iPhone
New Training Course!
Starting in 2012 I will be teaching students how to make iOS 5 iPhone Apps using Objective C, Xcode and the iPhone SDK.
The future is mobile
Good iPhone Developers are hot property right now. They are also hard to find as demand far exceeds supply. I should know – with over 12 years experience developing commercial software – I moved into native iOS App Development when the iPhone first launched. I’ve never looked back.
Why become an iOS Developer?
There are many great reasons to pick iPhone Development as a new career or career change. Here are just a few:
- Programming for mobile devices is fun! You love using apps daily on your iPhone/iPod/iPad? How cool would it be to be able to make your own apps that you could sell on the AppStore to the millions and millions of Apple iOS users around the globe?
- The money! You don’t have to invent the next Angry Birds to make a great living as an iPhone Developer. Develop apps for commercial clients. Freelance iOS Developers charge a minimum of £400 per day for commercial work – and much more with experience and a solid portfolio.
A course for Companies
If you’re a company looking to train up in-house programmers to build apps then this could be just the course for you. A small investment in training will save you money in the longer-term – no more expensive outsourcing required!
Silicon Beach Training
I’ve teamed up with Brighton’s most popular training centre – Silicon Beach to devise and teach a great new iPhone development training workshop. Over this 5 day, hands-on course delegates will become familiar and comfortable programming Objective C using Xcode 4.2: developing iOS 5 apps for iPhone and iPad.
Learn from a Professional iOS Developer
As an experienced, Apple award-winning App Developer I’ve designed the course content to also include numerous tips, tricks and lessons learned to help new iPhone App Developers succeed on the AppStore: SEO, in-app marketing approaches and how to win more 5 star reviews.
Prerequisites
Although no prior experience of Xcode or Objective C is required, delegates will need to already be proficient in one other object oriented programming language and be comfortable working on Intel-based Macs.
Build an iPhone App in 5 Days: Course Content
The 5-day course is split into 3 key parts:
- Objective C, Xcode and iOS SDK Foundation work
- Building an App: Applying the foundation knowledge
- AppStore tips’n'tricks and iTunes Connect
Course Objectives
- Understand Xcode, Interface Builder (now built into Xcode) and Organizer
- How to write Objective C
- How to develop using iOS 5 SDK and other 3rd party frameworks
- How to implement the Facebook SDK and social features into your apps
- How to customise the user interface: make your apps beautiful!
- How to build an iPhone App from scratch
- An insight into Apple’s AppStore SEO and app submission process
Day’s 1 and 2: Building Foundation Knowledge
The Basics
- Introduction to Xcode and Interface Builder
- Introduction to Objective C – syntax and core classes
- Introduction to the iOS 5 SDK: hands-on examples: UIImage and UIImageView, UILabel, UIButton
- Using Navigation Controllers and Tab Bar Controllers
- Understanding View Controllers and their life cycle: how to repsond effectively to the built-in methods such as : viewDidLoad, viewWillAppear, viewWillDissappear
- Introduction to Table Views
Taking the Knowledge Further
- Introduction to some of the best 3rd party Cocoa frameworks that take the pain out of implementing complex tasks such as: HTTP calls and JSON parsing
- Behind the Scenes: Understanding iOS Memory Management and ARC (Automatic Reference Counting – new in Xcode 4.2)
- New in iOS 5: Appearance APIs make Customising Navigation Bar and Tool Bars easy!
- A short intro to CoreData: Apple’s solution to offline caching
Days 3 and 4
Building an App: Applying the foundation knowledge
Here’s where all the hard work learning the foundation knowledge really pays off. Over these 2 days I’ll walk you through the core steps I use every day in my professional work building apps.
- Setting up your Xcode project
- Effective sub classing of your view controllers – saves code and debug time
- How to use singletons effectively – they are not evil!
- Notification Center – Apple’s framework for passing data between your Object Oriented class instances
- Implementing Facebook’s latest iOS SDK – the world’s most popular social network integrated into your app
- More UI customisation
- Download, cache and optimised display of remote images
Day 5
AppStore tips’n'tricks and iTunes Connect
App Submission Process
- Conquering certificates and provisioning profiles
- A tour of iTunes Connect
- Submitting your app to the AppStore via Xcode’s Organizer
AppStore Tips’n'Tricks
- AppStore SEO – how important is your icon and title in the AppStore?
- Improve your chances of good AppStore ratings and reviews
- App Stats – how to track and learn from your downloads and user stats
Option 1: For the Freelancer
The Dates
Silicon Beach has lined me up for the following 3 confirmed public course dates:
6 – 10 Feb 2012
16 – 20 Apr 2012
25 – 29 Jun 2012
The 5 day course costs £1,200+vat per person.
To book your place on one of these public courses please contact Silicon Beach directly here
Option 2: in-house Company Training Package
I offer the same workshop at your premises. The course is ideal for training 3-10 delegates in-house at your company over a 5 day week.
Costs for the in-house course:
The 5 day course costs a fixed fee of £6,000 plus travel and accommodation expenses (if applicable) for up to two delegates. The overal cost increments £250 per week for each additional delegate. So, for example, the cost for 5 delegates would be £6,750.
To book this option contact me here.
After 3 very intense weeks of development and design Tap to Chat 2 has finally launched!
Chris Ross and I started the Tap to Chat adventure back in November last year. As two Indie iPhone Developers we decided to team-up and build an Instant Messenger app for Facebook users on iPhone and iPad. The original version launched just before Christmas 2010. Since then Tap to Chat has seen over half a million downloads!
On the back of our success with Tap to Chat, Chris and I have formed a new company – Osmosis Apps – the primary goal being to make software that focuses on great user experience.
Tap to Chat 2 has been written from scratch and includes a brand new, beautiful, pixel-perfect interface. Tap to Chat 2 is: super-simple to use and blisteringly fast to connect all your Facebook Chat and Google Talk friends. We’ve laboured over every detail and included accessibility support for visually impaired users and VoiceOver support. An all-round great user experience.
As part of our launch, I had a lot of fun creating a demo video of the software with a well-known love story theme. Take a look:
Tap to Chat 2 was approved by Apple on Friday night (20th May). In just a few days it has already climbed into the top 25 Social Networking apps in the UK, the US and many other countries.
For all the features and details about Tap to Chat 2 head over to our new company site – www.osmosisapps.com.
Here are a few screen-grabs of Tap to Chat 2 in action on iPhone and iPad:
Commissioned by West End Studios, I led the iOS Development of a feature-rich conference meeting application for Novartis Global. The app enabled delegates to view their personalised conference diary and network with other 450 delegates and speakers.
I built the messaging system for the iPod app using Apple’s Push Notification technology and a custom local/server cache syncing solution. Although initially the messaging feature was a low priority for the app, it ultimately rolled out into multiple features: Private Messaging, Help Desk Chat, and Ask the Presenter a Question.
450 iPods await collection!
Another great feature of the app were the maps. Google Maps wasn’t a viable option as we wanted delegates to be able to access the maps even when offline and not on site. I developed a PDF rendering solution for this which also enabled delegates to find locations of any event in their diary.
The app enabled Novartis to host a ‘paperless conference’. No print outs were distributed throughout the sessions, plenaries or exhibitions. Instead all events were accessible through the iPod app and delegates could access any event documents directly and ‘send to my email’. Both a cost saving in terms of printing and a green solution.
A substantial effort was made during the development to ensure that the app would run most features offline. With 400+ iPods simultaneously attempting to connect to the wi-fi you tend to run into problems delivering a reliable wireless network. Our app regularly synced with the server and then locally cached all data and images (using Apple’s CoreData framework). The guys at West End implemented a streaming media server to deliver conference movies directly to the iPods throughout the event. However, we had a fallback option whereby even the movies would get cached and run locally if requested by the CMS. This was ideal for help videos for example. The flip-side of data caching is of course the security implications. So we implemented a feature into the CMS that would trigger the iPod to instantly clear the local cache and log the user out of the device remotely.
I was at the conference and able to see the software in action. The feedback was incredibly positive. Even the less technically enthusiastic and more sceptical delegates were won over by the end of the three days.
Martin de Planta, head of Global Learning @ Novartis kindly added this recommendation to my LinkedIn profile:
Nick led the development of an innovative, cost effective and dynamic meeting app. A consummate professional he was able to take a concept and turn into a reality where significantly bigger, household names and highly regarded institutions were not! Do not under-estimate the capabilities of this man. World class was how our most senior executives described his work.
We’ve just launched a new app this week – Tap to Facebook Chat – all your open chat windows on one screen – extreme Facebook Chatting!
Check out the screen-grab below, Tap to Facebook Chat let’s you toggle between open chats all on the same screen, no other Facebook Chat app does this!
We’ve launched our app at just $0.99 so grab it while it’s cheap here.
Tap to Facebook Chat is a universal app so it’s also been built from the ground up to work great on iPhone and iPod too.
Tap to Facebook Chat includes multi-user login support – fast Facebook user switching on the same iPad or iPhone.
If you’ve spent time creating Facebook Friend Lists or new Facebook Groups you’ll find that Tap to Facebook Chat allows you to show just the groups of friends you want to chat to.
OS4 multitasking is also supported – you get a notification when a new chat message is received and clicking ‘Reply’ immediately drops you back in the app chatting to the user who sent the message.
In landscape mode on iPad Tap to Facebook Chat can easily display 3 open chat windows simultaneously even with the keyboard visible – just tap on whichever Friend you want to send your next message too 
Facebook Chat with your Friends all on one screen!
With multi-user login support, filter by friend list or group and instant message notification, Tap to Chat is the must have Chat app for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad!
I developed Tap to Chat in collaboration with fellow iOS Develeper Chris Ross.