MeachWare Dev Blog

Year End

2011-12-24T05:32:00.001-08:00

I'll close out 2011 with this post. Sorry my posting dropped off the latter half of the year, WARP gce was and continues to be a big project but the end is in sight. I'm very excited to take my concepts and ideas for Legends of Hylore and put them into binary form :-) If I have some free time I might post some code snipits from WARP gce since from a developer stand point it is packed with

iTunes Reviewers

2011-11-27T14:24:00.000-08:00

[WARNING: RANT] <- totally non-helpful post This is a general rant and not targeted at any one specific iTunes reviewer; HOWEVER, the old saying "if the shoe fits" does apply. I'm getting pretty tired of reading all the whining and bitching from reviewers and not just on my apps; they are everywhere. In addition, nearly ALL the bitching (at least with my apps) is about a feature that the

iOS 5 - Settings Quick Launch

2011-11-13T08:30:00.000-08:00

Notice: Seems iOS 5.1b1 has disabled the "prefs" URL Preference Shortcuts (Live links for your iOS device) About — prefs:root=General&path=About Accessibility — prefs:root=General&path=ACCESSIBILITY Airplane Mode On — prefs:root=AIRPLANE_MODE Auto-Lock — prefs:root=General&path=AUTOLOCK Brightness — prefs:root=Brightness Bluetooth — prefs:root=General&path=Bluetooth Date & Time — prefs:root=

[Epic Fail] Search for Open Source RPG

2011-11-02T15:47:00.000-07:00

So, search google.code or git or wherever and you will find: lots and lots of good intentions and well wishing but I've yet to find one that is viable or even modifiable for iOS development (except the Arianne engine) So with that said... I'm going to develop a Cocos2d based RPG engine(1), it will NOT be open source. You will however be able to purchase a license to develop your own RPG games.

[10.7] Lion - Enable dragging

2011-10-06T07:44:00.000-07:00

So I'm about to switch over to a new (okay, used) 17" MacBook Pro and after I upgraded to Lion on my iMac I had to hack-enable "dragging" on my Magic-Pad. But my hack didn't work on the MacBook Pro. :-/ Define Dragging: on a trackpad, tap and then move your finger to "drag" the item you tapped on (so tap and hold, slide). After several searches, thinking my google-fu must be slipping I found it

[iOS5] GM build Friday September 23

2011-09-20T15:22:00.000-07:00

Just my prediction... since the iCloud reset is on Thursday... but I'm actually hoping for beta 8! Need to iron out some turn-based wrinkles. Edit: pretty much an epic fail! :-)

Nothing new...

2011-08-31T08:20:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of information; pretty much been waist deep in Turn-based gaming (iOS 5). I wish I could write more but since its still under NDA... and I care about my developer status ;-)

Install Xcode 3 on Lion

2011-07-26T05:32:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to post anything but this link: http://anatomicwax.tumblr.com/post/8064949186/installing-xcode-3-2-6-on-lion-redux :-) I needed this because I still use Property List Editor to edit and save binary plist and strings files. If anyone knows how to do this with Xcode 4, please let me know. NOTICE: I tried to open my .strings file AFTER I opened and saved it in Xcode 4 and it was

10.7 and iOS Production Environment

2011-07-25T14:58:00.000-07:00

Well over the weekend I made the switch to 10.7 Lion. I performed a clean install, mostly because my 10.6 had more crap installed than I care to admit. About the only thing I may miss is MacPorts / ImageMagik. I checked several blogs and noticed the trend was posting how to make Lion like 10.6 SL.... ???? Yeah, guess we're a bit afraid of change, aren't we.. ? So far I'm all set after just a

Know Success Even When it Slaps You in the Face!

2011-07-22T08:20:00.000-07:00

AKA: Hyper WARP gce Development Report Hyper WARP gce was developed because: 1: I love Space Trading games 2: I needed to get a handle on a full Game Center integration 3. I needed to get a handle on adding consumable IAP's in an app While I did not write this down, (which I think all your goals should be written down) I loosely defined success for the project as 500 Game Center players within

CrashCatcher

2011-07-11T08:26:00.001-07:00

Available on GitHub: http://github.com/meachware/CrashCatcher Ever wish you could apologize to your user after your app crashed? Me too. Please note this is designed for MULTI-TASKING DEVICES ONLY! Enter CrashCatcher, no it does nothing to prevent or "catch" crashes or errors in your app; I'll leave that up to you. What it does is simply logs that the app started up and logs that the app did

Come on guys!

2011-07-10T18:17:00.000-07:00

[Rant] For the love of god! Fellow developers: 1: if you support rotation in you app, for christs sake, rotate it and test it! 2: if you use networks services, test your app on cellular AND an EDGE connection! <- especially if you are trying to show me your wares! 3: if you offer a universal app, make sure it functions properly on a real iPad! [End of rant] Okay, I know I feel better, how about

Show Developer Notices

2011-07-09T05:33:00.000-07:00

So while we are deep in the forest, putting out fires, inspecting the underbrush... sometimes... I know just every so often, um, we forget to "undo" our developer hacks / changes. I now call this method from applicationDidBecomeActive ... to help :-) In a common header file I have: #define kAllowCheats 1 // 1 on, 0 off In my game manager I have this:-(void)checkDevSettings

[iOS5] WiFi Sync Notice

2011-07-05T16:37:00.000-07:00

Quick troubleshooting tip Scenario: You have the iTunes beta install and are testing iOS 5, so you think "Hey let's try this WiFi sync out". Seems to work okay, cool. Except now your Xcode 4.0.2 goes bullsh!t and freezes up every three minutes! Solution: Disable WiFi sync on ALL iOS 5 devices. :-( Detail: With Xcode 4.0.2 all of a sudden my iOS 5 iPhone 4 would show up in organizer. Erm, yeah

[iOS5] Saved Files Alert!

2011-07-03T04:41:00.000-07:00

Game, utility or whatever app you are developing. Know this... as of iOS 5; the USER will have full visibility into your apps Document folder. <- as of beta 2 I have already started saving my apps data to the /Library folder but in my recent game WARP gce, the "save" files are still in /Documents. So on your iOS 5 test device go to Settings -> General -> Usage and select an app We're are still

[iOS5] Caution!

2011-06-12T07:23:00.000-07:00

I had Xcode 4.0.2 installed in /Developer and Xcode 4.2 (beta) installed in /Beta. I could work and run both just fine. I had to submit an update to an existing app (WARP gce was approved!). When I built to test the app on my device Xcode 4.0.2 gave me a signing error, something about the code_wrapper. So I tried just re-installing Xcode 4.0.2 and the error was fixed (most likely because Xcode

iOS 5.0 Pre-Keynote

2011-06-06T07:58:00.000-07:00

Well we should get the beta for iOS 5.0 today. Here's what I think: iOS 5.0 will install on an iPod 4th gen or iPhone or iPad. So yeah it will exclude the 3rd gen iPod and iPhone 3GS. This will cause the usual "I'm not going to developer for iOS anymore" blog posts and developers will take their ball and go (home) to Android. However, iOS 5.0 will have such a compelling feature set that most

Speed up Xcode 4

2011-06-03T16:10:00.000-07:00

Love it or hate it... Xcode 4 is here to stay... Browsing the Apple forums I happened upon a post with the most excellent comment from crisB regarding speeding up Xcode 4. My Xcode 4 was PAINFULLY slow... Basically you need to remove the workspace file from the contents of your project. Here's a before and after shot. My project's file was 50MB's and my Xcode 4 was running EXTREMELY

MeachWare Intern Positions

2011-04-23T07:05:00.000-07:00

We have two intern positions available. Please see this post and stay tuned for the job posting ads. Update: Added both job descriptions. Links to PDF's here:ProgrammerGraphics Design Thanks Greg

iOS 4.3.2 Download links

2011-04-15T05:09:00.000-07:00

[Direct Links] Download iOS 4.3.2 for iPhone, iPad and iPod TouchiPhone 4 (GSM) (not Verizon) iPhone 4 (CDMA) (Verizon) iPhone 3GS iPad 2 WiFi iPad 2 GSM iPad 2 CDMA iPad iPod Touch 3rd Gen iPod Touch 4th Gen Oh and of course we have another 4.6GB download for Xcode... wow! you'd think Apple could implement a "sparkle" type incremental update but since we can't do it with iOS apps guess they

WWDC 2011 June 6-10

2011-03-28T07:42:00.000-07:00

It's official, WWDC 2011 will be held on June 6th through the 10th.... and it's SOLD OUT! but now I don't think I'm going... :-( WWDC09: Sold out in 28+ Days WWDC10: Sold out in 8 Days WWDC11: Sold out in < 1 Day WWDC12: 42 minutes??? Jeff's got his blog updated, if you are going make sure you check this out... do it NOW!!!

iOS 4.3.1 Download links

2011-03-25T13:27:00.000-07:00

[Direct Links] Download iOS 4.3.1 for iPhone, iPad and iPod TouchiPhone 4 (GSM) (not Verizon) iPhone 3GS iPad 2 WiFi iPad 2 GSM iPad 2 CDMA iPad iPod touch 3G iPod touch 4G Looking for the Verizon iOS 4.3.1 update? me too! Oh and of course we have another 4.3GB download for Xcode... wow! you'd think Apple could implement a "sparkle" type incremental update but since we can't do it with iOS apps

Back to life

2011-03-23T07:32:00.000-07:00

I missed this somewhere... sorry but Mobile Orchard is back on-line. Last I knew Dan was "taking his ball and going home".... guess he had a change of heart (or pocketbook). Note: I can't locate Dan's blog post as it has disappeared, I guess you can take back what you say on the interweb ;-) Miss Mobile Orchard? We’re back! Regardless, it was a great resource and should continue to be, if

App Store Top 100

2011-03-22T05:14:00.000-07:00

WOW, this pretty much sums up how I feel about the "mechanics" of the App Store ranking... why oh why did this app make it to #1??? Nuff said...

Too Much Detail - Refinement

2011-03-21T10:46:00.000-07:00

So I was using a new app the other day and noticed the developer also used the same code (available to anyone) that we use in Battery Stat Pro albeit with one glaring exception. This app doesn't set the color to the current value... which quite frankly I find very inconvenient from a user perspective. You launch the app, tap the color block and then touch anywhere and the color changes, always

Beta Testing Requirements

2011-03-19T13:02:00.000-07:00

First of all, thank you for considering to help us beta test our product. Beta testing is an important part of attaining a smooth, stable and polished app so we truly value your contribution. Here are some guidelines and expectations to help understand the process. First some do's and don'tsDO'S:DO show the app to your family & friendsDO have fun using the appDO record as much detail as possible

[Xcode 4] - Where is my build?

2011-03-12T10:55:00.000-08:00

The second in a series of (hopefully) helpful Xcode 4 posts. I knew right where my "Build" folder was in Xcode 3 and my "Release" or "AppStore" or "Debug" builds were right in there, plain and simple. Now with Xcode 4: Where the frack are they in Xcode 4??? Fear not, Xcode 4 (default settings) uses a common build or derived data folder. (1000 words) I put a shortcut to this folder in my "

Get Ready for Xcode 4 and Get Git!

2011-03-09T12:35:00.000-08:00

So I'm stepping up and into the 20th(???) century.. :-D yes, I'm finally using an SCM! W00T! I can't show any Xcode 4 screenshots (yet) since it is still under NDA but I can say that it is flat out super easy to use Git within Xcode 4. I also won't embarrass myself and tell you how I had been managing my projects before Git. Here's a very quick overview: 1. Download, install and configure Git.

Xcode 4 & Xcode 3 Work Fine Together

2011-03-09T08:28:00.000-08:00

Edit: Very timely! didn't know Xcode 4 would be released today! DO NOT INSTALL XCODE 4 in the default location!!! If you do/did you will/have replaced your Xcode 3 installation. Edit: sorry for shouting... Wait, what? you already installed it and now you lost Xcode 3... ARG the humanity!!!! Okay all is not lost, take a quick look at this older post about selecting a different folder for Xcode

WWDC 2011 Phase I

2011-03-07T10:36:00.000-08:00

Phase I: Hotel booked ✓ Phase II: WWDC ticket purchased ✘ Phase III: Flight booked ✘ WOW, I can't believe I made a hotel reservation for WWDC 11 based on some speculation! Seems it was a good thing since several of the hotels I checked (including hotel Milano) are fully booked, or at least are not offering any rooms during June 5-9, 2011. Stay tuned as I'll be posting all related WWDC 11 info

Honesty - generally the best policy!

2011-03-02T14:51:00.001-08:00

I recently updated Qwik Text and thought I would try and add a user requested feature. Okay, I know this doesn't sound very impressive... except that the feature was a "quit" function and we know Apple generally doesn't like that. Anyhow I updated Qwik Text, added the new quick launch option to quit app, tested it and then submitted it to the store. Well, 6 days later and it has been approved.

[How To] iOS Airprinting with Airport Express

2011-02-23T17:53:00.000-08:00

Just a quick "How To" to get your iOS devices printing on your home network.. with ANY USB printer. I had, during iOS 4.2 beta testing, my USB HP CM1017 color laser printer shared via my iMac working on my iOS 4.2 test devices. We've now moved to a new apartment and when setting up our office I did not want to use a USB printer anymore. We had a couple of unused Airport Express (with USB ports)

Community Project Update

2011-02-23T08:10:00.000-08:00

Things are moving right along on the community project and I'm very glad I signed up to work on it. Yes it has cut into my limited time but the experience has far exceeded whatever lost time on my current projects. One of the biggest benefits is to watch the progress (changes, updates, tweaks, etc) over each iteration. The interaction between the other contributors has been great too. I'm now

Add Text Files to your Xcode Project

2011-01-24T06:16:00.000-08:00

I just started using this technique a few months ago (I know, seasoned developers are probably laughing at me...) but I have since found it to be extremely helpful. Being a very small Indie iOS developer, I usually have more than one project "in the works" and I will have an idea or I find some really cool sound effect or maybe some new code snipit that I want to use / include in one of my

Community Game Project

2011-01-19T05:10:00.000-08:00

We are participating in a Community game project. We had a delayed start but the project has been underway for almost a week and so far it's very cool. Indeed a great experience, especially for someone that has never developed in a team environment. You can find out more about the project here: http://www.iPhoneGameKit.com/community/

Mr. Clean Magic Eraser

2011-01-14T05:16:00.000-08:00

Just a real quick cleaning tip, mostly for (metal) Macbook users but I'm sure it will work on almost anything. You can use the Magic Eraser from Mr. Clean on your entire Macbook (except the LCD(1)). NOTICE: USE IT DRY, NOT DAMP OR WET! If you've never used this product, you'll be amazed. We've been using it to keep all our Macbooks look brand spanking new. Note: Since its glass its probably

Standing Desk (trial)

2011-01-13T06:56:00.000-08:00

Like many other iOS developers, I too find myself sitting way toooo long. My wife and I have matching (sit down) desks in our home office and they are not really conducive to using blocks or reams of paper, in addition, my iMac is nestled nicely under a hutch style bookcase so lifting it up is out of the question. Dora the Explorer™ to the rescue! Yes indeed that is my grand daughters Dora tray

Xcode Updates

2011-01-06T06:14:00.000-08:00

Revised: Jan-12-2011 (iOS 4.3 beta1) I have seen this mentioned quite often while reading the many forums about the steps developers take to resolve problems: They mention as one of the steps that they even updated Xcode to the newest version. This would mean to me that they were NOT using the newest version to begin with. I cannot think of any reason to NOT install the newest Xcode once it has

iOS Game Center Icon Overlay

2010-12-22T06:19:00.000-08:00

In case you missed my sample icon I used in the Icon Set Creation Tool, I was using a nice Game Center logo, like all the other social gaming providers use. Well to my dismay I found a post on the Apple developer forums that "we" are not allowed to the Game Center logo in our apps icon. Now I'm not sure its specific to the full size logo which would be pretty dumb, right?

iOS Icon set Creator

2010-12-18T08:08:00.000-08:00

I was updating the icon for Easy Lander and was annoyed every time I wanted to see the update in the Simulator or on my device because I had to take my new 512x512 icon and resize it, a few times. This is why I love using a Mac! - AUTOMATOR to the rescue! So here's what the Automator workflow does: Asks for your 512x512 icon image then duplicates it, scales it

iPad & iOS 4.2

2010-12-17T17:24:00.000-08:00

Now that I have used iOS 4.2 on my iPad for quite awhile now, I can emphatically state that the iPad does NOT have enough system memory to fully support multitasking! Yup, I said... :-/ More times than not I switch from one app to another and the app is not in the background and these are apps I know support multitasking. Mark my words, the iPad 2 will have at least twice the memory, if not

iTunes Holiday Shutdown

2010-12-02T06:14:00.000-08:00

Just noticed the part about any price changes... YIKES! iTunes Connect will be temporarily shut down from Thursday, December 23 to Tuesday, December 28 for the winter holidays. Do not schedule any pricing changes to take effect during this time. Changes scheduled between these dates will make the app unavailable for purchase. Note that any app with an available date scheduled during the shutdown

Game Center, oh game center...

2010-11-29T14:43:00.000-08:00

how I loathe thee.... Sorry.... more to come. Just venting about all the extra work involved in getting GC up and running in Easy Lander....

Thoughts on Older Devices

2010-10-11T08:04:00.000-07:00

So, lets put some "truthiness" (full credit to Stephen Colbert) down on paper about decisions, or better yet a "strategy" an indie developer has to make. The strategy I'm referring to is of course around supporting older devices. Well what does that mean? Thanks for asking Virginia, let me share my (recent) thoughts. Most if not all indie developers need to make money. If you are an indie and

Game Center Design

2010-10-07T08:47:00.000-07:00

I've read numerous forum and blog posts recently and initial reactions to Game Center from Users is: The login (UIAlertView) sucks and looks like the app is trying to steal my iTunes Account.This is a good place for a pre-sign-on modal view or alert, asking if they want to use Game Center and explaining that the next dialog box is required to log into / authenticate with Game Center and is

Taking Advantage of the RootViewController

2010-10-06T07:49:00.000-07:00

that is now available in cocos2d 0.99.5 I mentioned in a forum post about how cool it is not that we have an actual view controller available to us to hang stuff off of. A few people have asked about what I was referring to, so here's a sample project. This is just the cocos2d base template with the MessageUI framework added (required for in-app email) and a few bits of code. First we'll add a

iAd's in Universal App

2010-10-05T11:36:00.000-07:00

In iOS 4.2, there is a change in the references to the ADBannerView size. We used to use:ADBannerContentSizeIdentifier320x50 & ADBannerContentSizeIdentifier480x32 But now we need to use:ADBannerContentSizeIdentifierPortrait & ADBannerContentSizeIdentifierLandscape This allows iOS 4.2 to resize the iAd based on the device / window size. So how do you create a universal app that uses iAd's AND will

It's Official!

2010-10-01T09:32:00.000-07:00

Supporting multiple iOS versions is a real pain! The last update for Hyper WARP (iPhone v2.7) has a problem only on iOS 3.x - ARG!! I tested the update several times but failed to test the final build (<- yup I know, what a dummy!). Even after I posted THIS PAGE on our site... double ARG! Makes me reconsider supporting pre-iOS 4 at all... When we started both iOS 2.x and iOS 3.x were available

Minimum Requirements For Your Game

2010-09-28T05:11:00.000-07:00

I think at a minimum, a game should provide: Menu: logical structure Pause option: have some way for the player to pause Save and resume: have some way to resume a saved game User options: sound / music adjustment controls adjustment (if applicable) Credits: developer info w/email link to website / other games So what are your minimum requirements for a game?

Stable or Cutting Edge?

2010-09-22T15:15:00.000-07:00

So... when you are developing your next awesome cocos2d game / app which approach do you use? [stable approach] 1. Take the stable release and never look back (forward). [cutting edge approach] 2. Take the newest release and revise your application and always look forward. I've been using the cutting edge approach on LoH and it's been okay but I'm sure I'd be further along if I took the (

Batch Transform (transparent) Images

2010-09-17T13:47:00.000-07:00

I used the following to remove the backgrounds from around 32,000 sprites in about 4 hours. My sprites are also now all in English with no spaces (only way I could get the Automator shell script to work). Requires ImageMagick, an open source command line image processing utility. The easiest way to install it is by using MacPorts. Phase One (prep all folders) Pre-process Automator workflow to

Testing Your Game Center Apps

2010-09-17T07:07:00.000-07:00

Update: October 6th, 2010 - looks like there are some new Sandbox screens. I'll try and update the images. So now that you can access Game Center on your (compatible) iOS device running 4.1 (or higher). Testing your own GC apps is now a bit of a snafu. Here's what I have found: First, you'll need to get your app setup in iTunes Connect (see Apple Docs). You'll need to test a debug or ad-hoc

iOS Developer Utilities

2010-09-14T11:08:00.000-07:00

Open Source iOS Add-ons There are several open source iOS add-ons that I use and maybe there are some developers that do not know about them. Here's my listing: * In-App Purchasing: Excellent blog post with source code to easily add In-App Purchasing to your app. The only thing that I have updated is to use the keychain and not NSUserDefaults. See Keychain Access below. * Ask for Review: Add

iAd Tip

2010-08-30T12:37:00.000-07:00

Posted this on my site but thought it was worth posting here too. When you are viewing an iAd sometimes the dismiss "x" doesn't seem to work. No worries, just press the "Home" button. The iAd will exit and you'll return to your application.

Info.plist Cheat Sheet

2010-08-28T06:09:00.000-07:00

Updated: Nov 1, 2010 I routinely need to look up information about entries in an applications Info.plist. I even saved the Apple PDF to my hard drive. Still, I find myself looking for an example. Of course there is no one perfect Info.plist but here's a sample that I put together for a universal app that we want to only run on an iPhone 3GS or newer device. After reading a few threads on the

Mental Health Day

2010-08-27T11:15:00.000-07:00

After about three weeks of hammering out code on Legends of Hylore and learning cocos2d at the same time, I literally heard one of my brain cells pop! Yup, scared the crap out of me. So this was the perfect time to switch modes and do some.... more coding??? Yes, its what relaxes me and it was a project I'd been putting off for quite awhile. A Contact Lens Tracker. I know, there's quite a few

2nd try...

2010-08-27T09:24:00.000-07:00

Well this is now my second attempt at blogging. Let's hope I do better this time 'round.