iakttakelser (observations)

Creating enterprise apps for iPhone and iPad isn't trivial. In @iFacturas we used 21 months to get out the current version. Now I'm diving into enterprise programming myself, in order to find a better way to do it.  If you know me, you also know I'm loving accounting, specially accounting program design. In many years, there has been two important parts of accounting programs, entering data and reports. Entering data has to do with database and database view programming. Reports with the same database and presenting reports, normally on PDF. I've just finished a roundtrip on database and PDF programming, and have documented the process and the source here in 6 blogposts: I may have found the golden egg in #iOS database programming! It's @sensiblecocoa I've earlier told you about that programming iPhone isn't that hard. That was only partly true however. For database programming in iPhon... Update: Hands-on with @sensibleCocoa #...

I've combined the  iPhone 4 Development Essesials for XCode  Chapters 32 and 33, with    Apple's print tutorial for iOS .   Most of it is wrapped into the following savePdfFile method: - ( IBAction )savePDFFile:( id )sender {     NSString * path = [[ NSBundle mainBundle ] pathForResource : @"sampleData" ofType : @"plist" ];          // get a temprorary filename for this PDF     path = NSTemporaryDirectory ();     self . pdfFilePath = [path stringByAppendingPathComponent :                         [ NSString stringWithFormat : @"%d.pdf" ,                           [[ NSDate date ]                            timeIntervalSince1970 ] ]];          // Prepare the text using a Core Text Framesetter     CFAttributedStringRef currentText = CFAttributedStringCreate ( NULL ,                                                                   ( CFStringRef ) textView . text , NULL );     if (currentText) {         CTFramesetterRef fram...

When preparing for the following, and hopefully last, post, I decided to try to store the project in github.com to let you easily share it. That drove my tutorial to an halt. Without really knowing anything, I did a git init and git commit command, and suddenly all my source-files disappeared! I ceratinly had done something wrong, and had to try to learn Git in order to finish my small tutorial. At least I had to use Time Machine to restore the files, and recreate the project using Apple's built-in Git support. During the work I had a lot of help from the website to the book " Pro Git " by Scott Chaconn. He almost succeded in make me understand it. Way better than the "Git for dummies" wikis, which are made for much more advanced pupils than myself. I had to redo my project, marking it for the use of Git. Then I followed the steps in on github help . So now you can get the the PDF-tutorial files at https://github.com/mortjac/PDF-tutorial . In order to get...

In the last post I described how to "draw" on iOS, which served me well in getting me started on iOS PDF programming. Now I will combine  Apple's print tutorial for iOS  and what I've learned about drawing: As with "drawing", writing PDF isn't that complicated if you sit down and decipher it. And    Apple's print tutorial for iOS  does a good job explaining it. But sadly, the tutorial has a bug in this call. The tutorial wrongly writes: currentRange = [self renderPageWithTextRange:currentRange andFramesetter:framesetter]; instead of the correct: currentRange = [self renderPage:currentPage withTextRange:currentRange andFramesetter:framesetter]; So I got this part running pretty well with the following code: - ( IBAction )savePDFFile:( id )sender

I like to create a PDF file in my iPhone app. I then did spent to much time looking at various PDF framework. I didn't want to reinvent anything, but the frameworks I looked at just made things more complicated. So today I started to do it the Apple way, that's using Quartz 2D framework in iOS SDK. Happily I already have  iPhone 4 Development Essesials for XCode 4  in my Kindle, so I started on Chapters 32 and 33, which gives an introduction and lesson in Quarts 2D programming. I started with drawing lines, rectangles and ended up with ellipses. And the code drawing the image wasn't difficult at all: - ( void )drawRect:( CGRect )rect {     // Setting context     CGContextRef context = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext ();      // Setting line width      CGContextSetLineWidth (context, 2.0 );      // Setting color      CGContextSetStrokeColorWithColor (context, [ UIColor blueColor ]. CGColor );      // Create a rectangle      CGRect rectangle = CGRectMake ( 60 , 170 , ...

I've got the "Sensible Tableview" installed. I've passed the videos one more time, and now I'm hands-on. Yesterday I tried a small project with some accounting database stuff. But ran into endless problems. So I decided to follow the Core Data video instead, trying to undersand the sensible way . The video however is showing a XCode 3 project, so there are some small differences. And as "the devil is in the details" it is also present here, and I tumbled. But finally I got it right.  XCode4 has a navigation project template with an example database application that runs out of the box. There isn't any editing posibility however. But by adding a bit of @sensibleCocoa magic, you suddenly get it! Update: Somehow I discovered that the project didn't save. From the @sensibleCocoa forum I got immediately an answer that solved the problem. I just had to add the following line to the  applicationDidEnterBackground method in the navTestAppDelegate...

I've earlier told you about that programming iPhone isn't that hard. That was only partly true however. For database programming in iPhone is extremly complex. I've spent weeks trying to build a xcode template letting me have it my way, just to stumble, fall, hurt me, sweat and cry. Instead I got a flu, and had to remember my main objective, which was to make accounting programming in iOS, and to see if a template or framework was the right solution. So curing my flu, I starte feverishly (no pun intenteded;) to look for templates and frameworks or people doing these things that could help me.  I added new tabs for ORM, Objective-C, SQLite on Flipboard and Zite, and after endless flips I finally found something: @giminete in Zaragoza seemed the most interesting. But then on Thursday I discovered the " Sensible Cocoa " tableview framework. They promise to build a database app on 5 minutes!  Oh what a joy. I've been through the videos, a bit into the forums...

iPhone vs. Android | Facebook vs. Groupon... Today I wanted to show you a complete infographic created by Lucid Agency that depicts how the mobile and app market is doing now and how it's supposed to be doing in the upcoming years. A few observations: - Apple is still market leader as far as apps is concerned - Almost 100 million smartphones were sold in the first quarter 2011 - Subscriptions are growing and growing. As you know, iFacturas will be based on a subscription model very soon. Seems this is the most comfortable way to try and trust an app developer. - Loyalty to Apple devices is still higher than Android, but loyalty to this last OS is growing. Are you an iPhoner or a Droider ?

Hi everyone. I was a regular feature-phone user until a year and a half ago. In that very moment, my boss, Morten Jacobsen, asked me to become an iPhone user. I was sort of upset at the beginning. I thought I was happy with my regular Nokia. Now I know I wasn’t that happy. Yesterday my iPhone 3GS (my iPhone 4 is already ordered) I tried to fix the screen myself and I totally broke something inside the Apple device. You, up to now, I’ve been living without my iPhone and that has been tough. I couldn’t be “unconnected” for so long, so I borrowed a Nokia E7 from our iFacturas’ office. Nokia E7 is a new smartphone, but let me tell you that is far, far, far from an iPhone user experience!! Sorry for Nokia. This brand had always been my mobile brand. But, I’m suffering a whole lot with this Finnish device. It’s like going back to 1999!!! In fact, it’s being so difficult for me to deal with it, that I’ve borrowed an old iPhone 3G and I’m now transferring all my app to this old iPhone. Sure i...

I earlier reported on ECG and blood pressure monitoring on iPhone. Here comes another tool to monitor your heartrate and oxygen blood saturation. The presentation movie is quite funny. Take a look! A post from The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) by Kelly Hodgkins has the whole story . Here is a part:

Today's comment on the Tech world. Today all the hype is about mobile. The press focus, the inventions and the investors all are all going for the mobile. New research tells that apps are used 85% in mobiles. The browser only 15%. So the mobile world is based on apps. These small magic building blocks of information technology seems to be exactly what we need. And they also seems to have a price we are willing to pay. Who will ever be unsure to spend the half price of coffee to get an app which improves your life? Well, there are some, but they are being caught in the in app purchase cycle ;) There are still some. They may end up with an Android which market is running over with free unsecured apps... The app is an Apple thing. So much that Apple with reason claims the right to the term app store. Last year more than 90% of apps income went through Apple. And in the tablet market it's even worse ipad holds an 99.8% market share in the US enterprises. As long as And...

Tengo la suerte de trabajar para un hombre extremadamente práctico en todos los sentidos. Si unimos a esto su pasión por la tecnología y la simplicidad , resulta fácil entender por qué iFacturas es la aplicación de facturación móvil más sencilla del mercado. Como responsable de marketing de iFacturas, son incontables las aplicaciones financieras que he analizado dentro del App Store. La mayoría de ellas son aplicativos web mostrados en un iPhone, por lo que no aprovechan las oportunidades que el propio dispositivo móvil puede aportar al sistema de facturación. Y lo que es aún peor, al ser una aplicación exportada de la web al iPhone, todas las acciones resultan más complicadas que desde el ordenador y todo se muestra a un tamaño más reducido. Hace un año, cuando empezamos con el desarrollo de iFacturas, teníamos claro que nuestra aplicación sería totalmente desarrollada y diseñada para iPhone y que aprovecharíamos todos aquellos elementos que el propio iPhon podía aportar para mejo...

Just read this nice post by Matt Joe at VentureBeat.com and I wanted to share it will all of you. It's a very nice post, but I'd highlight the following sentence:   " if you don’t like  innovation and change, stay away from mobile" Here's a part of the story: A quick glance at the mobile platform landscape has my company, the interactive agency  POP , learning from our first Windows Phone experiences, continuing to sharpen our skills on iOS, chasing down Android and all of its versions and devices, and assessing Blackberry’s Playbook amongst other technologies.  Platform preferences aside, if you don’t like innovation and change, stay away from mobile. We have been watching HP carefully since they started talking more publicly about WebOS.  We were all fans of Palm back in the day, right?  While consistent commercial success has been hard for them to achieve over the years, as a technologist, you have to tip your hat to the innovative ecosys...

I've bought 14 photo apps on iPhone of which you can see 12 above here. The two apps I use dayli are QuickCam and Instagram. When I have 3G access, that's when I'm in Norway, I tend to use Instagram most. But when  abroad I use QuickCam. For three reasons: It's starts blistering fast. 1 sec. faster than Apple own photo app. It shoots fast. Well, I just click and there it is. No delay and waiting. It shoots repeated images as fast as a machine gun. So it's all come done to speed, which I find quite interesting as an app developer. And the prize is right - one buck! A post from Two Teeth Technologies by has more : Why QuickCam? As my daughter has grown, I've been amazed by how easy it is to take photographs and videos of her anytime, anywhere.  With a 5MP / HD Video camera in my pocket at all times,  I haven't missed much in her first 17 months.  But I certainly learned the limitations of iPhone camera apps.  The slow startup of the default camer...

Well, as I also reported IDC 2015 numbers, here are @Asymco comments. A post from asymco.com by Horace Dediu has the original story : IDC released a  new forecast  for the worldwide smartphone market which included a long range forecast–all the way to 2015. Most people fixated on the share data in 2015. Not hard to do since whoever wrote the press release highlighted this flashy headline. Putting aside the three significant digits of accuracy on every data point and the hard to swallow declaration that a painfully underperforming (in  more ways than one ) Windows Phone will overtake iOS and BlackBerry to become the second largest platform by units/year in 2015, there is much more to the report. Using only the public data from the press release we can put together a pretty good picture of the transition being forecast and determine some of the (unstated) assumptions being made. It’s these assumptions about the underlying market dynamics which illuminate far more th...

The most desired mobile for the Chinese is iPhone. The second is Nokia. A post by Chris Ward has the whole story . Here is a part: China is catching up with the Western world in many ways, and now "Wanting an iPhone really, really badly" has been added to the list of similarities. Until now, Nokia has been the most desired brand in China, largely because it's provided cheap handsets. Now such handsets come from Chinese manufacturers, and their low-budget image has led to their desirability being drastically reduced.

A huge part of the Apple news in the blogoshere is rumors. Rumors about new not released products or services and possible events. I normally not pass this information on. But MG Siegler is so well informed, that I will let his well written write-up on what to expect from Apple this fall pass to you. A post from TechCrunch by MG Siegler has the whole story . Here is a part:   This past weekend,  we broke the news that iOS 5 , the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system, was likely being released in the fall. This would break the tradition of a summer release. And we also noted that instead of a separate event in the early spring, Apple was likely to use their WWDC event in June to talk about the new OS for the first time. Sure enough, today  came word from Apple  that seems to verify both things. Apple will host WWDC in San Francisco on June 6 through June 10, they formally  announced  today. The focus of the event? “ At this year’s con...

Want a mobile website. Create a new one on 60 seconds on your iPhone. A post from TechCrunch by Erick Schonfeld has the whole story . Here is a part: Tumblr  and  Posterous  showed the world that making blogging simpler makes it more accessible. Both make also make it really easy to publish from your phone. Now  Zapd , a new service from Seattle startup Pressplane, wants to take it one step further and let you create websites right from your phone. Zapd is an  iPhone app  that lets you create a themed, well-designed, mobile-friendly website in 60 seconds. You pick a theme, snap a photo, add a caption, and if you want you can even write a little text (don’t strain yourself). When you publish the site or a new entry, you can share a short URL with your friends via Twitter, Facebook, or email. (You can also sign in with your Facebook ID). I tried it and it literally took me a few minutes to create these two sites,  Seeking  and  The Trut...

Update:  9to5mac.com notes that if iPhone 5 follows the iPhone pattern described by Dediu, it could sell 100 millions. A post from asymco by Horace Dediu has the original story . Here it is with kind permission: Apple’s second fiscal quarter has just ended. Time for analysts to put forward their predictions for the quarter’s report (due in about 3 weeks.) If history is a guide, the estimates will range quite widely and accuracy will be determined mostly by the ability of an analyst to predict iOS device sales (and iPhone most of all). How hard can it be? It depends on what you choose to prioritize as the proxy for sales. In competitive markets there is usually a constraint on demand and rivalry among suppliers. If that’s your assumption you might want to use samples from the sales channel as a proxy. That means sampling distribution channels and sales through to end users at retail. You might even watch competitors and index them to each other using historic market shares....

What do you do if your you are not able to use you hands? Drop email, social media and news? No more. There is an app for that, and it is named Voice Brief! A post from The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) by Mel Martin the whole story . Here is a part: Want an assistant to help you keep up with your world and the world at large?  Voice Brief  might be just the thing. This US$1.99 app will read your Facebook updates, Twitter feed, email (with limitations), weather, schedule, stock prices that you follow, and even the latest news from RSS feeds of your choice. The voices are computerized, but very clear. There are four voices to choose from: an American male and female, and a British-accented male and female. You set up the app by giving it your location (for weather) and stocks you'd like to follow, pointing it to your iPhone calendar, and selecting some news feeds (I selected CNN and TUAW). Voice Brief also allows you to add custom sentences, like a personal greeting whe...