I am adding camera using {[UIImagePickerController availableMediaTypesForSourceType:UIImagePickerControllerSourceTypeCamera]} as a subview to a UIView with fixed boundaries in my app.
Everything is working fine. But all the examples i see shows displaying camera as a modalcontroller as single screen. My doubt is, are there any cases that APPLE will reject if the camera is added as an subview to a view?. Should it be only shown as a full screen modal controller?
There is no rule that says you may not use camera view as a subview. It's all down to the specifics of your requirements and your app. Apple probably won't reject your app just because of such use of the camera view.
For example, Layar app is using camera view as a background for their overlays - clearly not a modal controller.
At the same time, consider the user's experience. If you are providing your user with the ability to take a picture with the camera and then use this picture in further application logic, then using it as a modal controller may be a better approach, as it provides the user with a consistent experience across multiple apps: users do get used to certain experiences and you need to have a valid reason to go against those consistent experiences.
At the same time, if you do have a valid reason why you want to have camera view as a subview (for example, display an overlay layer over it or apply a filter to the preview, or whatever else), then this is a perfectly valid reason for your UI design decision.
So, to summarize, there's no rule against it, but keep the user's experience in mind. Also remember that Apple may choose to reject your app for any reason they choose - and they don't have to explain it to you. At least, that's what you're agreeing to when you join the developer's programme.
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I have a banner Advert view (could be an iAd or another type) and It loads an advert.
Now after it has loaded, I might want to move it offscreen (for example when I load a complex UI, I dont want to confuse the user, so I hide the ad).
My question is, will the advert know its offscreen? I.e. Will it stop updating its CPM and adjust advertising revenues accordingly, or will I be violating some kind of terms of service by pretending I am showing an advert when really its hidden?
The iAd ADBannerView will detect that it is not visible, so you can assume it will take appropriate action. There is no way to make a categorical statement about any generic advertising program.
I'm creating an app that shows a list of items one by one on the screen. Each item will have a name and phone number, and will be displayed in a view called person view. My project is similar to the iPod music player view:
However, instead of showing the album image, I want to show my person view. Could someone explain me how to achieve the navigation when the user hits |<< or >>|? Also, how can I build a similar view? Any code snippet/blueprint would be quite helpful. Thanks!
One thing to keep in mind is that Apple's app store review guidelines contain advice that apps that reproduce iPod controls may be rejected. My guess is that this is probably meant more to discourage apps from using a control like the traditional iPod jog wheel, but it's something you may want to be careful about.
So, in an iPhone app I am working on, I've decided that the best way to display all the contents to the user is to have the top part of the screen show some information, and the bottom of the screen show different information. However, the bottom part will change sometimes, so I was working on implementing that.
Another app that does this is the MTGLife app, here are some pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/HILMaJPnbLxP6hQRkn_6XA?feat=directlink
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/d5wpS8x_aRyAEOBpYYIxwQ?feat=directlink
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/RW-BQfqx-VytRim3BxeRZQ?feat=directlink
You see that upon hitting a button, the picker switches over and displays the log. Hitting the same button switches them back, with a pretty animation. I would like to do the same thing in my application. I'm not sure the best way to go about it though...
I was thinking that I would make 2 UIViews, and then would simply flip between them, but I want to get some opinions first on how to do this, and then a push in the right direction.
Thank you!
The 2 UIViews is a good approach. By using the UIView animations functions, you can switch between the Log and the Picker with the desired transition.
In the UICatalog sample application (see TransitionViewController), there an example on how to animation two subviews
The Apple UI design guide suggests that a UIPageControl is ideal for presenting the top view of a utility app.
Would a paging view that appears at the 2nd or 3rd level down inside the main UINavigationController view trigger a fail during the App review process?
In my App I have inserted a 3 page view at the second navigation level down in my productivity style app. Each page presents a question and requires an answer that might by a multichoice tick or text box entry. The questions could be stacked vertically in a multi-section table but in my prototype flicking through the questions horizontally feels very natural.
However I have not seen an App store program that uses paging as I have.
I asked Apple a similar question recently and got back:
"Thank you for contacting the iPhone Developer Program. Apple is not able to provide pre-approval to developers for proposed application submissions."
In the end it really depends on the reviewer, the specifics of your app, full moon, etc.
Personally, I would simply try it. If the interface looks good and you think it will not confuse users, then just submit it.
Also, being rejected for stuff like that is not the end of the world. You just have to replace it with something similar. Happened to me once or twice. It is usually not a complete blocker.
Although you will probably not fail app review, I believe using a UIPageControl may be confusing to your users. As you pointed out, I can't think of any apps using the UIPageControl in this manner. The following quote from the iPhone Human Interface Guidelines is informative:
A page indicator gives users a quick
way to see how many views are open and
an indication of the order in which
they were opened; it does not help
users keep track of the steps they
took through a hierarchy of views.
Because the views in a utility
application tend to be peers of each
other, a page indicator is sufficient
to help users navigate through them. A
productivity application that displays
hierarchical information, on the other
hand, should offer navigation through
the elements in the navigation bar
(for more on this, see “Navigation
Bars”).
From your description of how this portion of your app is supposed to display, it doesn't sound like these pages with questions on them would be considered 'multiple views'. In addition, you probably want your users to answer each question sequentially and move on to the next. The UIPageControl is designed so that a user can switch between any of the views in any order they choose, not only in one direction.
This sounds much more like a hierarchical design, and this portion of your app would probably work a lot better if you used a navigation bar along with a UITableView. Requiring your users to answer a question by tapping a multichoice tick box, and then make them figure out that they need to swipe in a certain direction to get to the next question would not be obvious to a user, and could be much more intuitive. For example, as soon as the user selects a tick box, you could just programmatically navigate to the next question. Or, have a button at the bottom of each screen that's labelled "Next Question", which would transition to the next screen.
Hope this helps!
I would like to take a stack of images (or potentially an array of URLs to download images) and display them in full screen, one at a time, using user swipes to smoothly animate the next image in the stack, using the iPhone SDK. Apple's Photo.app seems to do this. Additionally, if the image has not been retrieved yet, I'd like to display the progress indicator.
Can you point me to example code and explain how this technique would be implemented?
You need to use UIScrollview's page control mechanism. Apple has plenty of sample code, including one called, strangely enough, Page Control:
http://developer.apple.com/iphone/library/samplecode/PageControl/index.html
If you want any behavior beyond that, you'll have to roll it yourself.