SDK

You here the stories of people making crazy money writing iPhone apps and you’re thinking “I wish I could get in on that action!” Who can blame you? But programming for the iPhone can be tricky business, even if you’re a seasoned vet. If only there was someone who had intimate knowledge of the iPhone and could write. It would probably help if this person had a Doctorate in Computer Science from a prestigious school. Hmmmm, let’s see what we need: Someone who knows everything about the iPhone, someone who has a Doctorate, someone who can write....
Bingo! Get your app writing on with:

The iPhone Developer’s Cookbook: Building Applications with the iPhone SDK

yep, that’s a book from Dr. Erica Sadun on writing apps for the iPhone. You can’t go wrong with one of her books on just about any topic you pick! So get that programming jones a fix and check out the book!

If you’re paying attention you know that some lucky developers have their hands on the 2.2 Beta. And there is nothing that developers like doing than more than voiding the NDA and telling everyone what they are seeing. But some do mare than talk, some grab screenshots. Guess what. Someone got a hold of screenshots of the version of Safari in the 2.2 Beta. Want to see them? Of course you do it’s like some kind of iPhone p0rn or something. Check out this post at Wired. Bonus points: Cut and paste speculation.

Perhaps we have forgotten about the iPhone 2.0 beta and the features that’ll come, not only to the 3G iPhone, but to existing iPhones as well. Specifically, the AppStore in which many of the cool software will be released.

Games are going to be a huge success for iPhones. Apple knows this, and game developers know this as well. That is why I am thinking most of the Apps will be games.

Of all the games that are likely to be releases, two of them will be Blackjack and Mahjong.

Mobileage says it will be offering two games for the iPhone and iPod Touch through the iTunes App Store later this year. Blackjack21 is described as the definitive version of the world’s most popular casino card game.

“Blackjack 21 offers super seamless gameplay as it responds to the same gestures used in a live game. You can further customize the game by directly downloading awesome card and table art for free.”

TouchTile Mahjong is described as the classic tile matching game for iPhone and iPod Touch.

“Finally you can transform those… more...

I never really understood what geo-tagging was exactly until perhaps a few months ago.

It is quite a nifty concept and I’ve noticed that many photo-sharing sites include geo-tagging. Geo-tagging is tagging pictures based on your geographic location, so pictures will have a tag embedded with longitude and latitude coordinates.

Apple has continued to add new features to their upcoming iPhone 2.0 firmware release. The latest version seems to have a feature for those using the camera application, according to Appleinsider.

The latest iPhone 2.0 beta asks the user for permission before transmitting their location information. Apple currently uses Wi-fi and Cell tower identification to pinpoint locations, but is rumored to add GPS support in the next version of the iPhone.

News is extremely limited at the moment, but TUAW reports that another version of the iPhone SDK and iPhone firmware have been released by Apple, and are available now to download.

The news is still coming in from the developers that have gotten a hold of the new firmware and SDK. “This is Apple’s fifth beta release since the iPhone SDK was released in March. There’s just under a week left until the end of the Apple Design Awards submission period.”

The new SDK weighs in at just under 1GB and that is all that is known as of now. I am pretty sure more information about the unexpected release will be given out in the near future.

The Black app. Is it a viral campaign for attention? Maybe, but if all goes well it will be a great social tool for iPhone users all around. It is said that when iPhone 2.0 is released so will one of the first social networking applications for the phone, but… this is merely speculation. “The first iPhone social consumer network.” Any ideas as to what this means? Regardless, the app will be launching on June 5th from Epic Apps, so it seems as if it may be a while before we get any more significant information. Keep an eye out, but until then, be satisfied with looking at the site.

The Nike+ Sport Kit released a few years ago for iPod Nano digital music player is finally getting an upgrade that will see support extended to iPhone and iPod touch.

I have not used the kit, but I have heard that with the existing version of the kit, runners must first return to their Mac or PC, dock their iPod nano, launch iTunes, and then push their latest performance data to the Nike+ website.

However, with the new application coming to the iPhone and iPod touch, runners will be able to beam that data to the website wirelessly the instant they complete their workout.

That being said, I assume the iPhone SDK will allow this to happen, with the application being available via the AppStore. For more information, take a look here.

The people over at ZiPhone spotted some code in the brand new 2.0 beta iPhone firmware that could point to the chip to be used in the upcoming 3G iPhone.

The code makes mention of ‘SGOLD3,” which could very well refer to Infineon’s followup chip to the S-GOLD2 which powers the current iPhone.

Infineon’s other name for the S-GOLD3H chip is the PMB8878, a 7.2Mbps HSDPA chip with all the video acceleration and media playback features iPhone users have come to expect.

Some features include higher resolution camera support (5 megapixels instead of our current 2), a 2X speed MMC / SD interface and more. However, that doesn’t mean any of these specs will end up in the iPhone 3G, but it is capable, leaving our minds souring as to what will come for the next iPhone.

Stay tuned…

Although Steve Jobs said, during his SDK introduction presentation, that the iPhone App Store would work over both WiFi and cellular networks, a new screenshot of the store from Boy Genius Report apparently reveals that a WiFi connection is, at least for now, required.

I’m sure this is just for testing purposes. The network access to the App Store should come with future beta builds.

To get a good idea of what you will most like see in June, check out the plethora of pictures that Boy Genius Report has taken of the iPhone beta software.

Can’t wait

As the SDK progresses, we are finding out more and more about the true features which are to come, as well as the problems developers are having with the beta OS.

More coders are now being accepted into the program and taken back by some restrictions and problems.

Apple’s documentation states: “Once you install the pre-release iPhone OS on your device, such device may only be used for development and testing purposes until the final (GM) version of the iPhone OS is released. In addition, you will need to install new versions of the software from time to time throughout the beta period. Failure to install the most current version will, after a period of time, put your device in a deactivated state.”

In addition to that, once you have the beta software on the phone, there is no downgrading or starting from the begging, so you are stuck. Not to mention, installing iPhone OS 1.2 also disables the phone’s radio, so you cannot make phone calls.

I am guessing the leaked photos of the beta OS will not be overlooked, but here at iPhone Matters (and others, i am sure) we… more...