Is the graphing portion of Apple's "Stocks" iPhone application available to developers?
My guess would be that it is not. If I am right, on a rough scale on 0-100, how difficult would it be to reproduce? (I know this is a silly question, but anyway. Just want some idea.) Also, what framework do you think would be the most suitable for the reproduction? Core Animation? Notice especially how you can drag your finger across the charts when in landscape mode to see the prices on each data point. It's just way too cool.
http://code.google.com/p/core-plot/ is probably what you're looking for.
There are several commercial tools for iOS charting, which can probably reproduce the chart you are looking for.
ShinobiControls - which has many interactive features, as seen in this video.
www.threedgraphics.com
iPhone Charting Library for iPhone Objective-C
Full Disclosure - I work for Scott Logic, which is the parent company of ShinobiControls
It's also worth checking out SciChart, which has an ios financial chart control.
It is a paid control, but in performance tests really outstrips competitors including paid and open source. Some by a mile.
It supports Objective-C, Swift2.2, Swift3 as well as Xamarin in the upcoming v2.x release.
You can now clone the iOS Chart examples on Github and have a play around with the controls and see how we created the above example app!
Full disclosure - I work for SciChart and am the tech lead on the project
Related
With Lion and the new Xcode and ARC and Storyboard and the little glitches that many of us have found in trying to make the move into iOS 5, it can be quite intimidating for a junior developer to make the jump.
I know there are similar questions that touch on specific tasks related to making the switch, but not quite what I and probably others are looking for.
So, what are some good resources to help iOS 4 and Xcode 3 developers make the switch to the new technology?
I had quite some success switching using the Apple WWDC 2011 videos concerning new technologies, especially ARC. If you want to spend a few dollars, I also would recommend iOS 5 by tutorials by Ray Wenderlich. if you are already somewhat familiar with the iOS 4 technologies. The book currently is not done but digital buyers get the current beta version which is almost complete. You can see the introductory chapters on the site as well , category iOS 5, and depending on your needs this may already enough to get a jump start in the new technologies.
Watch some of the WWDC videos (which you can get by going to http://developer.apple.com/wwdc and clicking on the "WWDC Videos" at the bottom of the screen). As far as I know, these are free for registered developers.
The "Intro" talks are probably the most illuminating, for developers just getting started in the process of figuring out what to do with iOS 5.
Here are useful links to help implementing storyboard :
http://codingandcoffee.wordpress.com/2011/10/12/iphone-tutorial-one-introduction-to-storyboarding/
http://www.scott-sherwood.com/?p=219
Calling methods between view controllers using Storyboard
I have several iOS5 tutorials on my site and I have had extremely positive reactions to my Storyboard tutorial, it is slightly more in-depth that this previously mentioned. I also have a practical example with a Lamp backend that shows you how to communicate with an iOS device.
Would love to hear your thoughts on them.
A client do not want to consider MonoTouch for a new project.
MonoTouch.info has a long list of apps, but I have not found any on the caliber that can convince a client too choose a technology. The client has seen the list, and actually use the bland screenshots as an argument against MonoTouch.
Where can I find examples of applications useful as motivation. High profile apps created using MonoTouch, the apps you call home about. The apps that made it to the top 25 lists in their category.?
I responded on Twitter but thought I'd reply properly here;
The first app I will mention is iCircuit - http://icircuitapp.com/ - this application is featured on the Apple website here - http://www.apple.com/ipad/business/apps/index.html#workflow-icircuit - and is a pretty good seller.
Diggify is a Digg application which hit the top #8 sold application in Canada apparently - http://www.intomobile.com/apps/diggify/359756952/
An application that I built myself (it's a little old now admittedly) but I do think that it looks rather nice - http://bit.ly/gfxmasappstore :)
London Bike App is another nice looking application - http://www.londonbikeapp.com/
Update: Wow, this is an old question, there's a whole bunch of great apps using MonoTouch at http://xamarin.com/apps
Hope this helps,
ChrisNTR
I know of a couple apps that were built using Monotouch and sold very well but due to the uncertainly surrounding the terms when MT first came out and later the 3.3.1 mess the devs didn't make a big fuss out of it. I suspect they aren't the only ones not publicizing what technology they used to make their app.
If your client is using a handful of screenshots on a website as the reason to rule out using Monotouch then you might want to rethink your pitch. Whether or not an app has been developed in native Objective-C or C# via Monotouch makes no difference on the overall design or appearance because both rely on the CocoaTouch framework for UI. Being able to deliver an app that meets your client's idea of what makes a great app has nothing to do with the language you use and has everything to do with your ability to translate the essence of their ideas into a solid design and UX. Sell that, not the framework.
I found this article to be helpful when I'm trying to explain to others why I use Monotouch over native objective-c.
"Why we chose MonoTouch to write the Diggify iPhone app"
With the recent loosening of the Apple Developer licence on third-party development platforms, I have had a brief look into app development with Monotouch and Flash CS5 but am unsure of which to develop with. I am competent in both C# and ActionScript so the language isn't so much the issue (but i dislike objective-c so please don't suggest it).
What I would like to know is which development platform (if either) has the bigger advantages in terms of execution speed (FPS in games) etc. (Assuming that the code efficiency be of the same degree on both). Also if there are any other advantages/disadvantages between them I would love to know. (Please also ignore pricing, i am purely looking at this from a development point of view).
Cheers.
If you are looking into Mono, you might also want to check out Unity.
I started working through their tutorials last week and am having a blast. They have support for making iOS games with C#, JS, and Boo (Similar to Python). They offer a no cost stripped down version and a more advanced one for a price.
Along with the detailed tutorials on their website in pdf format, this site also provides video tuts specific to the iPhone, which you might enjoy. 3D Buzz
Here is a write-up on the unity site about how their framework integrates with Visual Studio/Mono Unity FAQS. They use their own C# compiler, but you can still work from VS or their Mono implementation.
I would strongly suggest using Monotouch over CS5. I've only really used Monotouch, so my answer won't be complete but I can tell you about my experiences with it.
Although it is only a subset of Mono, it brings a lot of C# wonderful features to the iPhone and it has a 1:1 binding with the native APIs which means you're learning how to develop for the iphone using the native APIs. Due to the fact it is a 1:1 binding, if you come across a problem, you can always see how it's done in Objective-C and then apply it to C#.
Granted, Monotouch does come at a price, I've found the price worth it due to the constant updates and the amazing speed at which the support staff will respond to any queries.
There is a great community envolving around it too - see Monotouch.info as example, which will link you to many great articles to get you on your way.
We're evaluating Sencha Touch for mobile development. Has anyone used this yet (I realize that it's still in beta), and if so, what are its strengths / weaknesses? How does it compare to alternatives?
It certainly sounds compelling.
Thanks!
I'm playing with Sencha Touch, I have a project up at GitHub. If you're comfortable with ExtJS it will be familiar. The examples are impressive (requires WebKit browser). You might be interested in this question as well.
I've used it only briefly. It looks very good and has a nice array of tools to make pseudo-native apps. One of the larger concerns is the licensing (the inclusion of ExtJS and the requirement to purchase a license to use the software). Now ExtJS and Sencha have merged - so I am unsure of what the impact will be. Also, as for alternatives, Sencha has merged in JQTouch (a primary alternative). See this post for more information
I think currently it is only optimized for safari-browser. I tried in on Android Phone (HTC Magic, Android 1.6) and the examples didn't work.
but it is a beta of course....
Currently ,i'm using sencha-touch in my project and pretty easy to use and understand especially with the documentation that comes along with it . As compared other mobile fameworks whose documentation is limited
is iPhone 3.0 SDK significantly different that I cannot use any books that were meant for iPhone 2.0 SDK?
Programming is pretty much the same?
Generally as everyone said above, changes to UITableView and few other items. 2.0 books still will be a great way to start.
Generally skip over any chapters with sound there is a new framework called AVAudioPlayer which makes playing sound sooooo much easier.
3.0 added a lot of extra frameworks which are real cool.
CoreData which is quite complex but
can be used for storing complex data.
MapKit has been added which allows
you to add google maps into you
application. It also features reverse
GeoCoding which means you can give
the map your lat,long and it will
give you an address which is way
cool.
Now you can interact with the user
iPhone Music Library and play
their music in your app.
You can also access the proximity sensor
cut/copy/paste,
video
shake gesture
push notification
in-app purchasing
.
The iPhone 2.0 books should give you the basic idea of how to structure your code, however you will miss out on some of the nice new things such as the availability of CoreData. A few things have changed with some of the controls such as UITableView, however you will get deprecation warnings from the compiler if you try to do things the old way.
The language is the same, with the addition of some new classes and a few changes to old ones. Your 2.0 books will be fine. If you're not using new features that were added in 3.0, there's almost no difference.
So far the biggest difference I found in terms of features that were available at 2.0 is changes made to Table views, specifically to table view cells. Apple added a lot of nice features that are commonly used every where that you had to write yourself. In 3.0 some of those are given to you.
So my advice is don't worry about using 2.0 books but when you start working on something also consult the SDK's documentation to see if there are any interesting things not mentioned in the book (I guess that would be a good advice even if the SDK didn't change).