"Claim It Now" Screenshots

Well I've been pretty busy the last few days working hard on the application. I managed to work out some errors and bugs that I encountered in my code. You really learn alot when you have to fix your own problems and get things to work like you want them to. After getting the kinks worked out of my code I managed to get my basic application framework up and running.

As promised in my previous post I said that I would have screenshots of what I was doing. Well I kept my word so I've included a few screenshots of the application. Now this is only the beginning and the screens haven't been polished yet I'm just trying to get the application functional and then I'll clean and polish the look. I'll try to explain each of the screens briefly but, I guess I need to tell you what the application is.

"Claim It Now" is the tenative name for the application if you can think of a name let me know. Anyway the application is an accident insurance claim application. There are a few applications in the AppStore that deal with auto accident claims but I plan on making ita bit unique in it's look and function. I'm going to incorporate some of the features of the iPhone 3.0 sdk.

The first screenshot is just the development enviroment and the user interface design tool; Interface Builder used to build the application's screens. The next screenshot shows the iPhone simulator running with the application's initial menu screen. The icons on the screen are not the final ones used in the application but rather stock icons. I haven't figured out what the final ones will look like but I'll figure that out when it's time to make the app look good.

The next screenshots are close-ups of the iPhone simulator screen one screen is the main application menu when tapping a row the screen changes to the next "New Accident" screen. Tapping a row on this screen an alert pops up I did this to make sure all of the interaction logic was wired up and working.

Well that's all of the screenshots that I have so far but as I get more I will post them here on my blog. Don't forget to sign-up for this blog so that you can get the latest postings and information about the application. Until next time I will keep working and pushing towards my
goal.


Ngenious

Securing a trademark before publishing your app.

As I was thinking about a name for my app it occured to me that I should do a search to see if the name I come up with is already trademarked. I figured it would be good to avoid any legal problems or potential lawsuits.

So I wondered how many apps currently in the AppStore have secured a trademark. I did a search for a few of the popular apps under trademarks and you'd be surprise that some didn't have any kind of trademark and it could be a case where they couldn't trademark a word or name.

Nonetheless I think you should at least search to make sure your app name isn't infringing on someone's trademark and void legal lawsuits. It could save time and money to just do a search and see and if there isn't any trademark then you can secure it for you own brand.

If you want to do a trademark search I went to the United States Patent and Trademark Office search site and it's free http://www.uspto.gov/main/sitesearch.htm

- Ngenious - 20% creative 20% resourceful 20% cleverness 40% persistence = 100% ingenious

Weekend iPhone Warrior

I know you haven't seen a posting since last Friday I've been busy, so this one will cover the last few days of what has transpired since then. On Friday I didn't do much work on the application it was more of a read and research day. I did some reading to understand some concepts specifically about TableViewControllers and working with them.


I got some good feedback from a couple of readers about the user interface for the application I posted a question about one of my views and they gave me some suggestions about using TableViewController. So I did my homework and prepared myself to do a simple proof of concept to see how the TableView would look in my application. Saturday I got up and did a design on paper of how I wanted the view to look and function that took a couple of hours. After doing the paper design session I did a sample project that had just the TableView and began coding the view based on my design. Doing that exercise I gained some good knowledge on how the UITableView and UITableViewCell works and how to create the delegate methods for the UITableView.

Having the "Beginning iPhone Development" book really helped me to understand the UITableView and UITableViewCell classes because of what I read the previous evening. I'm feeling really good about my progress so far even though I feel like I have a long way to go with building this application. I'm not feeling any pressure just yet, even if I do I will really begin to shine. I'm trying to get finish coding by the end of October so that I can have November and December to polish and prepare for submission to AppStore.

I try to put in as much time as possible on working on this application if I can get one under my belt then another and another I will be on my way. I'm really have fun programming for the iPhone even though it's a lot of work. I have friends now that have come to me with concepts for iPhone applications as a matter of fact one good friend of mine contacted me today about one. So I'm going to become very good a building iPhone applications and hopefully make a good living doing it.

Today I did a trademark search for two name one for the application I'm currently working on and another for a game that I want to tackle here really soon. Neither one of the names are registered so in the coming weeks or months I will be applying for a trademark, cause we got to protect ourselves. Tonight I will be doing some more coding on the application finishing up my view with the UITableView and UITableViewCells. I'm going to work on adding a different icons for each row in the UITableView.

As alway you can subscribe to this blog to keep up with my progress as well you can follow me on twitter (www.twitter.com/pettish) as I get further along will try to provide screenshots of the application and when I really get it running I will post a video first look at the full application running on the iPhone.

Thanks and I appreciate you reading my blog.


Ngenious - "Genious is 20% mental 80% persistance"

iPhone application progress....

Well last night was a late night but not too late I got a lot of work done. I had to refactor some code for my view controllers after some good feedback from readers and reading some more. I have to give myself a pat on the back because during the refactoring I had several build errors and warning, but I worked through them and that gave me a better understanding of what I was doing with the iPhone SDK and the Objective-C syntax.

The screen shot is one of my first views that I got to come up of course it doesn't look polished but that will come in due time. I'm just trying to get everything laid out and wired up. As a matter of fact this is a slightly older screen shot because I've changed the name of the application.

One of the things I was trying to decide on is whether to go with a Tab bar navigation or go with adding buttons and create my own navigation controller. My initial view is a menu screen that has six buttons and each button except for two of them takes the user to a different view. Basically my initial view controls the main navigation and the view controller just switches between those views. I wanted to use buttons instead of a Tab bar navigation because I wanted to have icons on the buttons.

I know it may not look like much right now, but I'm really excited about the progress that's I'm making tonight I will be wiring up the button in Interface Builder and getting some interaction going on that view. Then I will build out each of the views one by one and make sure that the main view loads the view when the button is tapped.

As I make more progress I will post more screen shots and I'd love to here any feedback. Feel free to email me pettish@bigboyzmedia.com also you can follow me on twitter to get updates twitter.com/pettish.


Peace
Ngenious

Day 2: Errors, Architecture and Syntax

Ah last night was eventful I did some more work on my application and I ran into a few issue some of which we're build errors that had to do with syntax. I'm still learning Objective-C syntax as I go, but what better way to learn than to fix your own errors.

One of the other issues that I ran into; which it really wasn't an issue it was more of an architectural decision more than anything. Being new to iPhone development I'm still trying to figure it out but I will persevere through it. I did get all of my build errors cleared up and actually I only had 3 errors and a couple of warnings. See the screenshot below:




I got up this morning before going to work and actually got on my computer and did some more coding on the application. I want to get in some work every moment I get so that I can finish by my deadline. One thing I'm trying to figure out is about the Views and ViewControllers. I was following this tutorial online by Nick Myers you can Watch the tutorial here and in the video he adds view controllers and views that are subclass of UIView. He mentions that you have to add the view controllers but you don't need to add any code to them.

On the other hand in the "Beginning iPhone Development" book they have view controllers and they add logic in the view controllers to handle the interactions of the view. My question is which method is the correct way or more efficient way of doing things? If anyone out there that reads this knows the answer or can point me in the right direction I'd appreciate it.

I'm really laying out the architecture and files for the application I haven't yet touched Interface Builder but one I get this architectural issue worked out I will begin building out the user interface for my application. Well until next time I will continue working on this application I have a lot of work to do ahead of me so I better get cracking.


Ngenious

iPhone Application Challenge - Day 1

For the past few months I've been excited about the Apple iPhone and the sdk (software development kit) for all of the non technical people. I've been on Apple's website watching videos and reading documentation about what's available and all of the features found in the sdk.

I've even bought a couple of books and begin studying programming for the iPhone for those who don't know I'm already a programmer. I work as a Web Developer developing primarily on Microsoft .Net platforms creating websites and web applications. I've working with create mobile application but that's been a few years ago on Windows Mobile.

But now since I've been studying and working with the iPhone SDK I'm loving it. I've never developed on a Mac platform before and this is my first time and I must say that I really enjoy the Mac OS. I think I'm at a point now where I want to build and get my first application published. So now I've issued a challenge to myself an iPhone Application Challenge.

My iPhone Application Challenge is to design, build, test and distribute my first iPhone application before January 1, 2010. Do you think I can do it? Well I do and I will chronicle the whole experience right here on this blog so check back for new entries
and updates.

I've already started working on my application the design is about 90% complete with a little tweaking here and there. I created a document using a combination of Word and Photoshop to create a design document for my application with details about the screens and user interaction. Now I've actually started writing code for the application check out the screen shots below.

For those who are like me, new to iPhone development and you are trying to get your application published in the appstore. If I have any information, code, links etc. that might be helpful I will post them here on my blog. Since this is the first posting I will call this Day 1of the iPhone Application Challenge, so take this journey with me and see if I succeed or not.


Peace

Ngenious