Grote update voor waterpolo Apps op iPhone en iPad nu beschikbaar
Met ruim 1.500 gebruikers op de iPhone en ruim 400 op de iPad, zijn beide apps inmiddels omarmt door een grote groep waterpolo-liefhebbers. Sinds de 1.0 versie welke in December 2010 gelanceerd werd, is er al een hoop veranderd. Continu heb ik geprobeerd de wensen van de gebruikers te vervullen met nieuwe functies en andere verzoeken. Zo ook vandaag: ik ben blij om te kunnen mededelen dat sinds vandaag de 3.0 versie te downloaden is uit de App Store! Deze update is uiteraard gratis voor bestaande gebruikers. In het onderstaande artikelen laat ik een aantal van de grote veranderingen zien.
New iPad’s Retina display: how to reduce image file size?
Even till the day of the Keynote about the new iPad, I couldn’t believe the rumours telling the new iPad will have a Retina Display. I thought it was a too big challenge for the Apple engineers to make a resolution of 1536 x 2048 pixels was workable for a mobile device. I was waiting for Apple coming with some smart solution to up the screens resolution, without doubling the size in both directions. Apple actually surprised me by releasing the new iPad with this ridiculous big screen. As a user, this was off course fantastic news! As a developer, just doubling the size of my artwork wasn’t enough.
When I started working on my first app update to support the Retina display, I found out the hard way that just doubling the size of my images and including them as ‘@2x’ images blew the size of my app completely out of proportion. Mosaic Wallpaper Designer currently takes 5.5MB of your space to download it from the App Store. After I have included my reworked images, it grew to around 45MB! Even though this is an universal app and most of the UI is already in Retina resolution to support the iPhone 4 and 4S.
As a coder, I had to search for some tricks to reduce file size of my graphics to make the the file size workable again. Because I don’t think I’m the only one facing this kind of problems, I would like to share some of my experiences with you. For people with a graphical background, this may be pretty obvious, but this article is more targeted at Independent Developers without much of a graphical knowledge. If you have any additions to this article, add a comment below or contact me!
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Now available: Mosaic Wallpaper Designer!
From now on, my new universal iOS app Mosaic Wallpaper Designer is available for download in App Stores worldwide! Check out the information and trailer below to get an impression, or download the app directly from the App Store
With Mosaic Wallpaper Designer, you can design unique wallpapers, using your own pictures. Add your pictures to a variety of grids and scale/move them using multitouch gestures. You can also change the style of the borders to you likings. After you’ve seen a fullscreen preview of your result, you can save the designed wallpaper to your device and share it with your friends via Facebook or Twitter. The workflow of the app is designed to be very easy to use. Your device is personalized in no-time!
Soon available: Mosaic Wallpaper Designer!
Today I will announce a new product, which will go live in the App Store in 2 – 3 weeks from now. With Mosaic Wallpaper Designer you can design your own personal wallpapers, using your own pictures. Add multiple pictures to the grid and resize using multitouch gestures. Because the app is universal, you can design wallpapers for you iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad with one single application! Check out the trailer at the end of this post for a preview!
Do you want to be notified when Mosaic Wallpaper Designer is available in the App Store? Follow @ErwinZwartApps on Twitter or fill in the following form to recieve an email notification:
![[Tutorial] How to post Tweets with iOS5](http://erwinzwart.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/twitter.png?w=90&h=70&crop=1 "[Tutorial] How to post Tweets with iOS5")
[Tutorial] How to post Tweets with iOS5
One of the new features in the upcoming iOS5 is Twitter integration. A user only have to connect to Twitter with his account once. After that, apps have the possibility to post a tweet with the users account. Off course, the user have to agree first. This all happens in a View Controller which developers can access in the TWTweetComposeViewController class. In this tutorial I’m going to show you how to use this class and start using the Twitter integration. You will be surprised how easy this class is to implement. Check the end of this article for a sample project you can download.
I don’t explain all the small details. I’m not going to talk about what IBOutlets are and how to use them, that’s the basic knowledge. Please use Google if you don’t understand these details, they are discussed over and over again!
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[video] First impression on iOS5
After being very excited after Apple’s keynote, I finally had the chance to install iOS5 on my iPad and iPhone. Here is a short video for a first impression. Later on, I will make provide a lot more details. I first have to use iOS5 some more to give a good impression and opinion about the new mobile operating system and it takes some time before everything is synced up the first time over WiFi. Stay tuned!
Who’s covering the WWDC Keynote?
The moment a lot of people have been waiting for is almost here. In just a matter of hours, Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs is going on stage to present us iOS 5, OS X Lion, iCloud and possibly even more cool stuff during his keynote at the WWDC. As always with new Apple products, their have been a lot of rumors, but no one is sure until Apple’s revealed it at their keynote. In this post you will find a list of the biggest news sources who will cover the WWDC keynote live.
Steve Jobs will go on stage at:
- 10 AM Pacific
- 12 AM Central
- 1 PM Eastern
- 5 PM GMT
A list of some of the biggest news sources to follow the keynote live:
If you have any tips from other big news sources who will cover the WWDC keynote, leave it in the comments!
What will iOS5 bring us?
This years WWDC will take place from 6 till 10 June. Traditionally, Apple will announce some of their new products and services in a keynote during this event. In the invites they send, Apple made clear that this years keynote will be mainly focused on software: “Join us for a preview of the future of iOS and Mac OS X”. If we can believe the rumors, the coming version of iOS will be changed dramatically. What do I think we can expect from the new iOS?
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Lite version for both iOS Wallpaper Designers available now!
Are you not really shure if you would like to download StackPad for iPad or PhotoStack for iPhone? From now on, a free Lite version is available for download in the App Store. Compared to the full version, the Lite versions have reduced functionality.
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PhotoStack Wallpaper Designer for iPhone now available
PhotoStack for iPhone is based on the popular StackPad Wallpaper Designer for iPad, also developed by Erwin Zwart. StackPad for iPad was downloaded over 21.000 times the first couple of weeks. The idea and workflow you will find in PhotoStack for iPhone is the same, but PhotoStack was build again from the ground up specifically for the iPhone.
With PhotoStack for iPhone you can design your own personal wallpapers using your own pictures. Add as many of your own pictures and arrange them using simple multitouch gestures. No designer skills are needed to make your iPhone stand out of the millions of others out there. The result is a photo-collage like wallpaper with the high resolution needed for Retina devices.
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