iPhone Application Development

iPhone 3G (Apple New Edge Mobile Phone) combines three products in one - a revolutionary phone, a widescreen iPod, and a breakthrough Internet device. That’s what their manufacturer Apple Inc. says. It has a got a multi touch screen and virtual keyboard, buttons etc. but it requires minimum hardware input.

With the launch of iPhone in the US on 29 June 2007and the iPhone 3G worldwide which supports faster 3G data speeds and assisted GPS on 11 July 2008, custom built applications for them marked a new start in the mobile application development industry. The big plus points that iPhone hold is its popularity and density among users, no massive porting hassles, cost effectiveness in comparison to any other platform etc.

The complete potential of iPhone, the multimedia gadget, can be utilized by developing ingenious applications for it. The launch of the SDK (software development kit) by Apple in 2008 boosted iPhone application developer worldwide to come up with unique and customized applications for iPhone users.

iPhone mobile application development

iPhone OS is the platform used to develop applications for iPhone and iPod touch devices.

All of the tools and technologies required to develop application for iPhone OS are included with the iPhone SDK. The complete potential of iPhone, the multimedia gadget, can be utilized by developing ingenious applications for it. The launch of the SDK (software development kit) by Apple in 2008 boosted iPhone application developer worldwide to come up with unique and customized applications for iPhone users.

The free SDK, one can say “the tool chain, don’t need license and not restricted to running only on Apple’s operating system. In fact, a Linux and Windows user can build and install application on their iPhone without ever touching a Mac.

iPhone Application Development tools covers:

Xcode

An Xcode project is a repository for all the information required to build one or more software products. It is the integrated development environment (IDE), wherein iPhone applications are developed. It’s like a kit that contains all the elements used to build your product and maintains the relationship between those elements and instructs how to build them. Its complete development environment provides project management, a powerful source editor, and a graphical debugger.

Interface Builder

Interface Builder is an application for designing and testing user interfaces. Interface Builder is Apple's graphical editor for designing user interface components for both Carbon and Cocoa applications. Interface Builder makes creating an application's user interface easier by allowing developers to use its graphical editing environment to manage virtually every aspect of creating a well designed user interface that adheres to the Aqua user interface guidelines.

Simulator

A free utility designed to emulate the iPhone browsing environment. Its runs, test, and debug your application locally on your Mac.

Instruments

Collect, display, and compare performance data graphically in real-time to optimize your application. With all these tools and features, Mac made it possible for the SME sector and entrepreneurs to come up with iPhone mobile application development to see their dreams meet reality and explore the huge customer base. The opportunity to outsource iPhone apps development made it cost effective and thus affordable by many.

SDK contents

As the iPhone OS uses a variant of the same XNU kernel that is found in Mac OS X, the tool chain used for developing on the iPhone OS is also based on Xcode.

The SDK is broken down into the following sets:

Cocoa Touch

• Multi-touch events and controls
• Accelerometer support
• View hierarchy
• Localization (i18n)
• Camera support

Media

• OpenAL
• audio mixing and recording
• Video playback
• Image file formats

Quartz

• Core Animation
• OpenGL ES

Core Services

• Networking
• Embedded SQLite database
• Core Location
• Threads

OS X Kernel

• TCP/IP
• Sockets
• Power management
• File system
• Security