What should Default.png contain? Currently it seems that iPhone OS makes snapshots of the screen before closing the app, and next time it launches with that exact snapshot as "splash screen image".
A guy here in Russia told me that this is only happening when Multitasking works on the device.
What would I show in Default.png now? I don't want that the app launch sucks for users without multitasking, and I don't want it to suck for users with multitasking where the app had to hardcore-launch anyways (i.e. first launch at all). So what would that contain? A screenshot of the app screen how it looks after a hard launch from scratch? But what if my app is clever and saved state, and the UI looks completely different after launch?
What are you guys putting in Default.png and why?
If fast-app switching is working on the app as part of multi-tasking, you are correct in stating that the OS will take a snapshot and restore your app to this state after it comes out of the background. If the OS is saving state for you, then coming out of the background doesn't "suck" since it brings you app back into view looking just like it did when it left. It's almost like minimizing a window on Mac OSX and then maximizing it again... you just pick up from where you left off before.
Be advised though that the app could get killed at anytime in the background without warning or notifications being sent to you. In that case, you should still save state and try to create a splash screen that works with all of your views (i.e. has a tab bar at the bottom, or a nav bar at the top, etc). If you can't do that, you might consider just doing what Jesse has done with a company or app splash screen (even though Apple doesn't endorse this, but they won't reject you for it either).
As Jesse stated, Apple recommends creating an outline of the main elements to familiarize the user with your app and to give the appearance of faster loading. More information is here
For iPhone splash screens I am still using a company logo splash. for iPad, a basic "outline" of what the screen i am coming into will look like (a splitview basically, depending on orientation). The fact that default.png isn't editable does make this tricky though.
Related
Apple is now requiring a retina and 4-inch display Splash page (i.e. the "Default-568h#2x.png") for all apps to be submitted, which is fine. However, when I include that and then do another build, once I get into the app, instead of it being centered with dark on the top and bottom (as it was before), is now top-aligned on the screen with 2x the blank space on the bottom.. which looks really unprofessional.
Is there any way via our configuration to tell the OS to go back to centering the app, despite that it has the now-required 4" Splash page included? Ideally I'd like to be able to do this without updating every single IB view in the app to center it manually, as I feel the OS should still be able to do this somehow via configuration.
FYI, answers that say "update your entire app for 4"!" are unacceptable. There are clients who don't yet have a creative budget for this but still want to keep their existing app looking decent in the store. If it's not possible, then it's not possible, but that is why I'm asking the question.
Thanks in advance for any assistance on this, and my apologies if this has already been asked.
As of May 1 if your submitting this app to the app store you will be required to support both retina display's, and the new 4" screen size.
https://developer.apple.com/news/index.php?id=3212013b
You misunderstand. As of now, you must fully support the full 4" screen of the iPhone 5 and 5th gen iPod touch, in addition to retina and non-retina devices.
By adding the "Default-568h#2x.png" launch image (it is not a splash screen) you are telling the OS that your app supports the 4" screen.
You must update your app to fill the screen. There are countless existing posts about how to do that. There is no way around this. It is 100% required - no exception from Apple.
BTW - Apple announced this requirement on March 21st. Every registered iOS developer was notified of the requirement.
It isn't possible to do what you're asking with a single setting. Your best options are a bit of code that runs when you load a view to change the origin.y position, or, go through the XIB files and update the autoresizing rules so that the views expand to fill the space. You might not have budget to update the graphics resources in the app but you should be able to spend the small amount of time required on autoresizing.
The caveat to 'small amount of time' may apply to you - if you explicitly set the size of all of your views in code you've made life painful for yourself.
My application is an Air-based iPhone app. It opens with the last page I visited before clicking the Home button, each time I relaunch the app, while I need to open with the splash screen onward. How can I resolve this issue?
Thank you for any help.
When you press the Home button, you don't terminate a running app. I'm sure that many of us developers have stuck with this mental model of how iOS used to work without multitasking.
So, the splash screen, or rather, the default image (Default.png) should really appear once (when your application launches). Some times, the default image appears when coming out from the background state, but this happens only if your app takes too long to show its UI. In fact, on fast iPhones, the default image disappears almost instantly even on launch (for well-written apps, that is).
I should also note that Apple actively discourages the use of the default image for splash screens. These should only be used for creating an illusion of transition, from a "launching state" (which the default image is supposed to portray), to the running state.
However, if you really have to show a splash screen every time, you should implement such a mechanism in code. applicationDidBecomeActive: is a good place to start, if you are writing code in Objective-C.
I don't know the event model in Air, so I can't really give you any hints for that.
The above answer, though old, does not answer the question. Sure, Apple gives guidelines regarding splash screen and all, but the poster asks how to prevent the app from resuming from it's previous position. If you want the app to terminate when put in the background you need to look into the UIApplicationExitsOnSuspend option. There's also an Adobe blog post explaining a bit more about different background behaviors.
I have a splash image that I want to display when the app is launching. I use it as a launch image - I want it to be displayed until the program is launched (rename the picture to Default.png).
In apple's HIG they say one should "avoid" using a splash screen as a launch image.
I know it's not recommended and that users often don't like them, but will it make Apple reject my application? If so, how can I display a splash screen so it'll be displayed as soon as the app goes on, but not violate those rules? because I have seen applications with splash screens as launch images.
Thx in advance!
It's not that Apple will reject your App just coz you have a splash screen. But it's advisable to not have a splash screen as the user has to wait. Better not make the user wait...
Flipboard which was the Apple App of the year in 2010 has an image splash screen. As the user enjoys the images, data is downloaded in the background so that as soon as the user flips the page, the next screen is all ready & up to date. But they have made it in such a tasty fashion that the user hardly feels as if he's been made to wait. So it all depends on your design...
If you plan to simply use the Default.png mechanics to display your splash image, there is no problem.
The issue arises when you would like to prolong the display of such image only for the sake of it. This is what the HIG are against: that the user is made to wait without any real benefit. It is also to be noticed that with the advent of multitasking (iOS 4), the effect of showing a splash screen is reduced, since most of the times the app is not closed, so you see no splash screen at all when you go back to it.
On the other hand, it is understood that if you need to do some setup task in your app that take time and you have to do that at startup, then the user will have to wait. It is important, though, that he/she be notified of the wait and why it is for. This could mean, e.g., displaying a label on top of your image saying: "Loading..." or "Preparing data..." or whatever your user might better understand as part of the functionality of the program.
As to how to do it, there is no other way, AFAIK, than starting your app with a view that is exactly the same as Default.png (a simple UIImageView would do). That means, that in you appDidFinishLaunching delegate method, you create the view and attach it to the window; then, when you have done with your app preparation, you switch to your real view.
This would give you also the chance to add the label or whatever other kind of messaging to the user.
ok. I know how to display the splash screen on iPhone. Seems quite simple enough (i.e. setting the Default.png and calling "sleep" command).
But, is the application actually doing anything during this time? My app needs to go and fetch some data from Web before showing the app's first screen, but when I do the splash screen, it doesn't seem like it's doing this while showing the splash image.
Can I actaully make the app do something while showing the splash screen?
The best way would be to structure you application differently slightly differently.
Make your application display the Default.png when it starts it (ie. put a UIImageView onto screen), then start fetching your data.
Then either when you have fetched the data (or if you really must, once an NSTimer has expired, but it's a better user experience if you avoid a fixed time interval) change the view to be your real one.
Where you have got the idea that you need to call "sleep" while showing Default.png and there is nothing going on while this image is shown? Default.png is shown when OS is loading your app. You can not do anything during this time. In fact you have not got any control yet. It is handled by the OS. The idea behind this is to give user a feeling that app has loaded quickly, but actually your app is not completely loaded while Default.png is showing instead of a black screen by the OS.
You can manually add a view looking like your splashscreen after starting your app and handle the work in background. I would also add a hint to the user which indicates "loading data", because an app should start within 3 seconds.
If you read the Human Interface Guidlines, they're pretty clear that Default.png isn't intended to be a branding splash screen. It's meant to bring up a static "shell" of the initial page of UI so that the user experiences quick loading. So it's not at all designed or intended for what a lot of apps are using it for (including some of mine).
If you have your first screen that comes up be that image again, maybe with an activity spinner or status text on it, you can do whatever you need to do in the background of it, and then replace it with the first "real" screen of your app when you're done.
Generally all of the awakeFromNib calls in view controllers are done while the app is loading (ie has the splash screen up). When I put breakpoints in my apps at awakeFromNib calls, the breakpoints are hit when the splashscreen is up and the app is loading. So everything you do in
those calls will be processed while the loading screen is up.
Trying to finish up an app I've been developing and have hit an odd bug that I'm not sure if it's on my end? a bug on apple's end? or perhaps the underpinnings of multitasking showing themselves.
My current app is doing this weird thing when you press the home button to quit the app, and then immediately relaunch the app. You see the Default.png image as the app starts up, but when it goes to display the window/view it briefly shows the screen as it was just before you quit the app, then goes to black for about 2 seconds and then displays the correct screen as if you were starting up fresh. I'm see this on all devices, iPods, iPhones, and iPad.
This is not just me, however, I've been trying other apps to see if they do it, and have found that the Air Hockey ( http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/air-hockey/id286106725?mt=8 ) is an example of an app that does this same thing. My instinct is that there are many apps that do. But the bulk of apps dont seem to have this issue.
I've done everything I can do make sure all views and view controllers are properly released, but it's almost like the device is taking a while to truly shut down even though the app has visually disappeared, and if you restart the app within probably 3 seconds or less then it still has something in the window buffer, or tht the full on view controller hasn't truly been released yet.
Anybody seen something like this and been able to solve it?
I'm the dev of that Air Hockey - It looks like it's probably Flurry that's causing it. I have a version without Flurry & it doesn't do it.
I solved this problem by updating my Flurry files to the latest version. http://dev.flurry.com/iphone_uploadNewVersion.do