March 2008 Archives

Looks like we're starting to get an idea together for the new Cocoa Touch platform. Stay tuned. :)

In other news, the www.whatthefuck.com relaunch has been going really well. Some old timers have come back, and the site is more stable than it ever has been. The speed is still up to snuff too, even though we're using a platform far more abstracted than the original. The original was self rolled Perl, embedded HTML, no CGI.pm, no templating, self-created cookies, the whole shebang. The new system is using the Catalyst Framework as the core, with DBIx::Class for database abstraction, Template Toolkit for the viewable HTML and XML, and utility processes using the Moose OO Framework for Perl. I'm quite happy with the result, with the manageability and maintainability, and the speed I get through FastCGI on Apache.

I've started doing a call out to users on new features and suggestions. From the latest list I put out, I think that after the first half is complete, I'll be ready to do a full launch of the site and start getting the word out.

Oh, and I fixed commenting on the blog. Sorry about that.

Yesterday morning, Apple introduced what they're calling the Cocoa Touch SDK, otherwise known as the iPhone SDK. This development toolkit allows developers familiar with Objective-C the ability to create applications for the iPhone or iPod Touch platform, and provides a distribution method through Apple's App Store.

The development kit includes beta of the updated XCode, supporting "iPhone Application" as a development target, supporting libraries and frameworks, documentation, and "Aspen Simulator", a virtual iPhone for testing purposes. I played around with the new development environment for about 30 minutes, successfully creating a little "Hello, world!" application, and then toyed around with the simulator for a while. I'm surprised at how complete the simulator is, especially compared to the virtual device given with the Maemo development toolkit (the underlying platform for Nokia's Internet Tablet devices, the 770, N800, and N810). You have full access to Mobile Safari for testing web applications, as well as the Photos application and the Contacts application, presumably for developers to be able to test integration with core Touch services. Through option-clicking the interface, you're able to emulate the pinching feature of the multi-touch interface, and really able to exploit many of the features without using the actual device. I think it provides a really great interface to piece together a good application, requiring an actual device only later on in the development process, so you don't mar a phone from the getgo. Quite a bit easier than Symbian or Maemo development, and roughly equivalent to Windows Mobile development. The only thing WinMo has on them at this point is that their interface development features within Visual Studio are far more mature -- Interface Builder is not yet available in the development kit beta. You're drawing canvasses on your own. ;)

Last night, Apple released something like 20 videos over iTunesU at the iPhone Dev Center on getting started with iPhone development. I'm hoping to start going through them this weekend, and see what I can come up with. I'm not necessarily chasing the millions in VC funding that is being offered, I just like to create cool things. I don't actually have a device yet, but this has moved me to think about picking up an iPod Touch in the next few weeks.

I still can't bring myself to leave T-Mobile to get an iPhone, and having to reunlock my device every time there's a software update really doesn't do it for me. :)