My First iOS Gaming App Experiment – Log2

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I hope you guys would have gone through my previous post  My First iOS Gaming App Experiment – Log1. Yes thats my first experience on gaming in iOS. This briefly tells my experience about starting the app after development xp.

Cocos2D with Box2D: One word people. Only One word. WOWW! A amazing framework to develop iOS games. Keeping my programming friend(RayWenderlich website) in my browser tab started the magic with my 10 fingers on the 104 keys in keyboard dreaming to create a iOS game. Now coming to the Box2D with the shapes i had a hard time figuring out the best tool in finding the shape values for the games(In any Physics Engine it has a feature to create shapes with coordinates for objects in game). So after browsing on internet found Physics Editor is awesome but still was searching for a free tool. So i put Physics Editor in my BuyList basket and started searching for tools. After finding Vertex Helper it made my iOS-Gaming-Coding-Life much easier.

Bugs: One word that every programming developer hates. Obviously mine was full of those stupid things(Yes I created them and yet I hate them and I know it). This gaming is very new for me and this c++ with box2D all in my head made my app somewhat Not-So-Awesome but then with all compromises I started fixing those sick things slowly.

Kamcord: One of the best things of friendship is friends help. Sadesh the guy who i told in Log1  helped me in cocos2d. He incorporated this framework called Kamcord in his previous game called HappyJump. Which is basically a video record and sharing framework for mobile games and i was fascinated by the potential of that framework. So i thought this a kool feature that my game should have. So got the knowledge transfer from sadesh and implemented kamcord in my game. The support from those guys are really aaammaazing. Kevin & Michele from Kamcord they are really awesome to work and get information, they supported me with all my doubts. Kudos to those guys.

Texturepacker: I was late. Not very late but too late to have known the power of TexturePacker in iOS games but anyhow i adapted to it. You know what watch their mindblowing video about spritesheets its absolutely funny and interesting. By using this i can build images into a single large sheet and can import to my other devices such as iPhones and non retina iPads. This helped me convert my ipad game into a universal game app(iPhone4/iPhone5 and iPad) very easily without any pain. You know what I purchased both Physics Editor and TexturePacker.

Finally i had some rookies at my office(Nitesh and Pratap) who just fixed those stupid bugs created by me and finally added some extra touch to my app making my game crash free and bug free.

Marketing: All of sudden i thought it is best to start the marketing before i am ready with the appstore binary. Raywenderlich has a amazing tutorial on marketing iOS aps and games.

1. PreDevelopment Phase

2. Release

3. Post Release

4. Finale

So took some advice from these. Definitely it has lot of information which i think a indie developer should get to know of. While i typing this blog i uploaded the game into appstore and waiting for my app to get approved from apple. Fingers crossed.

Like iPingpong Here

Follow Pingpong Here

Youtube Channel here

My First iOS Gaming App Experiment – Log1

Menu_bg-ipadI got bored of being a iOS App developer i wanna jump to the Gaming Side. How kewl it would be to play a game when you have created that game, That feeling is awesome. So it happened suddenly that i  wanted to develop a iOS game and i have to take the simpler path as i have to go through complex calculations and mathematical formulas for Gaming. But it is not that hard what i imagined when i think now. As a iOS developer for the past 3 years i love the way how Objective-C and iOS evolved inside my Medula Oblangata. It was so so soooo phenomenal.

Ideation So i jumped into the iTunes which i call the iWorld. Searched, Browsed, Surfed 100s of game to pick the right thing. Finally i found that the basic pingpong game(The classic computer pingpong) is the opt one because it doesn’t have complex controls simple swipe and simple mechanics. Also found there are some bored Not-So-Fantastic pingpong apps in appstore. So took that idea and added some wow factors like superpowers in it. I iterated Iterated and Iterated a lot in this game(There was a famous saying i remember now “Innovation is 1%Innovation and 99% Iteration) and finally created a Game design document on that

Design Finally drawing after drawing, sketching after sketching found a good complete gameplay for the app. Simple slider on both ends. Superpowers spawning from both the ends. User has to touch and drag superpowers to acqiure them. Superpower may cause damage to other user. and soooooo oooonnnnn. With some help from our UI team(Hari & Arul) designed the whole thing in Photoshop and created the Visual Elements in iPad Retina size So that i will resize that to any device resolutions like iPhone4Inch, iPhone3.5Inch, Retina and iPad.

Development For any game development. Be prepared with the Images before You start coding. With Xcode 4.6 in my Macmini. Downloading Cocos2d framework and installing in my Xcode created a Cocos2D Project. Cocos2D has been amazingly very easy to develop any game. This can be the best framework that any iOS geek can start his gaming idea. With cocos 2D i started my idea with great help from my friend(Sadesh). Keeping RayWenderlich’s Tutorials(This n this and this one too) on my Browser tabs i opened my Xcode and started coding by filling my coffee mug with Latte. After a week coding in cocos2D making just the 2 sliders on my screen heard that my game can be made very easily using Box2D extension and started reading about Box2D about how physics will be applied to the gaming objects and after reading this tutorial on Ray i got very much excited. Thats how i kicked off with my gaming app. My next Log will be discussing more on technical stuff Next Log…. Coming Soon

Samsung Galaxy Note 2 – My New Gadget

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As an avid apple fan. I have been a long time admirer of apple products. But recently i had enough money and choose the robot keeping the fruit away. I am in need of a phone i had war going inside my head whether it is Apple or Android. Then what the hell, thought of buying a iPad and so its going to be a Droid phone finally

So my choice was clear that it going to be the green robot. So what next? Which phone?

Samsung HTC Motorola Micromax? Whoa.. Lot to choose from.

Finally broke down to Samsung Grand. So when i comparing features in Grand i had a indefinite love to the worlds best droid phone the Samsung Note 2. But after some googling put a Credit Card EMI on Samsung Galaxy note 2 and purchased it online.

What does this beast has?

1. S Pen Stylus – This is the amazing feature of this beast. It nearly does some magic which will raise your friends eyebrows with text coming from their mouth is WOW!

Drawing anything you think of and share it with anything. Inclusion of this drawing with Calendar, Drawing Maps, drawing with photos make this device much more cooler.

2. The next big question you wanna answer when someone sees your Note2 is “How do you keep that phone in your pocket” And the answer is “Yeah it is kinda big but it definitely fit in your jean packet”. When considering the features the Big Size thing is worth.

3. Camera – Is just awesome with 8 MP worth for a phone.

4. Excellent screen resolution makes your phone look like a Tablet.

5. Everything is Big. Isn’t that enough for you guys. Camera, Photos, Videos, Websites that really makes my iPod very smaller when i hold it.

6. Then comes the big thing with Android Ice-cream Sandwich. It has its own awesomeness.

Full Specifications

Video

Samsung galaxy Note 2 Worth as your 11th finger.

How to get paid iOS apps for free

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If you are a newbie to iWorld then you would be really annoyed by the free apps which dont have much features and you will not have enough money to pay or your dad will not give his credit card for you and stupid ads getting popped up at unwanted times. Here are some tips where you can purchase some paid apps for free.

According to apple if you once download a app from appstore it belongs to you for lifetime. So some companies will release their paid app for a limited time as free or drop their price. Keep looking out for them is the easiest way to get the paid app for free.

Appshopper is a website that provides the list of iOS/Mac apps which goes free for a limited time. So the best is to visit this website daily and find the popular iOS apps that has gone free or dropped in price. Just click the buy now button that will open the app in iTunes and click the download button. If you really dont want that app right now but it may be useful in future just download it and cancel the download at once the app has started downloading because it will make you own the app for lifetime.

Apple will release a outstanding-superintuitive-awesome-amazing app free for a week. Which you can checkout at the home page of iTunes. When i am typing this blog Plants Vs Zombies is free app of the week by Apple(which is normally priced $7 for iPad HD and $3 for iPhone). Those who are diehard fan of PvZ this is absolute jackpot for them. This is the most simple method of purchasing a really good paid app for free. A big thank to apple for this.

There are also many iOS applications which will keep track of pricedrops and freebies. Some of them are here

Free App a Day

App of the Day

App Gratis

Apps Gone Free

These apps provide you notifications of some interesting price dropped apps.

Mostly some companies will give out all their applications for free. So also watch out for the developer companies and their products. For example they may drop the price for all thier applications when they release a new app or company founded day or some 100000 applications downloaded day. So cross your fingers for that.

Free of anything that always makes us smile. Just grab the opportunity when it is there 🙂

The Backpack

So now a days rate of digital equipment’s for person increasing at exponential rate. Where people carry machines like work phone, personal phone, iPod, office laptop,  personal laptop, a tablet and the list goes on. So i measure these gadgets in backpack with the length of the wires that they need to use these silicon machines. Probably my digital equipment measure is 25meters/backpack(That includes my dell charger, macbook pro charger, iPod Touch cables, Samsung Android cables, A spike buster).

Last week a backpack fiasco emerged after Steve Wozniak(Steve Jobs friend who cofounded Apple) opened his backpack to the whole world of what he carries in it. After seeing his backpack you can absolutely say this guy is a tech-loving-silicon-friendly-mobile-fanatic-digital-freak. This guy carries around a ton of digital crap with a lot of iOS and android in it. I can measure his digital equipment rate as 500meters/backpack.

So this is his comment on his backpack

Steve Wozniak

Some mornings I open my email and I receive something incredible like this: the awesome contents of Steve Wozniak’s backpack. What you see above (click to expand) is just his charging setup—there’s even more! Here’s Woz to explain it himself—J.

You might think this is abnormal for me but, to the contrary, it’s customary.

Every extension cord and USB adapter and USB cable shown here I carry all the time in my backpack with a few exceptions:

• one Belkin AC tripler with dual USB I carry in my suitcase
• one dual USB adapter is from Janet’s travel stuff
• Canon battery charger is carried in the camera bag
• firewire HD I carry in my suitcase
• Verizon 3G mifi adapter (standard micro USB screws up this mifi, have to use their awkward connecter)

Almost every USB cable is retractable.

Every device shown, I carry in my pockets or in my backpack all the time except:

• 2 iPhones, an iPod nano and an iPad belonging to Janet.

Some people ask how heavy my backpack is. There are a lot more things in my backpack including

• the AirPort Express and MacBook Pro 85W magsafe adapter, which are out of sight in this photo,
• bluetooth mouse,
• binoculars,
• projector connectors,
• multiple Gameboy Lights (a Gameboy sold in Japan but never in the U.S.),
• Gameboy link cables,
• plenty of foreign AC adapters,
• prism glasses for watching movies in bed,
• sunglasses,
• earplugs for concerts,
• Ultimate Ears UE18 earplugs for flights,
• Gameboy link cable,
• tons of pencils for pencil games on flights,
• tons of pens,
• tons of sharpies,
• tons of paint pens (signing),
• red-blue-purple-yellow-green laser pointers,
• credit cards,
• hotel cards,
• airline cards,
• hard rock card,
• medical cards,
• small accessories like olloclip iPhone lens adapter,
• Square,
• flash keys,
• flash media adapters,
• cigarette lighter dual USB adapter,
• audio doubler cable,
• iPad USB/SD Card adapters,
• toiletries for hotels,
• batteries of many types (AA, AAA, CR2, CR128, odder types for things like my bag beeper for locating my suitcase)
• eyedrops,
• $2 bill pads,
• pencil puzzles,
• itineraries for upcoming travel…

I usually say that my backpack weighs 50 pounds. I’m not sure but I have to carry it every step through airports. I’m sure that I’m shorter now than before and I don’t walk as fast. Everything has its place in my backpack.

Sometimes TSA takes a long time unpacking it. A couple of times they asked me to take out everything electronic and I asked for seven bins, all of which I filled (only 2 half-size), plus my MacBook Pro, plus the bag. All of that through the X-ray machine. Then repack it.

Nothing in my backpack goes unused, although the bluetooth mouse is close.

So whats yours?

5 Things a iOS developer should get used to

You can raise your collars about how cool you are if you develop apps for iPhone iPad android or windows phone. Since these are the most favorite platform in entertainment world. As a iphone ipad app developer i have experienced a lot of information about the app developing world and wanna share with you people. Apart from programming i personally found that these information can nurture any mobile developer into high class programmer. so let me enlighten you folks

1. Stackoverflowing: If you are a mobile developer definitely you would have crossed this site Stackoverflow. We stuck up, we forget, we make stupid bugs and still we wanna make sure everything is perfect and we go fetch code from SO. Whats my idea is instead of searching in SO just for answers you can answer the questions which are asked in SO when you get free time. This will greatly improve your learning curve.

2. Tracking Apps: Tracking your appstore for new apps is a fantastic way to know the trending apps currently in market. After seeing these apps they can make you ask a question to yourself (How did they do it? Is it possible in development?) and when you find answers for these you are definitely becoming pro.

3. Pirate: Don’t get panic by reading the title. This what Steve Jobs said to his employees Good artist copy Great artist steal. What i am trying to say is there are lot of drop-in code files and ready made classes out there. Instead of copying functionality and writing code yourself just steal(with their permission and that’s what i call ‘steal’) and modify it according to your requirement. Get iphone and mac drop-in classes here www.cocoacontrols.com, www.verious.com, www.maniacdev.com

4. Photoshopper: Though you may be good with objects, functions, arrays, strings classes, etc when it comes to mobile mostly it talks about the User Interface so even though you are a mobile developer it is good to have a touch in photo editing knowledge to deal with those UI’s.

5. Githubing: This is a thing which i wanna do for a long time. You would have developed many components that may be useful to a lot of rookies. But you havent commented those code or not organized properly so that the third person can use it easily. If you are a Let-All-Developers-Be-Happy type user then try cleaning those codes that are components  so that it should be easily adapted by a third party. So once you are done Github it.

If you can give some extra tips then most welcome…

Funny-Interesting-Humorous iPod Screenshots

Accidents always happen and to make that into really interesting idea is absolutely fun. So i was operating my iPod and accidentally took a screenshot. Then i found out that screenshot was really funny and so this idea emerged from my brain that posting funny screenshots in my blog. So here is my thoughts on screenshots

1. I ran pretty good. Check out my distance 😉 Screenshot inside Screenshot.

2. Thats how i manipulate my apps

3. I think its awesome to keep like this now stop using my ipod and get lost

4. Just look deep this is a different screenshot. Found out the abnormality?

5. Thats in the order of my communication.

6. I got something to do daily

7. Extremely addicted to this. Did you ever tried and completed this.

8. Hate when i get this.

9. As a iPhone app developer this is one of the best apps ever made.

10. My city. Hot as Hot at noon Cold as Cold in eve.

11. Thats how to take a picture without taking a photo in iPod. Screenshoto!!

12. 😉

13 Took a total of 19 takes to take this screenshot at 0.0 level tilting my iPod. Then realized there is a Hold button :p

14. The screenshot says..

12 Things Guy Kawasaki learnt from Steve Jobs

As a big fan of steve jobs I find a interesting topic about that genius and i am posting it here. Guy kawasaki is the guy who has worked as a chief evangelist(probably some marketing term) in apple with steve jobs gave a interesting speech about him after his death and all those things are interestingly awesome.

Believe me if this guy didn’t get fired working with steve jobs. He’s quite a genius.

Here’s what kawasaki said..

Many people have explained what one can learn from Steve Jobs. But few, if any, of these people have been inside the tent and experienced first hand what it was like to work with him. I don’t want any lessons to be lost or forgotten, so here is my list of the top 12 lessons I learned from Steve Jobs.

1. Experts are clueless
Experts—journalists, analysts, consultants, bankers, and gurus can’t “do” so they “advise.” They can tell you what is wrong with your product, but they cannot make a great one. They can tell you how to sell something, but they cannot sell it themselves. They can tell you how to create great teams, but they only manage a secretary. For example, the experts told us that the two biggest shortcomings of Macintosh in the mid 1980s were the lack of a daisy-wheel printer driver and Lotus 1-2-3; another advice gem from the experts was to buy Compaq. Hear what experts say, but don’t always listen to them.

2. Customers cannot tell you what they need
“Apple market research” is an oxymoron. The Apple focus group was the right hemisphere of Steve’s brain talking to the left one. If you ask customers what they want, they will tell you, “Better, faster, and cheaper”—that is, better sameness, not revolutionary change. They can describe their desires only in terms of what they are already using—around the time of the introduction of Macintosh, all that people said they wanted was a better, faster, and cheaper MS-DOS machine. The richest vein for tech startups is creating the product that you want to use—that’s what Steve and Woz did.

3. Jump to the next curve
Big wins happen when you go beyond better sameness. The best daisy-wheel printer companies were introducing new fonts in more sizes. Apple introduced the next curve: laser printing. Think of ice harvesters, ice factories, and refrigerator companies. Ice 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0. Are you still harvesting ice during the winter from a frozen pond?

4. The biggest challenges beget best work
I lived in fear that Steve would tell me that I, or my work, was crap. In public. This fear was a big challenge. Competing with IBM and then Microsoft was a big challenge. Changing the world was a big challenge. I, and Apple employees before me and after me, did our best work because we had to do our best work to meet the big challenges.

5. Design counts
Steve drove people nuts with his design demands—some shades of black weren’t black enough. Mere mortals think that black is black, and that a trash can is a trash can. Steve was a perfectionist, and he was right: some people care about design and many people at least sense it. Maybe not everyone, but the important ones.

6. You can’t go wrong with big graphics and big fonts
Take a look at Steve’s slides. The font is 60 points. There’s usually one big screenshot or graphic. Look at other tech speaker’s slides—even the ones who have seen Steve in action. The font is 8 points, and there are no graphics. So many people say that Steve was the world’s greatest product introduction guy. Don’t you wonder why more people don’t copy his style?

7. Changing your mind is a sign of intelligence
When Apple first shipped the iPhone there was no such thing as apps. Apps, Steve decreed, were a bad thing because you never know what they could be doing to your phone. Safari Web apps were the way to go until six months later when Steve decided, or someone convinced him, that apps were the way to go—but of course. Duh! Apple came a long way in a short time from Safari Web apps to “there’s an app for that.”

8. “Value” is different from “price”
Woe unto you if you decide everything based on price. Even more woe unto you if you compete solely on price. Price is not all that matters—what is important, at least to some people, is value. And value takes into account training, support, and the intrinsic joy of using the best tool that’s made. It’s pretty safe to say that no one buys Apple products because of their low price.

9. A players hire A+ players
Actually, Steve believed that A players hire A players—that is people who are as good as they are. I refined this slightly—my theory is that A players hire people even better than themselves. It’s clear, though, that B players hire C players so they can feel superior to them, and C players hire D players. If you start hiring B players, expect what Steve called “the bozo explosion” to happen in your organization.

10. Real CEOs demo
Steve Jobs could demo a ‘Pod, ‘Pad, ‘Phone, and Mac two to three times a year with millions of people watching, why is it that many CEOs call on their vice president of engineering to do a product demo? Maybe it’s to show that there’s a team effort in play. Maybe. It’s more likely that the CEO doesn’t understand what his/her company is making well enough to explain it. How pathetic is that?

11. Real CEOs ship
For all his perfectionism, Steve could ship. Maybe the product wasn’t perfect every time, but it was almost always great enough to go. The lesson is that Steve wasn’t tinkering for the sake of tinkering—he had a goal: shipping and achieving worldwide domination of existing markets or creation of new markets. Apple is an engineering-centric company, not a research-centric one. Which would you rather be: Apple or Xerox PARC?

12. Marketing boils down to providing unique value
Think of a two-by-two matrix. The vertical axis measures how your product differs from the competition. The horizontal axis measures the value of your product. Bottom right: valuable but not unique—you’ll have to compete on price. Top left: unique but not valuable—you’ll own a market that doesn’t exist. Bottom left: not unique and not valuable—you’re a bozo. Top right: unique and valuable—this is where you make margin, money, and history. For example, the iPod was unique and valuable because it was the only way to legally, inexpensively, and easily download music from the six biggest record labels.

Bonus: Some things need to be believed to be seen. When you are jumping curves, defying/ignoring the experts, facing off against big challenges, obsessing about design, and focusing on unique value, you will need to convince people to believe in what you are doing in order to see your efforts come to fruition. People needed to believe in Macintosh to see it become real. Ditto for the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad. Not everyone will believe—that’s OK. But the starting point of changing the world is changing a few minds. This is the greatest lesson of all that I learned from Steve. May he rest in peace knowing how much he changed the world.

Introducing iDevices


If apple is going to reveal any of its masterpiece it is always a thrill for gadgets freaks like us. I always keep track of the Apple’s new introduction video of their products where those guys give a sleek and exciting advertisements of their products. These are some of the mesmerising advertisements of iPhone, iPod, iPad and macbook

Introducing the Smart Cover for iPad

Introducing the New iPhone 4S

Introducing the New iPad

Introducing the New Macbook Air

Introducing Siri

Introducing OS X Lion

Introducing iOS5

Introducing iCloud

iOS Development for Beginners

Hi Nerds

So welcome to the world of objective-C, your future favorite programming language. With just a two year experience, as a iOS developer it has been a Roller-Coaster ride for me with iOS development and I had some thrilling slides, smooth sight-seeings, slow-uprising of my iOS applications. Hope i will give you some tips to become a comfortable and pro-active iPhone/iPod/iPad developer.

If you are really reading this then you should definitely know some programming language at a very basic level. If the answer is “C” then you will be a Rockstar here. Some of the other techie words that you should get familiarize with are the OOPS concepts, MVC patterns and IDE’s.

Assuming you are pro in the above mentioned techs. I would like you to jump into the Apple world. There are two rules which you should obey when you start developing iOS applications

1. Buy/Borrow/Own/Steal/Rent a Mac machine

2. Buy/Borrow/Own/Steal/Rent a iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad device

Without a mac machine you can’t develop a native iOS app(of-course you can go hybrid but thats not your focus now newbie) as Xcode is the only tool for developing iOS apps and it is available only for mac OS. Without a device to test is always a risk. So obey the two rules.

You got everything you got start learning. I would like to suggest you to see as many video tutorials than the normal text blogs. Lynda.com provides some of the best video tutorials with very simple and clear explanations of iOS and Xcode. Apart from that the best is to learn from the people who created it. Apple Documentations are the best  for any clarifications or doubts.

Try to take a simple idea and create the application for that to learn. Learning each feature separately is not going to help. Take a simple idea that has some of the basic controls and start completing that project so that you have a complete app. My idea would be trying these basics in a single app.

  • Textfield validations
  • Button, Label, View creations
  • Transition of views from one screen to other
  • Passing data to next screen
  • Sqlite DB operations
  • Tableview Creations and manipulations
  • Delegates

As a starter you don’t  need to be so choosy for glassy interface for your app. While things go on you will be familiar with the user interface so do not worry about it now.

If you are stuck up on middle of a bug/isssue and apple documentation doesn’t solve your issue then go posting your question on Stackoverflow. Be neat, simple and clear on the question you are going to ask provide sample code in that and acknowledge the person who is trying to answer your question. Your hours and days effort will be minimized into seconds and minutes. If you become pro someday you can answer the questions posted by other developers as I do now. Thats me in SO.

RayWenderlich is a good team of iOS coders provide very easy and simple tutorials with sample code for some commonly used functionalities. Feel free to browse through their tutorials.

Appsamuck is site that provides open source iOS projects for free. You can download and play with those codes and feel the awesomeness in you by experimenting in it.

So welcome to the iOS.