Mobster Lobster : Ruthless Crustaceans

SlidePix 1.0 Released!

August 10th, 2009

Get it Now

SlidePix 1.0 finally made it through the review process 12 days after the last submission. It’s available now from the App Store here.

SlidePix is a version of the classic puzzle game where you have to rearrange a picture split into a tile grid with a single tile missing in the shortest time and with the fewest number of moves.

FEATURES:

Create an instant puzzle from your own photo library or iPhone camera!
Re-size and reposition the selected photo
Have the game choose a photo randomly from the included set of 25 beautiful photos
Choose between 3×3, 4×4, 5×5 and 6×6 grids
Track your scores and times automatically
Hold down a button to view hints in case you get stuck
Complete with sound effects
Pause and restore previous session in case you get interrupted while playing
Animatedly shuffles the tiles with each new game

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SlidePix 1.0 Rejected for Crashing Bug

July 25th, 2009

Urgh. Well, it’s things like this that make me appreciate the app store review process. Better that Apple find a bug like this than the first few users find it and give me a thrashing on the ratings system. I had a crasher in SlidePix that occurred the first time you run the application after installing it. It was only discoverable by completely removing the app from my phone, which I did very rarely during development since doing so deleted all my high scores – I had probably seen the bug before and forgotten about it. Note to self: before submitting an app to Apple, always test cleanly installing said app!

On the up side, Apple rejected my app in just five days which hopefully means the newly patched app release will be up in a week or so – unless Apple find any more bugs of course.

Tags: app store, Apps, News, rejected, review process, SlidePix, submission
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SlidePix Submitted to App Store

July 22nd, 2009

SlidePix

My first iPhone application, SlidePix, has been submitted to Apple and is currently under review. With any luck it will sail through the approval process in about a week and appear on the iTunes Store. It’s taken about 5 weeks of hard work from start to finish but that included learning the Objective-C programming language and building this website, so I’m feeling pleased with myself.

It’s been fun developing this little game and I will continue to develop it further as long as there’s some interest in it. Two features I had planned for the initial release but dropped to get it completed more quickly are online scoreboards and French localisation (my mother speaks fluent French, so that should be a fairly quick win).

Tags: app, app store, game, News, release, SlidePix
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iPhone SDK: Responding to the Volume Rocker

July 19th, 2009

Sound

For the game I have just finished developing I have a few very short and simple sound effects. Right away as I added the first one it was clear I would have to add some way of controlling the volume because the sound was inappropriately loud at whatever setting I had my phone on at the time.

I didn’t want to make the user go to the settings page and pull a slider up or down just to change the volume when there’s a perfectly good hardware volume rocker on the side of the iPhone, but when I pressed the volume rocker in my game, I was changing the volume of the phone ringer. So how have other people done it I wondered? Surely there had to be a way to hook into the volume rocker press event using Cocoa Touch. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Cocoa, Objective-C, Programming | Comments Off

Objective-C for a Visual Basic / JavaScript Programmer

July 18th, 2009

X-Code

I knew what roughly what Objective-C was like before I decided to learn it. I hadn’t really ever written C or C++ (or even C#) before, but I had tweaked and compiled code written by others in all of them and I had a really solid grounding on Object-oriented programming from years working in Visual Basic.NET and object-oriented JavaScript, insofar as either of those languages support object-orientation, but when I actually applied myself to the task, I found I was in for a much tougher ride than I had expected.

My first instinct was to just start a project blind and try to find my way by feel. I quickly realised Objective-C and X-Code were just too different than anything I was familiar with, so I posted on the Apple Developer forums asking for recommendations on some online learning resources. On a recommendation from a user, I picked up a copy of Beginning iPhone Development. Another recommendation was for a series of video lectures from Stanford University that were available on iTunes U for free. I have read about the first third of the book and watched about half of the videos. Both were excellent learning resources and I recommend both to anyone starting out. Learning by reading though or even watching is something I prefer to avoid wherever possible. As soon as I’m off and running with a new system or language I prefer to learn by exploration. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: .NET, cocoa, Javascript, Objective-C, Programming, vb, visual basic
Posted in Objective-C, Programming | Comments Off

Why I don’t support Internet Explorer 6

July 18th, 2009

Internet Explorer 6

Internet Explorer 6 was released in 2001. With the possible exception of earlier versions of Internet Explorer, it is indisputably the worst web browser ever created. It is full of bugs, hopelessly insecure, totally disrespectful of web standards and slower than a tortoise with a broken leg. No respectable web developer would disagree that IE6 has been and continues to be severely injurious to the progress of the Internet.

As a general rule, most web developers aim to support the latest versions of Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Google Chrome, and possibly Opera. But with Internet Explorer, we are generally expected to support the version released eight years ago. Supporting IE6 increases development time by a factor of about 1.5x because a fair percentage of your design that works in every other browser is guaranteed not to work in IE6. Customising the design for IE6 is a joyless exercise since developer tools for IE6 are all but non-existent. Then there are things you simply cannot do in IE6 which means everybody in the class is held back by the slowest kid in the class.

I have come to the view that by continuing to support this loathsome browser, we developers are actually contributing to the problem we are so quick to moan about. As of June 2009, according to Wikipedia some 12.8% of Internet users are still using IE6. I am under no illusion that my small protest will have any impact at all on that percentage, but I do believe it’s in the interest of both web developers and users to encourage upgrading and the fastest way to achieve that is to actually break Internet Explorer 6 by refusing to support it. Therefore, for the first time since I started developing for the web, I have built a site which does not support Internet Explorer 6 at all. If you attempt to view the site in IE6 or lower you will be greeted by a slightly longer version of this rant

Tags: css, ie6, internet explorer, policy, rant, web standards
Posted in Web Programming | Comments Off

Introductions

July 11th, 2009

Red Arrows on Flickr

My name is William Warby. You can read a little more about me on my “about” page if you’re interested. I couldn’t decide initially whether to include a blog in the design of my new site but in the end I decided I needed a channel through which to publish news about what I’m doing or planning to do with my iPhone applications and a blog seemed as good a channel as any though which to do it. As well as news about my iPhone applications I will probably publish technical posts occasionally about programming because, well – it’s my blog, and I want to. The odd photograph might find it’s way on to the blog too – photography is my main hobby besides programming. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: intro, welcome, wwarby
Posted in Apps, Objective-C, Programming, SlidePix | Comments Off

SlidePix 1.0 Released!

SlidePix 1.0 Rejected for Crashing Bug

SlidePix Submitted to App Store

iPhone SDK: Responding to the Volume Rocker

Objective-C for a Visual Basic / JavaScript Programmer

Why I don’t support Internet Explorer 6

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