WoW! iPhone OS 3.2 Gold Master Seed is now available for paying members of iPhone Developer’s Program (which now services iPad development too). This is pretty big news for the developers who are gearing up for iPad development. This OS version is the first operating system for iPad.

The email from Apple states this:

• All iPad apps submitted must be built using this release.
• All members of the iPhone Developer Program can submit their iPad apps to iTunes Connect for review and approval. If you did not submit your app during the initial review period, but upload it by March 31, it will reviewed but may not make the grand opening of the iPad App Store.
• Make sure you read the iPhone SDK GM Seed Release Notes before installing and developing with this release.

Here is a direct snap of the Apple mailer..

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Apple Now Accepting iPad Apps for the grand opening of the iPad App Store., the email sent to iPhone App Developers by Apple states this:

• Submit Your App by March 27.
• Build and test your iPad app using iPhone SDK 3.2 beta 5 available on the iPhone Dev Center. Only iPad apps built with iPhone SDK 3.2 beta 5 will be accepted for this initial review.
• Upload your distribution signed app through iTunes Connect by Saturday, March 27, 5pm PDT.
• The App Review Team will review your app on iPad and email you details about the readiness of your app.
• You will also receive additional information about submitting your app for final review before iPad ships.
• Only apps submitted for the initial review will be considered for the grand opening of the iPad App Store.

You can find the apple email below:

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As an iPhone developer I have lately been observing many errors while installing Adhoc builds on my testing/friends iPhones or iPodTouches. Many of them have been really hard to fix and some have just been “nothing but frustrating”.

There was a case where what ever I did, did not work. Many attempts to install using iTunes after trying to change certificates, provisioning profiles have failed. Even the “iPhone Configuration Utility” failed to install the app. I had actually lost all hopes getting it installed on this device. But after a little prayer and just a little hope left, it just worked.

Why did it work? I do not have any answer. Can’t still figure it out. And that was the first time I tried installing an Adhoc build on a device for a Windows user!! Is it really so hard?

Could not install application on device: Error: A signed resource has been added, modified or deleted.

The image that you see here, is another failed attempt at installing an Adhoc build for a Windows user. But this got resolved real quick.

The reason: Mac allows file names to contain some special characters (like ‘*’) which are not valid on a Windows PC. This is one thing you can check if you come across errors of above kind. But not all of them will be the same as above.

If any one else has faced a similar problem and found a definitive solution, let us know here.

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Tired of having to install your application on a device for every little change that you make in your code? No!! You test it on the iPhone Simulator!!
What if the application uses GPS and Accelerometer? You cannot test it on the iPhone Simulator.

Here comes iSimulate from vimov to your rescue. People at vimov have created a really useful utility for developers to test their applications which employ GPS and Accelerometer on the iPhone Simulator. Lots of time saved between installs right!!

iSimulate is an application which you download and install on your device to send accelerometer and GPS details to the app running on the iPhone Simulator. The app must of course embed the iSimulate library to be able to receive those details. All it takes to install the iSimulate app on your device, embed the library in your application and start using it is just around 5 minutes.

The newer releases of iSimulate even support video streaming. You can actually see the game or app on your iPhone or iPodTouch even though it’s running on the iPhone Simulator. This enables you to provide very accurate touches to the Simulator. This is a giant leap forward from it’s first days where you had screen filled with Accelerometer graph to simulate touches!!

iSimulate really makes testing your apps easy and quick. Go get your apps on to AppStore that much quicker!!

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Apple released iPhone SDK 3.1.2 on Thursday Oct 8, the release email sent to iPhone App Developers by Apple states this:

iPhone SDK 3.1.2 is now available on the iPhone Dev Center. If you have updated your iPhone app development devices to iPhone OS 3.1.2, you will need to download and install the new iPhone SDK to continue your iPhone app development.

A version of iPhone SDK 3.1.2 is also available to developers who are running Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Please ensure you select the appropriate SDK based on your iPhone app development environment.

iPhone SDK 3.1.2 is now available

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Apple announced App Store Resource Centre, a Single destination is designed to make it easier for iPhone App Developers to find details on everything you need to know about distributing your iPhone app on the App Store — from how to prepare for app submission to managing your app once it’s been posted.

Preparing iPhone apps for App Submission
Get started with iTunes Connect, including setting up your user accounts, submitting contracts, tax and banking information, and gathering application information.

App Store Approval Process
Ensure your application is ready for submission and learn what to expect during the app approval process.

Managing iPhone Apps on the App Store
Make the most of your presence on the App Store and learn what you can do to manage your app once it has been posted.

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As mentioned in a previous article by Rama Krishna the memory issues in iPhone OS 3.0 relating to UIImageView can be reproduced easily. And here is such a re-production. You can download the iPhone sample application and see for yourself what the problem is. Just open the project, build it for the device (not the simulator) and run it with Instruments (ObjectAlloc) to see a nice little upwards running ramp developing on screen.

Oh!! but remember to run the app on iPhone OS 3.0 and not on iPhone OS 3.1 (the bug has apparently been patched for this version)

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How to open other applications like phone dialer, SMS, Safari, Google Maps, iTunes or AppStore or any other iPhone application?

“openURL” is the API to use to achieve any of the above and many more.
If you need to let your application users quickly dial APPLE from within your app, just include the following line

[[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"tel:8006927753"]];

Similarly, you could initiate SMS application by using openURL with “sms: “, but unfortunately you cannot fill in the SMS content as Apple does not yet support it.
There are many more things you could do with this API like launching Google Maps, Safari with any website like you want or even the AppStore links to your apps which you want the users to buy.

Checking support for URLs of other applications
Until the release of iPhone OS 3.0 it was not possible to find if there are any applications installed on the device which handle the URL scheme you are about to use. But now it is possible through the following API

- (BOOL)canOpenURL:(NSURL*)url

Call the above API before using “openURL” to make sure your call will “certainly” be handled by a registered application. If you were developing an iphone app which lets a phone call be made from within it, do the following

// this will fail if the device is an iPod
if ([[UIApplication sharedApplication] canOpenURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"tel:111"]])
{
[[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"tel:111"]];
}
else
{
// show an Alert here indicating that the call can’t be completed
}

Apart from using “canOpenURL”, do check the return value from “openURL” too and take appropriate action.

You should also use “canOpenURL” to find out if any features (like calling a number and SMS) that are not accessible on iPod should be disabled or hidden. Showing “phone” icons and letting them be clicked in your application on an iPod is a sure shot way to get your application rejected for uploading to AppStore.

Registering and handling custom URL schemes
If you are developing a great tool and can be used by other applications, you can register custom URL schemes and implement them. To create custom URL schemes just add them to your application’s “info.plist” file.

• To the root element of your application’s “info.plist” file, add a row with key named “URL types”.
• Expand it to find “item1″ in it, expand it and edit the value for key “URL identifier” to look something like “com.yourcompany.yoururlscheme”
• Add another row to “item1″ with key “URL Schemes”. Type in the first few characters of your URL scheme.
  For an example, if you wish to use url formats like abc://part1/part2, just enter “abc” for URL Schemes

Once you have created and registered your own URL formats/schemes, you can handle incoming URL requests by implementing the following UIApplicationDelegate method

- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication*)application handleOpenURL:(NSURL*)url

Before parsing and/or handling the URL, make sure it is in the right format and follows all rules of your URL scheme.

The above method was the only place where you can handle incoming URLs until iPhone OS 3.0 arrived. For iPhone OS 3.0 and above, the preferred place to handle incoming URLs is

- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication*)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary*)launchOptions

This method should return whatever “handleOpenURL” API would have returned if it were implemented. If you implement the above delegate method of UIApplication, IPhone OS will not invoke the following methods

- (void)applicationDidFinishLaunching:(UIApplication*)application
- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication*)application handleOpenURL:(NSURL*)url

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