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Tuesday

02Feb2010

Why the iPad is relevant to developers

Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 10:36AM

A lot has been said about the iPad in the week since Steve Jobs unveiled it to the world at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. The response has ranged from jubilation from those who consider the device a must have all the way down to disdain and utter contempt from those who were somehow hoping this companion device would be able to replace their laptops. While I understand both camps (and everyone in between), I’m not going to voice my allegiance to either opinion. To be honest, I’m actually somewhere in the middle. I would much rather discuss how important this device is to the already thriving iPhone ecosystem and why you will want to develop for the iPad.

Without divulging any specific iPhone 3.2 SDK details (and thereby breaking my NDA), I can tell you that the new APIs and features present in the SDK are very exciting. Some of them are iPad specific and others will probably be available for iPhone development some time in the near future. If you have been doing any iPhone development, you are already familiar with the tools, languages, and concepts necessary to program for the iPad. From what was shown in the iPad event, it is clear that the applications that are possible for the iPad are much more robust than anything we have seen or created for the iPhone. The split pane and popup menus provide the ability to do a lot with the copious screen real estate the iPad offers. I don’t want to spend too much time talking about the SDK because I can’t do it justice without breaking the NDA. Just suffice it to say that if you haven’t looked at it yet, you really need to. It’s exciting.

As for the hardware, I think the story there is pretty phenomenal too. The larger screen will allow developers to create applications that are much closer to desktop functionality than the much smaller iPhone screen currently allows. The Apple A4 processor (which is apparently based on the same ARM Cortex A9 as the Nvidia Tegra chip) appears to be very snappy which should allow for a smooth user experience. The accelerometer is there in full force and there are speakers and a built-in microphone. There is GPS capability in the 3G models. This opens the door for some fantastic GIS applications.

One last thing that is easy to overlook from a developer’s perspective is the financial impact of this device. The people that will buy this device will buy your applications if they add value to their iPad experience. They had the funds to purchase the device at a minimum entry point of $499 so it is almost a given that they will be willing to plunk down some money on your well written apps. It would be wise to not leave them hanging.

So, there’s my take on the new device. I, for one, am beginning development on my first application and hope to have it ready by launch time. I encourage all developers to follow suit. We are what will make this device a must have.

brentschooley |

So here's the deal...

Wednesday, December 30, 2009 at 3:16PM

I haven’t posted in about a month or so. I’ve been fairly busy with the holidays and really just haven’t had time to do much programming or writing in my spare time. So here’s the deal: that’s all changing as soon as my vacation is over. You can expect more articles, more screencasts, more blog posts, and generally just more me. I hope that’s okay with everyone.

Happy New Year everyone and see you in 2010!

- Brent

brentschooley |

Announcement: Project Empty Tome

Wednesday, November 11, 2009 at 11:13PM

I am pleased to announce that top secret Project Empty Tome is officially under way. I will provide more details as the project progresses but I am certain that this is something the entire MonoTouch community will benefit from.

I may call on a few of you in the community for help on this project and I look forward to your input when that time comes. Stay tuned to this this blog (subscribe to the RSS feed!) for more updates as they become available.

brentschooley |

UITableViewController (uitvc) template updated for UITableViewSource

Monday, November 2, 2009 at 2:33PM

MonoTouch 1.2 adds a new class called UITableViewSource that is intended to reduce some of the code clutter that is encountered when using TableViews in MonoTouch. The UITableViewSource class combines UITableViewDelegate and UITableViewDataSource into one convenient class that contains the methods of both. This results in a much closer approximation of the way the UIKit classes work. In UIKit you would typically have your TableViewController implement the protocols for delegate and datasource and thus all of your methods from these two protocols would be in the same class. The UITableViewSource class gives you a similar code structure.

I have modified the uitvc template for generating a UITableViewController that uses this new UITableViewSource class. Create an Empty class file from the File->New File…->General menu. Delete everything in this class file. Type uitvc and hit the tab key. This will create a UITableViewController subclass that sets up a UITableViewSource as its Source. All you need to do is specify the namespace for the controller, the name for your class, the shorthand that will be used to reference the instance of the controller in the UITableViewSource, and the Title for the controller. I have provided a few overrides that will get you started after that. You can download the template here: uitvc.template.xml

You will need to add this to ~/.config/MonoDevelop/templates/code (choose “Go to folder…” from the Finder menu and paste the directory to find it) and restart MonoDevelop. (Note: If you don’t see templates/code in ~/.config/MonoDevelop, go to Preferences in MonoDevelop and click on Code Templates under Coding. This should populate this directory. You don’t need to do anything else here, just close Preferences and follow the instructions above to add the file to the ~/.config/MonoDevelop/templates/code directory.)

brentschooley |

4 Comments |

Tuesday

27Oct2009

Breaking News: MonoTouch 1.2 with debugging released! (screenshots)

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 10:01AM

Yes, you read that title correctly, MonoTouch 1.2 supports debugging in MonoDevelop! I have known about this for a while and I’ve just been waiting for the opportunity to let all of you know this wonderful news. It hasn’t been an easy secret to keep as it is definitely a game-changing feature for many of you that have been on the fence about whether or not to jump on the MonoTouch bandwagon. Well, you can’t use lack of debugging as a reason to not justify the purchase any more.

The really cool thing about this debugging support is that it works on both the simulator and the device. Since Apple does not directly allow third parties to participate in their debugging infrastructure, Geoff Norton and Michael Hutchinson, et al., had to do a lot of work to get this to work and they should be commended for their efforts. Debugging MonoTouch requires the iPhone to communicate back to the computer. From the upcoming documentation at http://monotouch.net/Documentation/Upcoming/Debugger:

The MonoTouch debugger is a soft-debugger, that means that the generated code and the Mono runtime cooperate with the MonoDevelop IDE to provide a debugging experience. This is different than hard debuggers like GDB or MDB which control a program without the knowlege or cooperation from the debugged program.

For on device debugging, your iPhone needs to be on the same Wi-Fi network as your computer (yes, debugging over Wi-Fi…even Apple doesn’t completely allow this). You should note that the debug build of your code will include the cooperative Mono runtime so the resulting program will be larger than a regular program. This is because the generated code has been instrumented to be debugged. A debug build will also be slower than a regular release build so it should not be used for performance testing.

The team has put a lot of really hard work into this. The result of this work is a truly native feeling debugging atmosphere that should be familiar to anyone who has used IDE debugging in the past. You set a breakpoint on a line and when your code hits that breakpoint you can inspect local variables in the Locals window, see the Call Stack in the Call Stack window, and get on-hover information for variables in your code. At the end of this post there are screenshots for you enjoyment (and salivation!).

I can really only summarize this release in one word: awesome. Go check it out for yourself later today at http://monotouch.net and stop into the IRC channel at irc.gnome.org #monotouch and say thanks to the development team for this awesome feature.

Update: According to Miguel de Icaza, there will be a beta of MonoTouch 1.2 available later today.

Here are the screenshots I mentioned previously:

Test App LayoutBreakpoint setBreakpoint hit!Locals and Call StackHover over infoSuccessfully debugged!