Posts Tagged Apple
Three or More: Monster Match – My first iOS App Store game was approved
Posted by Barrett Sonntag in Mobile Development on October 15, 2010
My first game, Three or More: Monster Match, was approved for sale on the App Store last night! It’s been a fun time since I started learning Objective-C in August to sending off my game for approval on October 5th. At one point I even considered stopping development and shifting gears into a more familiar language when Apple removed language restrictions on compiled native Flash apps not too long ago.
All development was done in Objective-C in the XCode IDE using the Cocos2d for iPhone framework which was very easy to understand and use. Coming from other languages I was in for a big shock when I had to worry about memory management and actually optimize for my iPod Touch development device I picked up. Getting used to finding my way around Mac OS X was fun as well.
All in all it felt very rewarding to stick with Objective-C as my development language and getting approved last night was an amazing feeling. From sitting down with Learning iPhone Programming: From Xcode to App Store
I was very nervous that I submitted a Halloween themed game for October on October 5th but thankfully it was approved by the 14th! Only 9 stress filled days of waiting, pretty low will all the horror stories I hear about getting approved.
Go get the game and let me know what you think!
Apple removes Flash CS5 export restrictions, should I stop learning Objective-C?
Posted by Barrett Sonntag in Flash, Mobile Development on September 9, 2010
UPDATE: It’s been over a year since I considered stopping my study of Objective-C and I can gladly say that I made the right choice in continuing to learn Objective-C and native app development. With Adobe’s recent moves discontinuing Mobile and TV Flash development and moving the Flex SDK to ‘an established open source foundation’ it is clear they are no longer interested in investing in the technology and I’m glad I started expanding now instead of waiting for tomorrow. This is one of those rare times in life I’ll get to look back and pat say that I actually made a great choice for my future.
I’ve been a Flash developer for many years now. I was excited about the opportunity to create native apps for the iOS environment when it was first announced but life was too hecktic at the time to start learning Objective-C. A little while later Adobe sources announced that the next version of the Flash IDE, CS5, would be able to export compiled iOS apps! I was thrilled to hear that I could put all my existing ActionScript knowledge into instant use on the iOS devices and I decided again to work on my other projects and learning C# and wait for Adobe to release CS5. Then the 3.3.1 change happened at the same time that Flash CS5 was release, Apple doesn’t want Adobe’s knock off Objective-C apps ported from Flash. I’m at a complete loss, I waited for the dust to settle and it seemed Apple was completely resolved to keep Adobe out of it’s devices.
It was time to learn Objective-C if I was ever going to get into iOS development. I hit the books and started learning all the fun stuff about C and all the strange things I was going to have to work around that I had gotten used to having in ActionScript 3.
Today Apple makes a new statement back tracking on the 3.3.1 sections of the developer license (http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/09/09statement.html) and now Flash CS5 compiled apps are allowed again!
Wait what? I thought Apple was this stone pillar of decision, Steve Jobs even had a post Thoughts on Flash ripping it apart and now it’s OK to put Flash apps on their devices essentially? I’m more than a little frustrated by this. On one hand I’ve started to develop a new skill set in developing mobile applications for the iOS devices and on the other I have a long history of ActionScript knowledge I could use to make iOS apps even faster.
I’m already 70% done with my first iOS app since starting out and now I wonder if I even need to continue to nurture my Objective-C learning because I can just recompile my Flash games and push them right to the store.
I was so mad when Apple first made the decision to reject Flash apps, then I accepted it and started learning Objective-C, now I think I’m kind of upset that they backtracked such a short time but still long enough for me to get neck deep in Objective-C books.
I think I have to finish this first game in Objective-C but after that is it worth the work to continue learning that language now that any language can be compiled down to Objective-C and then approved?