Appendix Online resources for iOS app developers
published
- Cocos2d—www.cocos2d-iphone.org/. A framework for creating 2D games on iOS.
- Three20—http://three20.info/. Originally created for the Facebook app. A collection of useful GUI controls.
- Tapku—https://github.com/devinross/tapkulibrary. A collection of useful components, such as CoverFlow.
- ASIHTTPRequest—https://github.com/pokeb/asi-http-request. Makes interacting with web servers much easier than the functionality included in Objective-C.
- ShareKit—http://getsharekit.com/. Provides ways of sharing with many more services than are in iOS.
- Core Plot—http://code.google.com/p/core-plot/. Provides comprehensive support for 2D graphs.
- CrashKit—https://github.com/kaler/CrashKit. Lets you catch crashes and have the user send a detailed report directly to your servers.
These sites provide backgrounds, icons, and other inspiration for your app’s graphic design:
- Nathan Barry’s 25 Free iOS Design Resources—http://nathanbarry.com/25-free-iosdesign-resources/. A comprehensive list of places to get icons, PSDs, game art, and textures.
- Dribbble’s iPhone feed—http://dribbble.com/tags/iphone. Dribbble is like Twitter for designers. Go there to be inspired.
- 99 Designs—http://99Designs.com. Not free, but a good way to get a professional icon on a budget. You sponsor a contest and award the prize to the designer whose icon you want to use.
- The Noun Project—http://thenounproject.com/. A collection of free black-and-white vector icons for a huge variety of situations. They aim to cover every noun.
Sketching your app with these utilities will make your life a little easier:
- Keynote Kung-Fu—http://keynotekungfu.com/. iOS templates for Keynote.
- AppCooker—www.appcooker.com/. Full-featured app-mocking iPad app.
- iMockups—www.endloop.ca/imockups/. Another iPad app focused on mocking. Somewhat less expensive than AppCooker.
- Balsamiq Mockups—www.balsamiq.com/. High-quality desktop and web-based mockup software.
- Printable templates—http://mng.bz/URA4. If you want to use a pen and paper, these printable templates from Speckyboy Design Magazine will make it easier.
The built-in support for simulating, deployment, and developing in Xcode is good enough to start, but you’ll want to check out these tools as you do more:
- iSimulate—www.vimov.com/isimulate/. Use your iPhone to provide accelerometer, GPS, and multitouch events to the simulator.
- Accelerometer-simulator—http://code.google.com/p/accelerometer-simulator/. Open source solution for getting accelerometer events from the device to the simulator.
- TestFlight—https://testflightapp.com/. The easiest way to deploy apps to nondeveloper beta testers. Makes ad-hoc deployment a breeze.
- UDID Sender—http://mng.bz/60yC. Free iOS app to send the UDID of a device via email. Necessary for ad-hoc deployment to the device for testing.
- PonyDebugger—http://mng.bz/O1ej. Tool to see your app’s network traffic and Core Data from your desktop browser.
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