator as well. More details here [blogspot.com]. Honestly, though, it's probably easier to just jailbreak your iPhone.
Interface Builder (Score:5, Interesting)
The biggest problem I've had so far is Interface Builder. It isn't the most intuitive piece of software. Dragging and dropping to connect button actions to methods between two pieces of software (XCode and Interface Builder) that don't actively sync with one another, at least not as I've yet to find.
I already had the C/C++ and GUI/fat client app building experience from 10 years back.
+fragbait
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Last time I used XCode/Interface builder, a method added in XCode would show up in IB as soon as you saved the .h file that declared it.
Fairly bizarre (Score:5, Informative)
Interface Builder is fairly bizarre, but it starts to make sense after a while. It does. Really.
My primary reference for iPhone development has been Erica Sadun's [ericasadun.com] book, but I may pick this one up too.
BTW: people may bitch about code signing, but Apple gave me my signature when I asked for it. This is minor compared with what was necessary when my employers wanted to do Brew [qualcomm.com] development. I considered going the jailbreak route, but ended up not doing so.
...laura
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Re:Interface Builder (Score:4, Informative)
Dragging and dropping to connect button actions to methods between two pieces of software (XCode and Interface Builder) that don't actively sync with one another
Your experience is a bit outdated. Starting in Leopard, they do sync actively.
iTouch (Score:5, Insightful)
iTouch [itouch.co.uk] is the name of a UK company that provides mobile content. They were around a long time before the iPod touch but lost top spot in Google to Apple despite the fact they don't make a product of that name.
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(Notice: I'm the reviewer)
iDang it. iI'm iSorry. iI iGot iToo iCaught iUp iIn iIing iEverything.
- iCory
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Agreed. This guy doesn't even have the name of [sic] hte product right! It's an iPod touch, NOT an iTouch.
Sadly, many people still call the damn things "iTouch". Sure, it's not really correct, but it's pseudo-accepted lingo by a lot of iPhone/iPod Touch users.
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I think "iTouch" makes a great brand for a baseball bat :-) Especially one designed for home security.
iPhone SDK training (Score:3, Informative)
Picked this up three days ago. (Score:2, Informative)
Qt Even here? (Score:2)
Does anyone know what the state of Qt is on the iPhone? I figure the core classes are ok, but does it use the same Carbon/Cocoa APIs?
I'd love to use Qt just so I don't need to learn a whole other development platform
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Honestly? Qt on a phone? I hate having to have it on a desktop machine, let alone potentially on my person.
That aside, Cocoa's UI API isn't hard to learn. It's dead easy. The code goes into the method files, you declare it in the header files, you point the buttons at the bit of code to execute using a point-and-click interface. And it's less of a pain than Qt.
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You don't want to see Qt on a phone?
Please don't Google for the words: Qt Nokia :-)
First barrier (Score:2, Insightful)
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So why do you need to do your high-end Photoshop work on the same machine you use for programming? Sure, it might be a -little- quicker, but networking makes a whole world of difference.
A Mac mini could be just fine for XCode work for most people, and what exactly is your definition of high-end Photoshop work? And a learning curve coming from XP to OSX? That's like a couple hours.
Sure, there's a learning curve to XCode, but it's not as steep as people who have never touched it think. Join the ADC for free,
multi-touch gestures (Score:2)
When I read about the accelerometers, position sensors and multi-touch gestures, of course I thought you were referring to your wife...
Reinvigorated (Score:4, Interesting)
I have to say that this book, which I picked up last week, has really given me a kick in the pants as far as getting back into programming. I haven't hardly done a damn thing since college in '02, and since I went to a pretty craptastic school that doesn't mean much.
MS Visual C++ really made programming a slog, compared to the IDE that Apple came up with for XCode. I'm just a couple chapters into the book now, but all in all I'm really enjoying the process of programming again for the first time since GW-BASIC. I can understand why a lot of people here (especially here) complain about having to buy a Mac, having to use XCode, having to do things Apple's way but for something like the iPhone and iPod Touch development I can't imagine a better route.
This is for the most part a very good book, at least for my rusty brain, but it definitely needs some kind of Objective-C accompaniment if you're not familiar with the language and want to do more than just follow instructions. Well worth the money.
And again, to those people complaining about XCode and doing things Apple's way, dig around the ADC site and you'll see that Apple's learned a hell of a lot since the days when CodeWarrior was the only hope for a Mac developer's sanity.
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I find using XCode a much more pleasant experience that Visual Studio, and I have been programming PCs since MS-Dos 3.2. There are a few annoying things, like the error messages could be improved, and you need to restart it every few days.
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This is for the most part a very good book, at least for my rusty brain, but it definitely needs some kind of Objective-C accompaniment if you're not familiar with the language and want to do more than just follow instructions.
The co-author recommends Learn Objective-C on the Mac [blogspot.com] as just such an accompaniment.
Why bother with all of that? (Score:2)
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Sadly, this works.
I hate you iFart. As an iPhone dev, I hate you and your top 100 charting feats.
buying a second Touch (Score:2)
Picked up another, but similar book, to get started with iPhone / iTouch programming. Besides the horrible way that Apple wants to control how you deploy "your own software" on "your own device", what puts me off even more was the statement that you shouldn't expect that you can use the Touch used for testing your software, for normal operations anymore. As they noted it "the software environment will write to the Touch, which can make it unusable for normal use".
Is this really true? Having to pay $99 is on
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There is nothing sacred about a simple 'Hello World' application.
I was told by my first C instructor that if we didn't do a Hello, World! application first, we would be thrown to the lowest depths of programming hell. I had no interest in taking such a risk at the time.
Danger overated (Score:3, Funny)
Not doing "Hello World" is no where near as dangerous as using GOTO [xkcd.com]!
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If you have to pay a corporation a single dollar for the permission to program, you are doing it wrong. How does Apple get a free pass for this kind of shit?
Note that while the API download and simulator are free â" deploying to a real iPhone or iTouch is not, even if it is your own. To do that you have to apply to the iPhone Developer Program which is $99.
You don't have to pay a single cent to program. You have to register... But the SDK is completely free. Anyone can download it.
What you do have to pay for is distributing your software to live hardware. Apple uses code signing much like you see on consoles like the Xbox and PlayStation. If you aren't worried about distributing to other people you can always just jailbreak your device... Then you don't even have to pay for the code signing.
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You can do limited ad-hoc distribution, you can distribute the source code or you can choose to pay them $99 to use the app store. Not ideal but a lot better than how a lot of people think it is.
/Mikael
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It is my understanding that you are wrong. Can you provide any sort of citation?
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Try using Google, "iphone ad-hoc distribution" should give you all the info you need.
/Mikael
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"ad-hoc distribution" apparently lets one beta test on up to 100 (pre-identified) iPhones, instead of just one. As widely understood (by everyone but you) you still can't put code on your own iPhone without paying $99, nor can you give someone code without inv
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"limited" was the important part, it's easy to be too optimistic somtimes, doesn't make it trolling. :-)
Perhaps you wanted some way to distribute/sell outside the controll of Apple?
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The original poster (ghandi_2) bemoaned the inability to put code on his own device without paying Apple more money. mikael_j claimed this was actually possible - specifically describing ad hoc distribution as an alternative to paying the $99. That surprised me, so I asked for a reference. His response: "Try using Google". I did. He's wrong. Saying that without having done it yourself: Troll.
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I personally think you should be able to run any app for free on any phone without paying Apple anything. But let's not pretend that people developing for personal use must pay $99.
/ Or pretend that development for equivalent platforms -- like Windows Mobile -- doesn't require you to purchase $600+ in software from the platform vendor.
Re:stop stop stop (Score:5, Funny)
Dear Apple Legal,
We don't care.
Signed,
Your Consumers
Apple Legal's Reply (Score:2)
Dear Sir, Madam, or Troll;
If you don't care, then you're not our customer anyway. As such...
We don't care.
Sincerely,
Apple Legal
Re:Apple Legal's Reply (Score:5, Funny)
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I'm wondering if this is just a few ACs trolling the hell out of the place.
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J2ME doesn't run on the iPhone
That would be one cold, cold day in hell wouldn't it?
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Erm... I call it an iTouch. It's a good name (if it wasn't already in use I'm sure apple would have used it). I and my friends have no use for the services of the company called iTouch, so we aren't going to get confused for any reason. I know iTouch is technically incorrect, but contrary to the AC that posted before me in response to this, I'm not a "moron", i just like the name iTouch better, and everyone still knows what I'm talking about.
-Taylor
The French have a different word for *everything* (Score:2)
Yes, Gary? (Score:2)
Yes, Gary, you can go to the bathroom.
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