For those unfamiliar with the term behavioral driven development testing (BDD) frameworks are used so that you can test applications using logical English like syntax.

I have come across an open source  framework designed specifically for iOS devices.   What’s cool about this specific framework is that it can easily be attached to Objective-C methods, runs in the simulator, and let’s you store your different stories in different files so you could easily demonstrate your software’s ability to cope with different scenario’s.

Here’s an example of the types of a story used for testing:

Story: Example story showing the basic syntax.
Given Simon is working
Then I should be able to see abc and 5 in the log and say goodby at the end.

The framework is known as Simon, and was created by Derek Clarkson.

It can be found on Github here:
https://github.com/drekka/Simon

UPDATE: Got feedback about another framework known as Kiwi you may want to check out if this interests you.

I had never used one of these frameworks before, but it looks like a great way to illustrate an app does exactly what it should do. HKSAB58YGFWN

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A few weeks ago I mentioned the Moai SDK.  An open source iOS game development kit allowing for development of iOS apps (and Android apps) in Lua.  What I really liked about the engine that it has already been used in could be extended to support any functionality within the iOS SDK.

At that time Moai  a limited beta, the beta has been extended now to support all developers.

In order to download the latest SDK release and the cloud services you will need to sign up on the Moai website for the dashboard here:
http://dashboard.moaicloud.com/signup.php

You can find the Github project for the Moai SDK Source here:
https://github.com/moai/moai-beta

The cloud services look great, and very easy to code – if you’re interested be sure to check out their 60 second tutorial here:
60 Second Moai Cloud Tutorial

There are numerous improvements since I first mentioned the SDK. Looks like the guys developing the Moai SDK have been very busy!

Read More: iPhone Dev News

©2012 iPhone, iOS 5, iPad SDK Development Tutorial and Programming Tips. All Rights Reserved.

Another great week has gone by, and if you are a regular visitor to this site you have probably noticed that I am now using a new theme.  Hopefully this betters the user experience for everyone.

In the last week there were some great resources shared, those included a number of open source libraries relating to topics such as Core Text, web services, data storage, and user interface improvements.

Here are the most viewed resources that were new in the last week listed in order of popularity:

Open Source: Lightweight Asynchronous Networking Library For Easy Communication With Web Services – A great lightweight library for communicating with web services allowing you to code complex interactions quickly by taking advantage of Objective-C blocks.

Tutorial: Custom In View Popup Windows – A guide and library for creating popup windows within your main view so that you can display content without needing to navigate to another view.

Open Source: Rich Text-Editing View Using Core Text – A drop in UITextView replacement that allows for easily creating and editing richly formatted text.

Open Source: Library For Easy Data Saving/Loading – A straightforward data saving library allowing you to save or load int, float, and NSString data with just one line of code.

Open Source: UITableView Replacement With Swipeable Cells – A slick UITableView replacement that allows you to create table view cells that can be swiped by the user revealing new content behind the cell.

Open Source: Library Allowing For Tab Bars With An Infinite Number Of Items – A tab bar library that allows you to place an unlimited number of items and allowing the user to scroll between different tab bars accessing the icons without the user having to use the more screen.

Tutorial: Format Text Magazine Style Using Core Text – A great step-by-step tutorial on how to format your text in multiple columns, and format the text with different styles using Core Text.  Excellent for anyone developing a magazine style app.

Open Source: Easily Extensible Objective-C Math Parser Library – A very useful math parsing library that uses similar syntax to NSPredicate but allows you to very easily add new functions.

Open Source: Library And Guide For NinePatch Image Support On iOS Platforms – A libary for support of NinePatch format images that are commonly used for interface elements on Android.

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There are many ways to save data on iOS devices.  Some like a database are likely overkill for a game, and other methods like serialization are great, but things could still be easier.

I’ve found a very cool time saving library that allows you to easily save and load ints, floats, and NSString’s to an automatically created .PLIST file.  No fuss at all just one line of code to save, or one line to load each of these datatypes.  A nice simple quick solution if you want to install some simple data saving into an app.  If you need to save a few floats of game data it is an ideal solution.

The library is ABLFXSaveSystem from Alexander Blunck and can be found on Github here:
https://github.com/ablfx/ABLFXSaveSystem

A cool example of a simple, but useful open source library.

©2012 iPhone, iOS 5, iPad SDK Development Tutorial and Programming Tips. All Rights Reserved.

iAds and the iAds for develoeprs program has been a boon for developers showing iAds within their apps due to the extremely high CPM rates.   The cost for non-developer ads has been said to be as high as $18 CPM while those of AdMob are considerably less than a dollar.   The cost for developer ads is 0.25 cents per click.

It’s been suggested that these new ads perform quite well.  Personally I’ve been extremely skeptical as even the much lower cost for AdMob ads does not make for easy profit.  Fortunately, the developers at Cross Forward Consulting performed a test, and decided to share their results.

The overall results of Cross Forward Consulting advertising their app, Audiobooks Premium, a pretty successful app in it’s own right have shown absolutely dismal results.

The end results were $1251.75 spent on iAds providing 5,007 clicks and  just 48 downloads..   The overall cost was $14.90 for each download.  There were 2,052,929 impressions.

You can see the full writeup, and further details in the article here:
iAd for Developers

Sure, some might say a more expensive app could do better, but it’s hard to imagine how it could be worthwhile.  Considering the extremely high CPM rates non-developers are paying for iAds it looks like the iAds CPM rates are about as stable as a house of cards unless somehow iAds performance were to dramatically improve.  Especially given the much lower AdMob rates. Imagine if the test was done at the rate those big-wig advertisers are supposedly paying.. the cost would have been over $750 for a download.

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It’s the dream of pretty much everyone who has worked on an app to get an app featured by Apple.  By now I’m sure we’ve all heard the stories of ridiculous profits that can be earned within a few days.

Now the problem is, how does Apple choose which apps are featured?  I’ve seen absolute junk get featured in the Canadian app store while some brilliant apps seem to get glanced over.  So unfortunately,  no matter what luck definitely seems to be the biggest factor in the formula for getting your apps featured in the magic formula.

All that being said I read an interesting article from one developer who was able to get their app featured by Apple, a game known as Alienz which was able to reach the top 100 strategy and arcade game categories of the app store earning them nearly $2k in a week.

Here’s a quick summary of the formula they came up with:

1. Presentation – Definitely looks are the most important factor that you can actually control.
2. Uniqueness – The author emphasizes this, and it seems to be a factor, but I have seen a lot of rehashed stuff get featured so I’m not too sure about this one.
3. Time of release – Interesting stuff here.. definitely seems like on some days Apple has slimmer pickings on some days as opposed to others.  Their suggestion is not to get your app listed right after the weekend if you want to get featured.
4. Make The App Paid – According to the author Apple typically only features free apps by big publishers.
5. Get Mentioned By The Big Sites – Apple seems to favor apps featured on big sites by Engadget (I would say though that these are usually only quality apps anyways

Interesting stuff, and you can read the full article here.

I would say that it is 90% luck, 9% presentation, and 1% the other stuff, but definitely some things to consider.

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If you’re app makes extensive use of trigonometry (and if you’re working on game development then you probably are) then you probably make extensive use of the built in math functions.  This isn’t the first open source iPhone math library to offer a speed increase, but it is the only one as far as I know that is still in active development.

According to Apple  apps that make extensive use of floating point numbers should not make use of the thumb compiling option which reduces code size.

Dave Dribin has created a math library exclusively making use of integers, and based on the speed of the sine function vs. the standard libary sin and sinf functions it looks like Dave’s trigint library is at least 4x faster.

You can find the library and more info here:
Trigint: An Integer-Based Trigonmetry Library

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[via: Under The Bridge]

©2012 iPhone, iOS 5, iPad SDK Development Tutorial and Programming Tips. All Rights Reserved.

Sparrow, the game framework I used in my iOS programming tutorial on creating an action game, has recently added a new feature to easily handle the higher screen resolutions provided by the retina display of the iPhone 4.  I hope to update the tutorial to utilize this new feature in the near future. A new Sparrow Tutorial from the creators of this grame framework illustrates the process.

The process involves using tools that are included with the Sparrow Framework that will automatically create all the required textures from your high definition textures.

You can find the step-by-step tutorial from the creators of sparrow here:
How To Make HD Games With Sparrow

The new feature is in Sparrow 0.9 which can be found here.

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It continues to be an exciting time to develop on the iOS platform, and in the last couple of weeks some interesting news has come out.  It appears that a new edition of Apple TV will be released later this year with support for iOS apps, and a new iPod Touch with front and back facing cameras.  While these are just rumors it does make sense and seems like a logical step forward.

Here are the most popular iPhone and iPad programming resources from this site in terms of sharing and visits for the 2 weeks July 31st to August 13th:

Latest edition here: iOS Development Resources

2 Great New Open Source iOS Apps: iStrobe and Ecological Footprint – Article about two new high quality apps that the creators have generously released as open source.

Beginners iPhone Action Game Programming Tutorial – An extremely in-depth tutorial on how to program the gameplay in an iPhone action game.

Getting Your App Made Even If You’re Not A Programmer – Article detailing do’s and don’ts for those looking to get an app developed without any programming skills.

Blocks – An Interesting Objective-C Addition In iOS 4 – A tutorial on how to utilize the blocks feature to shorten code in iOS 4 (aka. closures) x5

iTV – Another Platform For iOS Apps? – Article disclosing some of the details of Apple’s rumored iTV device.

Handling Z-Ordering In Cocos2D Map Based Games – A tutorial about creating two custom classes that easily enable correct Z-ordering in Cocos2D map based games.

Custom iPad UISplitViewController Adds Many Slick Features – Open Source – Article on the release of an open source project allowing you to easily implement a UISplitViewController with many useful features added.

Good Explanation Of Instruments In Xcode – A good overview of the instruments available in Xcode.

Interesting Info About iAds For Developers – Article including info  about how much iAds costs for developers and conversion rates.

How To Use Visio As A Level Editor – Tutorial on how convert Visio files into a .plist and then parse the resulting data as level data.

Hosting A Beta Test For Your iPhone and iPad Apps – Tutorial on the essentials of running an iOS app beta test such as ad-hoc distribution.

That’s it, thanks for reading.

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I’ve extended the open source iPhone apps list with two great new apps.  

The quest for quality iPhone and iPad programming examples continues and both of these apps are app store apps that the creators generously decided to open source.  While there are a lot of great examples on the list with the continuous release of new features more are always welcome.

The first app is very interesting because I know that the topic of controlling the iPhone 4′s flash is searched for quite frequently on this site.  This app features a strobe lite, see video:

You can find the homepage here: iStrobe.

The other app is Ecological Footprint, which shows how to share data using Facebook connect and e-mail, utilizing Core Data and more.  See video:

You can find the homepage here: Ecological Footprint.

Check here for more information on the other 37 open source iphone app store apps.

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