The non-content part of making a newsstand compatible app - objective-c

I am working on a newsstand magazine and I have done the content (with great help from the Laker Compendium), but can't manage to do the part concerning the app's store view and server downloading.
There is really a small number of tutorials and such help on newsstand and the only one I found to be helpful in some other aspects, doesn't really explain well this part.
Simply, what I'm asking is if I have created content (as a single app), how do I get it to work with a store and future issues?
Is there a downloadable project I can adapt to my own server?

Laker does not yet have newsstand capability. You can try to add it yourself. This is the best tutorial I have found:
http://www.viggiosoft.com/blog/blog/2011/10/17/ios-newsstand-tutorial/
Also, I recommend the wwdc video talks that you can download for free on iTunes about newsstand. You will need to build your own server to host the files. I'm doing the same using Google App Engine. This is a non-trivial project.

Related

Evernote API in Unity3D

Since I haven't got any response on the Unity3d or Evernote forums, I'll try it here.
The last year I have worked a lot with Unity3D, mostly because the good integration with the Vuforia Augmented Reality library and the fact that publishing for multiple platforms is a piece of cake.
Now I want to show notes in an AR setting and am looking at the Evernote API for this. I couldn't find anything about using this with Unity, I can see why this is not the most common combination.
My question is: do you think I can access the Evernote API through Unity? If so, how should I do this? Or is it for this purpose perhaps wiser to make (parts of) the application with Eclipse/xCode?
Hope to hear from you!
Link to Evernote API: http://dev.evernote.com/doc/
The Evernote API has a C# SDK which you should be able to call through Unity. In terms of how to do it, you will probably need to download the SDK and follow the instructions yourself. Their github seems like a good starting point.
One thing to note is that Unity's .Net library for mobile clients are quite limited and with webplayer you will need to deal with sandbox security issues. But start with the standalone build first and see how you go

Know of any iOS/OS X Photo Frameworks

Im working on an iPhone app and would like to add a photo element to it. The features Im looking for are:
A photo gallery in my app.
Take a photo from my app and return one or more images to the app gallery.
Upload images to a server.
Image resizing.
I know there are a lot of great frameworks out there for iOS/OS X so I was hoping someone knew of one that could accomplish the above.
Also I was wondering if it would be a better idea to have a framework for the photography features and a fuller networking framework for uploads and downloads? Im leaning towards two because Im familiar with MKNetworkKit : https://github.com/MugunthKumar/MKNetworkKit
I just thought of another thing. I need to set up a server with an API so I can send and receive photos and data. Does anyone know of any frameworks/libraries/toolkits that would help me set up the server for uploading/downloading photos and data?
I dont want to program from scratch what I dont have to. Why reinvent the wheel when I can give it chrome plating and spinners :)
I've used MWPhotoBrowser for generating gallery views before, but it's not been updated for a little while, and it doesn't cover everything you want out of the box. You'll probably be best served by splitting it into multiple libraries to cover the necessary functionality, and adapting them as needed.
In terms of the backend server you'd probably get quite far with Rails and the Paperclip gem. I set up a basic image and data serving API in about half a day with the two, and there's a fair amount of tutorials showing how to do it with the Rails scaffolding commands. To get you started a video of how to build a RESTful API in Rails and a railscast on Paperclip.

GWT & MVP in order to deliver BOTH Native (Android+ObjC) & HTML5 Mobile Apps?

So GWT best practices encourages one to use some flavour of MVP, which should in theory allow one to write different native views while sharing the presenter business logic.
This seems to be at the heart of the GWT spin off Google project http://code.google.com/p/j2objc/ which converts the non-UI part of your code to Objective-C, allowing you to write the rest natively in Objective-C.
So my question is: If this really hard part of the puzzle is being solved, how hard would it be to include an HTML5 mobile library (like MGWT or Touch4j [Sencha]) into this MVP pipeline to have the best of all worlds?
Having dabbled with http://code.google.com/p/playn/ , this clearly seems to be the blue-print for having a cross-plaftform build system (native android & html5 & java &...), but that project is geared for single screen drawing and event loop for game dynamics and doesn't allow for keyboard input and other typical mobile goodies.
It seems a shame that if so much of the problem has been solved, that it's not possible to go the extra mile. The answer to this question would be the best plan for actioning a solution, including such nigglies as which MVP structure to choose that would ease accommodation of the various widget libraries (GWTP vs MVP 2.1), and if the best approach is to start with the PlayN code base, and start to hack it.. what are the gotchas? Or if another path is chosen, why that one? and why would it be the best??
Thanx a lot. :-)
It is not clear whether your question is - evaluation options for multi-platform app development or mvp.
You can evaluate additional technology which are used with Sencha and GWT
1) mgwt
2) titanium
3) phonegap
You can also reference - Creating a mobile app using Google App Engine and GWT?
Note: PlayN as you mention is more of gaming platform and not suitable for business app.
MVP is definitely doable... and at times you may feel like its a lot of work, but it pays off in the end. Check out the Touch4j Kitchen Sink, which is written using MVP. You can take that down to the device with Cordova if you wish. The code is on GitHub:
https://github.com/emitrom/touch4jks
The repo is actively being worked on (we are updating ourselves to Touch4j 4.0) so it won't run out the gate, but at least you can see and follow the model :-)
Titanium4j is to Appcelerator's Titanium as Touch4j is to Sencha Touch. You may want to check that out as well. Titanium4j and Touch4j rely on GWT.
Cheers.

Use phonegap or go native?

I'm about to make an application for ipad that has the following specifications:
download JSON (or xml) from server
download short audiofiles from server (locations are in the JSON from above)
save these to the iPad for offline use.
based on these files the user gets to do some exercises
user progress/results need to be saved to the device so they can continue where they left off the next time they launch the app.
My question: Can this be done with only html/css/jquery Phonegap? Or should I go native and make this all in Objective-C? Or can I combine phonegap and Objective-C?
Now I'd like to know how I can save a json file on the device for offline use.
Also I'd like to know how to download audio (or images or whatever) and save those to the device.
This can be done with PhoneGap/Cordova and its HTML5 approach.
If it is iPad only, then go native.
Your app's high level requirements do not sound too complicated. For more complex apps always consider that facebook just went native for iOS because of their performance issues. In the end, this may be the way to go for a number of apps. PhoneGap or other HTML5 or cross compiling approaches for 1000+ devices plus native solutions for the market leaders.
It depends on what level UX your are aiming for and how you think your app may expand in the future.
If you need full control over the user experience, then you will need to go native. All the physics involved in scrolling/swiping will be done for you. How much content will you have? if it's thousands of items then again native will offer the best performance. You can also perform certain tasks on background threads (my app did image compression and resizing before uploading the image, for example).
Otherwise - if you just want to get something out quick, go with phonegap.
*I speak as a developer who started out with Phonegap but went Native for performance reasons. Others may have had better experiences.
Comparing application build in native Objective-C with applications build with Webtool like PhoneGap, in terms of being fast, Objective-C apps always win, but in terms of building it fast with zero knowledge of Objective-C Web apps win.
If you have knowledge of Objective-C, in my opinion go with native Objective-C app, else do it with PhoneGap.
BTW, those functionality mentioned in your question can be done with both.

How can I use iCloud Sync if I'm not using Core Data?

I've seen a few examples showing how to integrate iCloud with Core Data, but my app uses a handwritten SQLite persistence layer.
Am I just out of luck, or are there straightforward ways to do syncing and conflict resolution over iCloud with a non-Core Data database?
"Straightforward" might not be the first word that comes to mind, but you can definitely use iCloud storage in non-Core Data apps. You'll need to manage your storage engine, conflict resolutions, and data presentation yourself, however; you don't get the "easy" merging and resolution that Core Data gets you.
Read up on the iCloud Storage guide for detailed info. There's a good checklist a little way down that guides you through setting up document-based storage in your app.
you should check out this stack overflow answer link it iCloud synk but for OSX application basically the same thing. just use .plist files. hope it helps. It helped me on my mac app OSX app iClound synk
iCloud tutorial part 1
iCloud tutorial part 2