Find Here is using the Canpages framework

Dynamic Leap Technology has entered the Canpages API contest with the iPhone application Find Here. Check it out and vote for it!

This is an easy-to-use app – the map itself is the input. You can pan and zoom to the place you are searching, or press a button and the app follows your location as you move.

The results show on the map as they are found, and they can be filtered using a nice graphical “category selector” that can hide.

iPad interview in The Vancouver Sun

Photograph by: Ian Lindsay, PNG

Today Vancouver Sun got a great article about Apple’s iPad and the many iPad/iPhone developers in BC. I am proud to say that the article features a photo of me and my iPad. The picture was taken at the great trade show F5-Expo Refreshing Business Strategies held today in Vancouver .

iPad Programming Course

My new iPad

Here we are! Now that the iPad is out, and that the iPad development documentation is public, the BCIT iPhone Application Development course (MDIA 2652) will include iPad specific development topics.
I will also make my  new iPad available to the students to touch, to use and to test their applications. How cool is that?

Three iPhone and iPad courses at BCIT

This summer BCIT is offering Downtown Vancouver three part time courses for developers, designers and entrepreneurs who want to take advantage of the huge opportunities in the hot iPhone/iPad application market. These courses complement each other beautifully, and many students, depending on their skills and objectives, may consider taking more than one course at a time.

The iPhone Application Development course (MDIA 2652) that I teach runs every Saturday from 9:00AM to 12:00PM, and is ideal for technical people with some application development experience under their belt. This course is heavily hands-on. It starts with the basics of iPhone application development, but during the length of the course touches all the areas necessary to build a high quality iPhone (and soon iPad) application.

A second course is the iPhone Software Design (MDIA 1445) taught by David Drucker. This course is less technically inclined, and focuses on application design, user interface architecture, and user experience. MDIA 1445 is looking at mobile specific UI design issues with an emphasis on Cocoa Touch and UIKit topics. This course runs Saturdays from 1:00PM to 4:00PM in the same Mac classroom as MDIA 2652, and would make a perfect pair with the morning iPhone Application Development course.

The third course is a must for anybody looking at starting any entrepreneurial activity around the iPhone, iPad or any other mobile device. In the iPhone Business Development course (MDIA 2649) students learn how to combine business strategy and design to assess market opportunities and develop successful iPhone products. The course’s instructor is CBC’s Jonathan Carrigan. Jonathan is a phenomenal presenter and I highly recommend attending his course. The MDIA 2649 course runs Thursday evenings from 5:30PM to 8:30PM in the same Mac lab as the other two courses.

Summer iPhone App Development Course

Now is the perfect time to register for the Summer semester of BCIT’s iPhone Application Development course. The course delivers a great value for a low cost.

The course has been revamped to cater mostly to software developers, starting with the basics, but going pretty fast into Objective C and Cocoa Touch programming details. Find a more complete description here.

Beginner iPhone Tutorial – Polygon

I decided to post the tutorial I am presenting during the first class at the iPhone course. This tutorial is meant to quickly introduce novices to the iPhone SDK development tools, showcase some fundamental design patterns and demonstrate how easy it is to get started developing for Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch.

What does it teach?

• Tools: how to use XCode to create a new iPhone application, how to add a new class file and how to create your own view class. Using Interface Builder: drag and drop, inspector tabs, custom classes, connecting graphically objects, outlets and actions.
• Programming: practical examples of implementing the Model View Controller design pattern, outlets and actions, member variable naming conventions, forward class declaration, deriving classes, and overriding methods.
• Frameworks: UIKit concepts: creating a custom UIView by overriding drawRect, and the use of needsDisplay and needsLayout. Core Graphics concepts: context, path, current position, adding to path, stroke, fill.

Read more…

The iPhone Course at BCIT – a fresh start

Yet another semester is ending, and all the students are getting ready to present their final projects. Each of these projects is interesting, and I will try to post some presentations or screenshots of the applications as soon as the grades are in.

But with the end there comes a new beginning. The Winter 2010 semester of the BCIT iPhone course is starting, and the registration is now open (see http://www.bcit.ca/study/courses/mdia2652). As I told before, experienced, or not so much, all developers interested in switching to iPhone application development are welcome to register.

Let me remind you that the course is running in a classroom fitted with Intel based Macs at the Downtown Vancouver BCIT campus. Students do not need to purchase expensive equipment since Macs are available in the classroom, and all assignments can be done using the iPhone simulator. However, in order to get a full experience out of the course we recommend that students have, at least, their own iPhone or iPod Touch devices. Please note that BCIT students who do not currently have an Intel based Mac can purchase one from an Apple Store (or online) at a discount.

New this semester:

• All students qualify for Apple’s iPhone Developer University Program (a $99 value)

• The course has a new excellent textbook (released on October 30, 2009):

iPhone for Programmers
Author: Paul Deitel, Harvey Deitel
Publisher: Prentice Hall
ISBN 978-0-13-705842-6

If you register you have a copy waiting for you in the BCIT bookstore.

The Oolong Engine

Tonight David Clement will be presenting his experience with the Oolong game engine, a high performance game engine optimized for 3d graphics on the iPhone. RSVP here, there are still a few spots available

The Oolong engine is a powerful open source 3D engine that supports sophisticated 3d animation, skinned characters and more. If you are considering using 3D rendering & animation in your iPhone application then you should take a look at Oolong. This presentation is designed to give both 3D artists and developers a quick tour of Oolong, its capabilities and short comings so you can make the right choice for your application.

Presentation Outline
——————————
Introducing the Oolong Engine
Oolong in the 3D asset life cycle.
A brief introduction to the Bullet physics engine.
Different ways of using Oolong in your application.
What Oolong is ideal suited for
When not to use Oolong
A quick look at the code (time permitting)

My Nearest is in the App Store

"My Nearest" Screenshot

After going through a number of hoops, My Nearest, a new free iPhone application I built for Canpages, is finally in Apple’s App Store and is getting excellent reviews (see iPhoneInCanada.ca). This is a quick and  easy to use version of their popular Canpages iPhone application that I had the pleasure to build alongside Aaron Hilton from Cellmap. Check out both applications in the store.

iPhone Map Kit Presentation

Last Thursday I had the pleasure of presenting iPhone’s Map Kit at the monthly Vancouver iPhone developers meetup. The presentation started with a short slide show and was followed by a tutorial demonstrating Map Kit’s ease of use.

I have posted the slide show onVancouver iPhone developers’ Google group site, and the tutorial on this blog.