iphone Application Programming

[Sphexi]

A client of mine is looking to create an iPhone application that's essentially an interactive book. It'd load to a title screen, with controls to go forward/backwards for each page, and on each page have areas that you can touch to hear sounds (it's a children's book he's made).

He has zero programming skills, and I'm only really good with ASP/vbscript/web-based stuff, so I've been trying to Google information on this kind of thing. I've seen soundboard programs with multiple screens you can swipe between, this is essentially what he'd be looking for.

Any ideas on where to look for more detailed information, or is there somewhere that people experienced with this go that he could find a programmer to partner with? He's willing to setup an agreement where he'd supply the books/sounds and someone else would get it into app form, and then split the proceeds.

 

[JasonCoder]

You (or your client) are essentially looking for a business partner. This type of iPhone app dev is pretty straightforward but is not trivial.

Also, think about not limiting yourself to iPhone users. ePub and PDF are fairly standard and at least PDF can play sounds/movies. Also look at something like ebookapp.com

 

[Sphexi]

So no easy way to make something like this, like a DIY guide for simple apps? I'm not really interested in learning how to do it, I know there's sites where you can pay by the hour for dev work, suppose I could point him in that direction.

 

[purbeast0]

i recently bought this book because I had an interest in iPhone development...

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Beg...+exploring+the

if you know how to program in general it teaches you all you need to know about what you are wanting to do in the first few chapters. i got about half way done before i started my own app, and i'm actually finishing it up this week and putting the final touches no it then going to put it on the app store.

the interface builder and just the way you dev stuff for the iphone really is simple. apple made it pretty easy as far as doing the GUI stuff, and the app you are talking about i'd say is pretty basic as far as GUI's go.

but on another note, i don't know how well there is a market for a childrens book on the iphone...

 

[Nothinman]

So no easy way to make something like this, like a DIY guide for simple apps? I'm not really interested in learning how to do it, I know there's sites where you can pay by the hour for dev work, suppose I could point him in that direction.

Since Apple has essentially banned 3rd party libraries you're only option is to learn Objective-C if you want to build an iPhone app.

 

[sourceninja]

Obj-C for the iphone is a lot more difficult to write well then using obj-c on osx. (Mainly because of the lack of garbage collection). Unless you are already familiar with C or C++ it's going to take a lot of work getting up to speed.

 

[Markbnj]

Didn't think much about it before, but the iPhone app world must be causing quite the resurgence in Objective-C. Ugh.

 

[sourceninja]

I actually like Obj-c. It took me a bit, but I find it fun to work with. I'd rather write in python personally, but it's not all that bad.

 

[Leros]

Isn't there some sort of iPhone app generator that allowed you to put together simple apps like a flipbook without programming?

 

[purbeast0]

objective c's syntax is SSSOOOO funky though.

at least you can use dot notation for some stuff though.

 

[Sphexi]

i recently bought this book because I had an interest in iPhone development...

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Beg...+exploring+the

if you know how to program in general it teaches you all you need to know about what you are wanting to do in the first few chapters. i got about half way done before i started my own app, and i'm actually finishing it up this week and putting the final touches no it then going to put it on the app store.

the interface builder and just the way you dev stuff for the iphone really is simple. apple made it pretty easy as far as doing the GUI stuff, and the app you are talking about i'd say is pretty basic as far as GUI's go.

but on another note, i don't know how well there is a market for a childrens book on the iphone...

I don't know that there is either, I'm helping as more of a favor to his mom than anything. I have a free Zoo memory game on my iphone, my kids love it. They're only 2 and 3, but they know how to swipe to unlock the phone, swipe to find the game icon, and play the game. Hell, they can do the full 20 tiles in under a minute, close to my best time. I'm sure they'd be fine with a book like this guy is describing.

 

[JasonCoder]

Isn't there some sort of iPhone app generator that allowed you to put together simple apps like a flipbook without programming?

Several actually. But in truly overbearing form, apple has revised its developer agreements to demand that you author with apple original tools. Unbelievable, but true.

 

[Nothinman]

Several actually. But in truly overbearing form, apple has revised its developer agreements to demand that you author with apple original tools. Unbelievable, but true.

How is it unbelievable? Apple has always done their best to control their platforms like a 5' despot...

 

[Leros]

Several actually. But in truly overbearing form, apple has revised its developer agreements to demand that you author with apple original tools. Unbelievable, but true.

I thought they were only dissallowing that Flash tool. So its all tools now?

 

[Crusty]

I thought they were only dissallowing that Flash tool. So its all tools now?

If it's not 'from apple' you won't be using it to program the i* devices.

 

[Nothinman]

I thought they were only dissallowing that Flash tool. So its all tools now?

I'm pretty sure it said all 3rd party libraries, so unless the tool creates Objective C code that only using Apple's exported APIs for you it'll probably get rejected.

 

[Markbnj]

How is it unbelievable? Apple has always done their best to control their platforms like a 5' despot...

Absolutely. Jobs said it himself in his post on Flash. He believes any third-party software between the user and the platform is a bad thing. He's right, except that most of us would trade the negative aspects for the diversity of choices.

Jobs did have a moment back in the late eighties or early nineties when he wanted to license out the hardware platform a la IBM. Gassee talked him out of it.

 

[Sphexi]

Any links to these so called generators, or names of them for me to google once I'm home?