The iPhone/iPod Touch that is able to tell people where you are. Now that’s cool.

Pin Point Premium is the all new interface, built using the latest code – so we couldn’t do an upgrade unfortunately. But it is worth it – You can now find your current location on the cleanest and simplest interface possible. Simply map your current location, or that of an address you enter in the address entry field. Your current Geolocation data is displayed on-screen as well and updates constantly. You can also send that location to your Twitter account. This all new version is Version 1.50, and is under constant development. Updates are now done using the latest code to match your iPhone, and at all times the app will be kept to the simplest interface possible. The design is for maximum simplicity allowing speed of use – well, as fast as the Internet allows. Where ever you are you can see it at a glance and report back to family or friends, or even your business.

The main screen now has some new buttons. The most obvious one is the [Tweet It] button. This is a great option, and one that can be used to report your location directly to your family or friends, even your boss.

If you want an individual Twitter account, register it with Twitter, for example your family, ‘aslambie’ – becoming @aslambie. Maybe your workplace, @myworkplace, maybe your travel record, @myoverseastrip – the ideas are actually endless as you think about them.

Where ever you are and there is an internet connection, either through the Internet directly, or through the cell/mobile network, you can use PinPointPremium on your iPhone. Try it – select [Map Current Location] and it will show you exactly where you are. Great, but how do you tell Mum where you are? Now this is the fun bit, because in the past you couldn’t send this to anyone, only try and describe it over the phone. An impossible task. Now, just press [Tweet It] and the current geolocation will be sent to your nominated twitter account. And you only have to login in to Twitter once, and the app remembers it. Your Mother, Father, friend, or husband/wife, whoever has access to the Twitter account has simply to click on the link sent to Twitter, and it shows them exactly where you are – or were at the time of sending, with a date stamp on the Tweet.

Keep a record of your overseas trips, your trips across your own country or simply your trips to town or the next county.

Give the family peace of mind, if you are out on the town, you can report your location at any time. Car broken down beside the road? Report your location to your family to come pick you up. Lost? Tell someone where you are so they can rescue you.

Also on the screen now is a small button on the lower right with an ‘i’ – for Information. This is simply a brief description about the program, its current version, and who wrote it.

On the lower left is a small red ‘r’ button. With that you can open a new login to a different Twitter account. Simple to use, pressing this button brings up a small instruction screen with two buttons – New, or Cancel.

If you select New it clears the internal cache then disappears. Next time you press Tweet It, you are asked to validate a new login to your selected Twitter account. If you select Cancel, the screen clears and you proceed as normal.

So simple even kids can do it.

The design is for ultra simplicity, and is based on tried and proven code examples. Watch for the updates over the coming months. Questions, comments, suggestions, and support are all available from the author.

Go to the app store today.

PinPoint v1. Basic model that just takes you to Google Maps, with your location, or input address mapped.

Pin Point Premium being released within the next week or so – allows you to send a Tweet to your Twitter account to tell people where you are at any time.

Be easy to find.

Which bar are you in? What street are you on? What city are you in? In which country ?

Matthew

CEO of MWFPRO

mwfpro@Hotmail.com

If I helped you, you can say thank you by leaving a donation 

Http://mwfpro.webs.com

http://twitter.com/#!/mwfproapps

Matthew has the patience of a saint, and will help you every step of the way. Nothing is too much trouble for Matthew in ensuring that your app reaches the store for you.

Develop you apps on a PC, using Adobe Flash in one of it’s many versions. Create the .ipa file, and send that to Matthew with $20, and he will upload it to the app store via his Mac. Great stuff.

He has done two for me now.

PinPoint

And

PinPointPremium

I strongly recommend his service.

How to Make an iPhone App: Part One

Gain fame and fortune: become an iPhone app mogul

By Dave Prochnow Posted 02.26.2009 at 1:21 pm47 Comments

See part two on coding your App.

Love it or hate it, it’s tough to argue about the success of the Apple App Store. While this venture might be a successful cash cow business model for Apple, how does business fare for the app developer? Pretty good, it turns out.

One of the poster children for successful app development is Joel Comm. Or, as he is better known, the developer of iFart. The sales claims for this little app blew away the competition, with sales of 113,885 downloads during a two-week period in December 2008.

Granted, there are a couple of corners that you could cut for reducing development costs. You could be a rogue developer and rely solely on the iPhone SDK iPhone Simulator for your app testing. You could harvest the extensive library of Apple sample apps for your code. You could just“blow on your arm” for your app content. Even after all of these cost-saving efforts, however, you are still going to need an Intel-based Mac and a subscription to the Apple iPhone Developer Program.

My first attempt at creating an iPhone app dev system was housed on a 16GB CompactFlash media card. There are many sites that will guide you through this process. Unfortunately, this system wasn’t stable enough to reliably code a major iPhone app.

How to Make an iPhone App: Part One

Gain fame and fortune: become an iPhone app mogul

By Dave ProchnowPosted 02.26.2009 at 1:21 pm47 Comments

• Apple Mac mini (Intel model ONLY) (B&H Photo #APMM18C; $574.95)
  
• Western Digital 250GB hard drive (Amazon.com #WD2500BEVS; $60.98)
  
• (2) Kingston 1GB PC2-5300 SDRAM (Amazon.com #KVR667D2SO/1GR; $25.98)
  
• TRENDnet USB to PS/2 converter (Amazon.com #TU-PS2; $8.87) [NOTE: this cable is occasionally "flaky" during recovery from Mac OS X "sleep." You might need to unplug the keyboard and reinsert the PS/2 plug for recovery.]
  
• IBM mouse (BG Micro #ACS1422; $2.99) [NOTE: although, "new" these mice vary in quality. One of mine failed out of the box.]
  
• Fujitsu keyboard (salvaged from HSC #80797; $99.00) or try: (All Electronics #KBD-22; $5.00) or this: (BG Micro #ACS1516; $5.99)
  
• Lilliput 7-inch touchscreen monitor (CarLCD.net #619GL-70NP/C/T; $245.00) NOTE: Sure, a24-inch monitor ($349) would be much nicer, but this lil’ ol’ monitor provides a touchscreen input, which can be useful during testing with the iPhone SDK iPhone Simulator. You can download the Mac OS X Intel driver for this touchscreen monitor from EETI.
  

• OWC Mercury SuperDrive optical drive (MacSales; $89.99) [NOTE: this upgrade is not needed for iPhone app development.]
  

At a minimum, you will need one iPhone 3G ($199) and one iPod touch ($220). There is a provision in the Apple iPhone Developer Program, however, for adding external “testers” to your dev system.

In order to help you with your Mac mini disassembly, download these additional photographs that illustrate the below steps.

Stay tuned, our next episode will cover the installation and operation of the Apple iPhone SDK.

How to Make an iPhone App: Part Two

Building a great app: that’s the objective, see?

By Dave ProchnowPosted 03.11.2009 at 9:06 am10 Comments

The third and final installment in this series takes our App to market, err, the App Store.

In the first part of this series, we covered the “nuts and bolts” for assembling a workable iPhone app development platform. Now that our desktop is cluttered with a mess of cables, it’s time to roll up our sleeves and start cobbling some code together.

1. Become a Registered iPhone Developer. This one’s free. Yup, go do it now; then you’ll be able to download the free iPhone SDK (software development kit; at this time the latest version is 2.2.1). Please note, as mentioned in the first part of this series, you must also have an Intel-based Mac and Mac OS X 10.5.5 for using this iPhone SDK. Furthermore, you will have to make a choice between being either a single-entity developer (e.g., Dave Prochnow) or a corporate developer (e.g., Microsoft Corporation). If you elect to pursue the corporate route, you will be asked to furnish documentation of incorporation (e.g., a Federal TIN, partnership, LLC, or S corporation documentation).

2. Subscribe to the iPhone Developer Program. This subscription will cost you either $99 (plus sales tax!) for the Standard Program, or $299 for the Enterprise Program. Most folks will easily fit into the Standard Program $99 subscription. After you’ve made your choice, you’ll be whisked to the Apple Store, where a credit card transaction will have you quickly subscribed to the iPhone Developer Program for one year.

How to Make an iPhone App: Part Two

Building a great app: that’s the objective, see?

By Dave ProchnowPosted 03.11.2009 at 9:06 am10 Comments

How to Make an iPhone App: Part Three

You thought coding was hard; now it’s time to get your app approved

By Dave ProchnowPosted 03.26.2009 at 6:21 am5 Comments

DIY, Dave Prochnow, App, apple, dave prochnow, iphone, ipod touch, iTunes App Store, mac mini, projects, RingsTrue, sdk

1. Application name: RingsTrue
   
2. Application description (keep it around 700 characters; remember it’s the Internet age and people don’t read anymore): A musical name game based on Musikalisches Würfelspiel. The origin of this game is occasionally attributed to Wolfgang A. Mozart.
   
3. Device type(s) the application is designed for: iPhone and iPod touch
   
4. Unique Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) for each major version of your application: PRO-RT-001
   
5. Primary category: Music
   
6. Unique version #: 1.0
   
7. Application copyright holder: Dave Prochnow
   
8. Support URL for the company: http://www.popsci.com/diy/article/2009-02/how-make-iphone-app
   
9. Territories application to be distributed in: worldwide
   
10. Application availability date: March 11, 2009
    
11. Application price: FREE
    
12. Localization desired: English
    

There are some additional questions regarding games, encryption, and licensing agreements. If your app doesn’t fiddle around with these items, then you’re home free and ready to complete the submission process under the purview of Apple’s overtaxed review board.

Another problem looms on the horizon, however. First-time Apple developer’s contracts are being processed at an increasingly slowing rate. Likewise, current developers who wish to renew their license might be in for a wait, too.

With an app under my belt, maybe I’m up to anAndroid challenge, a BlackBerry cookoff or, in late 2009, a Microsoft Windows Marketplace venue. Or, better yet, what’s your current app-etite like? Do you have an app in progress? Are you vying for a different smartphone platform? Let everyone know in our comments section.

Finally, by the numbers: RingsTrue (my musical name game app), upon its initial release, logged 37 downloads. Housed in the Music category of the iTunes App Store, RingsTrue failed to receiveany promotion, mention, or placement on the iTunes daily “New” display. Therefore, these “sales” were obtained solely by random browsing of the 30,000+ iTunes App Store apps. I will update these download numbers as significant milestones are reached.

Unless you use Matthew’s uploader service.

I know it can be done, as I see it being done in iPhone Apps. However – I suspect that development is in the native Apple/iOS code. I find nothing of any real value related to the CS5 iPhone Packager. That is using AS3 with Flash and the iPhone template. There are lots of things close to what I want – but not the actual code.

However – there is light at the end of the tunnel. A very helpful person on the discussion list of https://tweetr.tenderapp.com/discussions/questions/2-packager-for-iphone has come to the rescue. He’s a legend.

So if you are struggling with this – that’s the place to look.

Watch this space.

“Warning: 5004: The file ‘playerglobal.swc’, which is required for typechecking ActionScript 3.0, could not be found. Please make sure the directory ‘$(AppConfig)/ActionScript 3.0/Classes’ is listed in the global classpath of the ActionScript 3.0 Preferences.”

I am running Win7 x64, with Adobe CS5 Flash Pro (Master Collection)

The other day for reasons unknown to me or anyone else it seems, Syntax Checking failed with what is a common error it seems.

So I set about hunting down the problem. Adobe’s help pages, particularly the File Location information became the final piece of the jigsaw. It wasn’t until I set up my paths as I show below in Section 2 that it all started working again.

Section 1.

Wherein I solve a puzzle that had me stumped for a week.
That sucker would NOT publish and show the image on the stage.

For goodness sake, make sure you put the working Class path into the appropriate window. I will eventually make this global, and simply store all my working Classes (.as) in a common directory that is easy to find. For now I am keeping each little development in its own directory. Guess what. I forgot to tell the compiler.

This is what I should have had in the class path in the ActionScript settings for this project.

C:\Users\Robert\Documents\iPhone Apps Development\GestureMania\Classes

Having problems with this error:

 ”Warning: 5004: The file ‘playerglobal.swc’, which is required for typechecking ActionScript 3.0, could not be found. Please make sure the directory ‘$(AppConfig)/ActionScript 3.0/Classes’ is listed in the global classpath of the ActionScript 3.0 Preferences.”

Very misleading warning. Well, on Win7 x64 it is, because it’s not looking for it here at all. It’s looking for playerglobal.swc in a completely different location.

Open your CS5 Flash Pro, click on Edit, then Preferences….

Edit -> Preferences -> ActionScript

Edit -> Preferences -> ActionScript

->ActionScript 3.0 Settings

Make sure you have all of the areas shown below on the form filled in correctly. I may have more in there than I need, but hey – I just wasted a week fixing this.

………………………. In the ActionScript 3.0 Advanced Settings box, do this.

Flex SDK Path: (Contains)

$(AppConfig)/ActionScript 3.0/flex_sdk/4.0.0/

Source Path: (Contains)

$(LocalPath)/Classes
$(AppConfig)/ActionScript 3.0/Classes

LibraryPath: (Contains).

C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Flash CS5\Common\Configuration\ActionScript 3.0\FP9
C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Flash CS5\Common\Configuration\ActionScript 3.0\FP10
C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Flash CS5\Common\Configuration\ActionScript 3.0\Fl140
C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Flash Builder 4\sdks\4.0.0\frameworks\libs

*** Note the third ‘F’ library directory is FL, not FP

OK everything – and presto bumpo – it should work. Did for me, when even a reinstall did NOT fix the problem.

Enjoy

Adobe help file is very good. I’ve learnt a lot from it, but like all tutorials, it is full of “options” on how you can do things. Way too many choices.

When you need to make a button – or in fact you need to make 4 buttons, so that you can show pressed and released etc, and not just a plain old vanilla button that does nothing – it all gets a bit vague. Remember this is a Button with a Button Symbol, and lives in your Library.

So here are the little steps to get an exciting little button in Flash – but also to get the ultra-mini-button-exercise onto your iPhone to demonstrate your prowess!

Mostly you follow the Adobe instructions, which I include here, but with a few pointers and tips for the uber beginner. NOTE for at the end of this file: I started this in the iPhone OS stage option,

You can find the help file here: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/flash/cs/using/ and search the file for “Create a button with a button symbol” if you would like to see the whole help file.

It goes like this: “Button symbols are actually a special type of four-frame interactive movie clip. When you select the button type when creating a symbol, Flash Pro creates a Timeline with four frames. The first three frames display the button’s three possible states, Up, Over, and Down; the fourth frame defines the active area of the button. The button symbol timeline doesn’t actually play linearly like a normal timeline; it reacts to pointer movement and actions by jumping to the appropriate frame.

To make a button interactive, you place an instance of the button symbol on the Stage and assign actions to the instance. You assign the actions to the root timeline of the FLA file. If the button is inside a movie clip, you can add the actions to the movie clip timeline. Do not add actions to the timeline of the button symbol.

Each frame in the Timeline of a button symbol has a specific function:

• The first frame is the Up state, representing the button whenever the pointer is not over the button.
  
• The second frame is the Over state, representing the button’s appearance when the pointer is over the button.
  
• The third frame is the Down state, representing the button’s appearance as it is clicked.
  
• The fourth frame is the Hit state, defining the physical area that responds to the mouse click. This area is invisible whenever a SWF file plays in Flash Player.
  

To create a button symbol:

1. Choose Edit > Deselect All, or click an empty area of the Stage to ensure that nothing is selected on the Stage.
   
2. Choose Insert > New Symbol, or press Control+F8 (Windows) or Command+F8 (Macintosh).
   
3. In the Create New Symbol dialog box, enter a name for the new button symbol. For the symbol Type, select Button.
   

   Flash Pro switches to symbol-editing mode. The Timeline changes to display four consecutive frames labeled Up, Over, Down, and Hit. The first frame, Up, is a blank keyframe.
   

4. To create the Up state button image, select the Up frame in the Timeline. Then use the drawing tools, import a graphic, or place an instance of another symbol on the Stage.
   

   You can use graphic symbols or movie clip symbols inside a button, but you cannot use another button symbol.
   

5. In the Timeline, click the Over frame, and then choose Insert > Timeline > Keyframe.
   

   Flash Pro inserts a keyframe that duplicates the contents of the preceding Up frame.
   

6. With the Over frame still selected, change or edit the button image on the Stage to create the appearance you want for the Over state.
   
7. Repeat steps 5 and 6 for the Down frame and the Hit frames.
   

   Editing the Hit frame is optional. The contents of the Hit frame are not visible on the Stage during playback. However, the graphics you add to it define the physical area of the button that responds when clicked. This behavior is useful when the graphic elements of the button are discontinuous, which can make the button harder for a user to click.
   

   The graphic for the Hit frame must be a solid area large enough to encompass all the graphic elements of the Up, Down, and Over frames. It can also be larger than the visible button. If you do not specify a Hit frame, the image for the Up state is used as the Hit frame.
   

   You can make a button that responds when a different area of the stage is clicked or rolled over (also called a disjoint rollover). Place the Hit frame graphic in a different location than the other button frame graphics.
   

8. To assign a sound to a state of the button, select that state’s frame in the Timeline, choose Window > Properties. Then select a sound from the Sound menu in the Property inspector. Only sounds you have already imported appear in the Sound menu.
   
9. When you finish, choose Edit > Edit Document. Flash returns you to the main timeline of your FLA file. To create an instance of the button you created on the Stage, drag the button symbol from the Library panel to the Stage.”
   

Now here’s where I got confused.

Do I draw the buttons on the stage? Or in Photoshop? You do have Photoshop I hope. Or at least something that can create .png and .jpg files. Lets go with Photoshop. So ignoring the ‘stage’ option, I ran up PS5, and created one button. That’s a letter i for info by the way.

Why ignore the ‘stage’ option for drawing the button? I am trying to avoid confusion. I suspect that it is a whole ‘nother learning exercise!

I strongly recommend that you call your buttons Up.jpg, Down.jpg, Over.jpg and Hit.jpg which are the four options for the button symbol. Nothing worse that trying to locate an image in a directory with thousands of them in it.

Being the bright spark that I am, I thought “Now what”, I have my button, how do I make it change?

Then it dawned on me. I need four buttons in total.

Each button representing the four possible states. Up, Down, Over, and Hit. I know you may not need ‘hit’ but do it anyway for this exercise.

This means that what I did was NOT follow my own advice. Plan first.

If I have a button that has four states, plan for it and design the button in its four forms first. Not half way through the project.

Now the instructions in the Adobe tutorial become clear.

Your work space should look like this now.

If you look carefully at the time line, and the symbol library, you will see the four individual instances, each imported in a separate operation into the symbol library, making up the button.

For the last bit of advice, keep everything in one directory.

This one is called “Flash Buttons”

Ok, everything is working, now to put it on my iPhone – because I can…

In your CS5 Flash screen, with the stage visible just like above, select Properties on the right, and edit your iPhone settings, with your provisioning development information, publish it, and sync it to your iPhone. If you don’t know how to set that up, see the previous entry in this Blog on getting it right.

If you don’t have an Apple provisioning certificate thing yet, then we have another tute to do.

Enjoy. It won’t do anything but change colour – but that’s a start.