by Daniel @ 4:08 pm
I’m just about ready for App School, starting on Monday morning. I’ve updated all my notes so they reflect the latest updates to the iPhone SDK and App Store policies, SQT has processed all the bookings and printed all the material (thanks, Kim!), Big Wave Media Training has their training location all set up and ready to go with the SDK set up on their machines (thanks Jenny and Liam!)… this should be a good one!
We have an interesting class coming in this time, with a nice group of people coming from different backgrounds: it should make for some great ideas bouncing around! The better the variation in the students, the better the class dynamic. Lunch-time also always gives opportunity for app-related discussion (you’d think everyone would be grateful of the break from it, but that hasn’t been the case yet!).
It will be interesting to see how the new location works out. Big Wave’s training room is much more central than previous courses, and it will be great to have the LUAS stop just a few doors down, as well as the great selection of restaurants!
If you are interested in attending App School, please check out our dates on the home page or the side-bar.
by Daniel @ 1:18 pm
I have some very exciting news today! App School’s own John Long, who attended the first run of the course, has published his first iPhone app!
AerBrowse is an app to allow you use Aertel (RTE teletext) on your iPhone or iPod touch.
AerBrowse made a very nice tweet this morning too!
Thanks to #appschool I exist! AerBrowse allows users to easily and intuitively browse Aertel on their iPhone/iPod Touch!
—AerBrowse
It’s so exciting to see apps being made by App School students and I’m sure this one will be a great success!
Check it out on the App Store!
by Daniel @ 10:25 pm
Today Apple has updated their License Agreement with all developers. Comparing it with the previous agreement, this is making way for In-App purchases from free apps.
In-App Purchases from Free Apps
Today Apple has circulated an email to its developers stating the following:
In App Purchase is being rapidly adopted by developers in their paid apps. Now you can use In App Purchase in your free apps to sell content, subscriptions, and digital services.
You can also simplify your development by creating a single version of your app that uses In App Purchase to unlock additional functionality, eliminating the need to create Lite versions of your app. Using In App Purchase in your app can also help combat some of the problems of software piracy by allowing you to verify In App Purchases.
The updated license agreement make many small changes throughout the document, largely removing the term “Paid Application” and instead making no distinction between “Paid Applications” and other applications. Previously the term “Paid Application” was only used in the context of In-App Purchases.
Still no VoIP
On the 6th Oct, AT&T announced that it was allowing VoIP apps (such as Skype) make calls over its 3G network. Previously Apple rejected any apps attempting to do this, and required developers to check that Wi-Fi was available before making any VoIP calls.
Now would seem to be the time to update the license agreement. However, in the new license agreement section 3.3.20 remains the same, stating that apps “may not have Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) functionality using the cellular network”. This may be disappointing for some developers, but perhaps carriers other than AT&T do not want to carry VoIP over their cellular network? If this is the case, I wonder will Skype have to decide which carrier the device is on before making calls?
by Daniel @ 12:28 pm
Yesterday news hit that the iPhone will be available on Orange in the UK, and today we hear the exciting news that the iPhone will be available from Vodafone in Ireland!
This is really great news for both customers and developers. From the customers point of view, there will soon be some real competition to O2 in Ireland. Prices are likely to drop and features currently unsupported by O2 (Internet tethering and visual voicemail) may come to O2 customers if Vodafone decides to add these to increase the value of their iPhone package.
From the developer’s point of view it means a whole lot more customers! Developers might soon see Vodafone customers who wanted an iPhone but didn’t want to move to a different company, or those who found O2’s tariffs too expensive.
I’m certainly looking forward to seeing what happens to the Irish iPhone app market in 2010!
by Daniel @ 11:15 pm
This week ENN very kindly published an article by yours truly.
Thoughout my experience with App School I have consistently found that the iPhone SDK’s difficulty is underestimated by developers. This has ranged from comments such as hearing that the iPhone SDK is “one of the easiest” to people seriously studying it, reading two to four books and still finding themselves struggling.
There are definitely a lot of interesting concepts that don’t appear very often outside of Objective-C or its close relations such as Smalltalk, and these are quite difficult to assimilate.
In the article, I address one or two of these concepts and give a few reasons for sticking with the iPhone in spite of these hurdles.
by Daniel @ 2:02 pm
Tim Roberts attended App School last week.
It’s Monday morning after my week at App School.
There is a distinct sense of optimism around my office as we now possess the tools to start rolling out iPhone apps from the ground up and begin to tap into a whole new revenue stream…
With our well-honed design skills, interpretive copywriting strength and, now, a new found iPhone app programming ability we are on track to break a whole new market in our field.
This has all been made possible by a bit of hard work, a willingness to learn and a fantastic training program from Daniel Heffernan and the App School team.
All we can say is, “Thank you App School!”
Tim Roberts
Imagemakers
www.imagemakers.uk.com
by Daniel @ 6:17 pm
Tim Roberts is attending App School this week. The following is his account of the course after 3 days.
Wow!! My mind is blown!!
I came to App School from a business background, sent to retrain to build apps for our customers. My background is design and media (Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, inDesign, etc) so getting to grips with Objective-C and discovering how to write the code that iPhone understands was always going to be a real challenge to me.
Providentially, App School’s resident guru, Daniel Hefferman is blessed with an ability to explain even the most intense coding process in just the way I needed. Indeed, 3 days in to the course and I’ve built 4 simple apps from scratch and had them running on iPhone!
So, yes, my mind is blown…. but in a very productive way. :O)
Roll on the next few days!!
Tim Roberts
Imagemakers
www.imagemakers.uk.com
by App School @ 5:02 pm
I am delighted to announce that we have a winner for the App School Scholarship competition for a free place on App School!
Mark Mulvany’s idea won in the end, but since the submission was a private email-based submission (as most of the submissions were) I cannot discuss his ideas right now. What I can say is that he has some very exciting ideas and I’m looking forward to writing about them once they go live on the App Store!
There were many great submissions and there were so many others that I would really like to see created and live on the Store, so for next week’s course we have extended our half-price offer to all those who submitted their ideas for the competition.
A big thanks to all those who participated in the competition and to those who retweeted it! Looking forward to seeing you on the course, Mark!
by Daniel @ 6:53 pm
There have been many interesting applications to the App School Scholarship that we announced a couple of days ago. Among the Scholarship competition entries there have been a number from students and people who are unemployed. Many were very keen to win the competition because they wouldn’t otherwise have been able to fund App School.
This has been something that had been brought to our attention, but the competition really brought home the point.
We all put our heads together and came up with a new offer, which should hopefully lower the barrier to entry for these people. The offer we came up with is the following:
App School is now half price for students and the unemployed
Just prove you are currently registered as a student or unemployed, then App School will be available to you with a 50% discount: that’s €750 (or £675 for our London course).
by Lily @ 11:47 am
App School will be presented by Daniel for Engineers Ireland in the last week of September i.e., the 28th September – 2nd October.
If you go into Engineers Ireland website today, you will see under latest news.
‘Engineers Ireland, the professional members’ body for all qualified engineers in Ireland, launches a course this September that aims to exploit entrepreneurial flair in the software engineering sector.
The course, entitled Developing Business and Personal Applications using the iPhone, is the first software engineering course to be run by Engineers Ireland and as such could be described as expansion into a new area for the organisation.’
This is an interesting collaboration for App School.
