I am working on brainstorming some different game ideas. I think I have decided to use cocos2d which is a sweet free engine that had a lot of the work already done for me so that I can focus on making the game pretty, challenging, fun etc. The game logic will be easier to focus on with the engine already built and running.  Read more here...

I recently ordered and received the Apress – Beginning iPhone Games Development book. You can check it out here from Amazon. So far the book has blown my mind with tons of different concepts and approaches to different games. A lot of the book so far focuses on a game called Space Rocks! which is just like the old Asteroids game. The first few chapters have us make the game using Quartz/UIKit the later chapters have recreated the same project using OpenGL ES 1.1 but entirely in 2D (so far). The book does an awesome job of explaining the various aspects of game design including the all important game loop. Another great concept that is followed throughout the book is the MVC (Model View Controller) architecture. The book teaches you key concepts about what each part of your game should be doing and what it should not be doing. For example during a rendering phase you should not be updating the game, during the update phase you should not be rendering etc. I am not even half way through the book yet and already have a few ideas for different games. The only issue I am having is what engine I want to use should I stick with Quartz/UIKit or make the leap to OpenGL and a much more upgradable game? Well I am going to keep reading and keep working so like always Enjoy!

On August 24th I posted about the $0.01 cases I had found from Default Case. I ordered one to try out and see how good it was for the cheap price. So far I LOVE the case. It feels like rubber, is durable like plastic, and just looks cool. The case fits perfectly over the phone giving you access to you volume buttons and silent switch. The top and bottom are uncovered to allow full access to the bottom and top of the phone which means any accessories you already have should work flawlessly. The cases have a nice feeling to them that allow you to grip them securely and still add very little to the size of the phone. I think one of the best things is that this case works perfectly with an Invisible Shield. The case just grips the metal lip on the band around the phone which leaves the screen perfectly open for a screen protector. One issue I had with the bands that wrap around the iPhone is that it would push my Invisible Shield off around the edges on the back of the phone. Since this case has the back covered and doesn’t interfere with the screen protector on the front this combination is providing perfect coverage and protection. You can check out my initial post about the cases here to see the pictures of the different cases currently available.  Read more here...

Yesterday while checking out various websites I came across an ad from Default Case. They are working hard to build up a following for their products. They make iPhone 4 cases and they have about 8 different colors. The best thing about this company? They are using their entire advertising budget to subsidize the cost of the cases. The result? They are currently selling their cases for $0.01 (with $3.99 for shipping). This is a very good deal, even competitive with cases found on eBay. It looks like the entire business model for the company is based around the idea of building a strong following for its high quality cases and eventually selling them at $34.99 once they have proven their quality and reliability. It is nice to see a new company take a new approach to generating sales and this company is using most of its advertising money just to sell early adopters cheap cases. They also sell cases for the iPhone 3G and 3GS.  Read more here...

When I first began programming, I learned the old and easy language of BASIC. BASIC was fun and not overly difficult for a novice programmer. I remember I bought a Learn to Program in BASIC CD at one of the book fairs. The CD had plenty of walk-throughs and sample code that let you create interfaces all the way to simple games. This language is known as a “procedural language” which simply means that the program follows a set procedure during execution. The language is very “English-like” and is very easy for nonprofessionals to pick up on. Unlike Object Oriented Programming, Procedural follows a set procedure with commands like GOTO, and GOSUB. By issuing a goto command you are essentially telling your program to jump to this line of code. With OOP you simply call your method with any values you wish to send and voila your method executes. The methods in OOP are similar to functions in PP. With OOP  the main focus is on well Objects. In OOP, each object is capable of receiving messages, processing data, and sending messages to other objects. Each object can be viewed as an independent ‘machine’ with a distinct role or responsibility. Whereas PP follows a structure of code OOP allows programming logic to be reused by various objects.  Read more here...

While reading iPhone Developer’s Cookbook, I had a strange epiphany. I was finishing up the chapter on Objective-C Boot Camp, and the idea hit me. I recently had a tough time implementing local push notifications into iSupplement (also iRx Tracker).  Read more here...

I have finished writing my new app geared more towards prescriptions and medications rather than supplements. The theme is more “friendly” following a basic White with Red theme. The app essentially has all of the features of iSupplement but allows you to keep medications and and supplements separate. The app includes local push notifications, the custom number pad keyboard with the decimal place. Along with all of the other features users are used to in iSupplement. Generally as new features are requested I will add them to both iSupplement and iRx Tracker. So if you have any features that you would like to see added then leave a comment! Enjoy!

Well it has only been 6 days since iSupplement 2.0.1 was released and I have already finished and submitted v2.1.0. I hate version numbers and figured I added enough new features to warrant a 2.1 instead of a 2.0.2. I think that is how versions work anyway. So with this newest version I have squashed a bug and added a few new features.

The bug:  Read more here...

In case anyone has not yet been made aware, Apple is offering free cases to anyone who buys an iPhone 4 until September 30th, 2010. It is very easy to get your case, all you need to do is download the App which is called “iPhone 4 Case Program”. You run the app which verifies your unique IMEI (so no one can get multiple free cases). After verification you get to choose from the Apple Bumpers, and some other brands. Each case shows a number of pictures of it on the iPhone 4 and also tells you how long it will take to ship and deliver. Once you pick your case and enter your Apple store login information, you are all set and just have to wait for your free case to arrive. You can track your shipment by going to apple.com/store and logging in.  Read more here...

In case you have not heard, no the bird is not the word, no really if you haven’t heard: You can jailbreak you iOS4.0 and iOS4.0.1 iDevices more easily than ever. How? Simple as going to: jailbreakme.com on your iDevice. This simple jailbreak operation seems to work flawlessly. This brings me back to the original jailbreak that was done via keeping the phone unactivated, opening an emergency call, typing a code, adding a contact and enabling the preferences, joining a wifi network, and then hitting the contacts website to go to, the very same site that we are using now! It’s funny how things seem to go back to where they started. Anyway this is simple and worked perfectly fine for my iPhone 4. Now that I am jailbroken, which was recently made LEGAL, although Apple never sued anyone who did jailbreak, we can customize our phones the way we went. There has only really been 1 problem and that is with Winterboard. If you don’t know, Winterboard is an app that is used to customize your theme, not everything is working correctly on the iPhone 4 since there has been some change to theme items names because of the HD retina display. Regardless, with my Elite Pro theme, my phone looks bad ass even though all of the customizations won’t kick in until Winterboard is updated. So to recap: if you want to jailbreak your wonderful phone to unlock its true power, go to jailbreakme.com on your device and jailbreak away.  Read more here...

The newest update to iSupplement version has been approved and brings a few unmentioned fixes to bugs I found during testing. The most notable is an issue I found with scheduling notifications, if a user didn’t cause the main supplement table to refresh, no notifications were scheduled or canceled. This has been fixed so that as soon as you take a supplement the notification is scheduled. The latency bug has been fixed some what, I will continue to work on the scrolling performance. Another issue that seems to be occurring some what infrequently is with certain supplements not starting there “doses taken today” over on a new day, thus messing up the scheduling of the next dose. I am working as much as I can on fixing the app up and would love to hear from users to help me find bugs that I may have missed. Enjoy!

As promised I have fixed the lag issue when scrolling and sent the updated app to Apple to await approval. Since this issue was able to slip past the v2.0 release I will be cutting the price of the app in half for a few weeks. Enjoy!

The app was finally approved and is now available for download/update! I have noticed a bug when scrolling through supplements which causes a jump and skip kind of issue which will be fixed in the next day or two and then will wait for apple to approve. Here are the details:

Version Information

I am currently still waiting for iSupplement 2.0 to be approved by Apple. I also have just moved into the house and will not have Internet here until Monday. I should be able to get online Sunday from work to check in on a few things. I have also noticed a minor bug in iSupplement which I plan on fixing right now and submitting version 2.0.1 as soon as 2.0 is approved. The bug only happens when you have enough supplements entered to warrant scrolling on the main page. The problem seems to be that when you scroll everything is updated every time the cellAtIndexRow method is called which causes a good deal of lag bear with me the fix should be quick. Enjoy.

I just finally finished implementing local push notification and some various bug fixes. The hardest part of adding Local Push Notification is the fact that there just aren’t any helpful guides besides Apples documentation. The most challenging aspect of adding in the local notification was making sure notifications were removed that were no longer needed. For example lets say that someone hits Take a Dose! and then hits it again, well following my original implementation this caused 2 notifications to be scheduled just seconds after each other, which is just plain annoying. When you undo a dose the notification would still remain or I would have to clear all of the local notifications and have the user go into the detail screen for each supplement to re-establish the notification. I finally came up with a solution which was actually quite simple. I decided to grab a unique value from the notification which is the localNotif.userInfo attribute, which is a NSDictionary. After establishing this anytime a change is made to scheduled notifications, the app checks for a previous notification for this particular supplement and kills it then schedules the new notification. When you undo a dose, the notification resorts to the previous value. Another feature I have added is the Date picker wheel. Instead of NOW being the only time you can take your supplements, you now have a wheel to enter when you took the supplement, of course the wheel defaults to now but you can adjust it to whatever you want. I also fixed a few bugs, 1 was with my stop light system for quickly checking what supps are coming up soon. It seems that sometimes the light would stay red instead of going green that has been fixed. Another bug I found was when you take the first dose of the day, the “Today’s doses” value would start at 0 instead of incrementing. I fixed this bug as well. Hopefully Apple will be speedy in approving my first major update for iSupplement and thank you everyone for all of your support!