Tiny Shiny Apps – iPhone and iPad App Development

Tiny Shiny Apps are pleased to announce the release of PictoBento for the iPad. This creativity app allows you to view popular images from Instagram, PicPlz and dribbble.

The app allows you to:

• Find photos you love
• Find designs you love
• Favourite the images you love

PictoBento is “your 5 minute creativity boost” and “your daily dose of inspiration”.

The app has been released at a promotional price of £0.69/€0.79/$0.99 for a limited time.

Updated state of the market stats from the iPhone 4S announcement:

• Over 250 million iOS devices sold
• More than 500,000 apps in the App Store
• 18 billion apps downloaded

Updated state of the market stats from the iPad2 announcement:

• 100 million iPhones and 15 million iPads sold
• 350,000 apps on the App Store
• Over 10 billion apps downloaded

Tiny Shiny Apps is very proud to support the Developers Against Poverty campaign which is supporting the great work done by charity:water.

The campaign, which runs throughout February and March 2011, is encouraging developers of iPhone, iPad and Mac apps to donate to this worthy cause. Scotty at iDeveloper.tv is once again shown to be a driving force behind this community.

Using the TapLynx framework, The Heritage Foundation were able to design and create an iPhone app based on the content produced daily for Heritage.org. By basing their iPhone app on existing RSS feeds containing news, research, blogs and videos, they were able to rapidly develop their content rich app.

The Heritage Foundation hired Tiny Shiny Apps, a TapLynx partner, to assist with preparing the app for release to the App Store. This included a review of app content and upgrading for iOS 4.

TinyShinyApps also assisted with the setup of Provisioning Profiles, device testing and release to the App Store.

The Heritage iPhone app is available for download from the AppStore.

If you would like to discuss iPhone app development or the TapLynx framework, please contact TinyShinyApps.

At Apple’s September 1st 2010 event they announced the new versions of iOS 4.

iOS 4.1

iOS 4.1 is to be released in September 2010. This iPhone upgrade allows users to benefit from the full power of the hardware. The addition of HDR function allows the camera to be used to take high definition photographs. For the video camera there is a change to allow the upload of high def videos directly from the iPhone. The release of GameCenter adds features for multiplayer gaming to the device.

iOS 4.2

iOS 4.2 is to be released in November 2010. This iPad upgrade will bring the most demanded features from the iPhone to the iPad. Multitasking was long seen as missing from the iPhone and its implementation in 4.0 was seen as overdue. The arrival of multitasking on the iPad will also be later than expected. Folders will also become available on the iPad for the first time allowing for a more tidy interface. New additions are wireless printing and Airplay which allows wireless streaming of music, videos and photos.

iPod Touch

The introduction of a new version of the iPod Touch brings the product in line with the iPhone by adding front facing and rear cameras. The compatibility of FaceTime with the iPod Touch will allows calls with iPhone users. This offers a great phone device without a contract, a first from Apple which may lead to an increased demand for the product.

TapLynx 1.4 has been released.

This is mainly a maintenance release which allows TapLynx apps to be built with iOS4 for release to the App Store.

Read more about the capabilities of TapLynx.

TapLynx 1.3 has been released with the following new features:

• Localization allows app text to be configured for different languages.
• Push notifications can be sent via push.io with config settings to allow users to select which notifications they receive. There is some overhead with configuration of provisioning profiles to achieve this but the solution does simplify a very complicated process.
• Image Flow allows better display of images

Updated: 1.3.4 has been released with fixes

Read more about the capabilities of TapLynx.

TinyShinyApps is proud to have been added to the TapLynx Partner Program. We will now have further access to feature requests and framework development which will assist us in delivering the solutions need by our clients.

Thanks to all the team at TapLynx for creating a great iPhone framework and we look forward to using it much more in the future.

Read more about the TapLynx Framework.

Attending NSConference in February 2010 was a great opportunity to meet other iPhone developers. The event organised by The Mac Developer Network is in its second year. The UK event was held in Reading and this year there is sister event in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

I attended the iPhone Developer Conference on day four when many of the attendees were starting to struggle with information overload and lack of sleep. The sessions were varied and included a talk about considering the user, a overview of the design process for a game app using Core Animation and tech talks delving into Open GL ES and Data Syncing.

The lunchtime break was handed over to delegates with opinions or products to share and proved an interesting diversion.

One aim of the conference was to encourage community and the breaks in between sessions were ideal for meeting fellow developers. There was much speculation and talk of the impending arrival of the iPad. There was way too much try and cram into one day so next year, I’ll be there for the full 4 day duration.

Twitter updates from the event were tagged #nsconf. Follow Tiny Shiny Apps at @tinyshinyapps.