Chapter 19. iPhone SDK enhancements
This chapter covers
- Creating custom keyboard accessories
- Creating custom keyboards
- An overview of iPhone OS 4.0
In this last chapter, we’ll explore some of the APIs related to custom keyboard views as well as discuss some of the new SDK features going forward. The SDK is evolving yearly, so it’s almost impossible to keep up with every change that’s made.
The custom keyboard and keyboard accessories are simple concepts that are a good indication that Apple is loosening up its platform and giving developers greater control. The company is fostering innovation while still maintaining high quality for its devices.
In addition to custom keyboard input, we’ll also talk about the iPhone 4.0 SDK. The 4.0 SDK boasts new features such as multitasking, local notifications, and direct access to the media stored on the device, which will make for much more interesting and robust applications moving forward.
As you’ll see as we dive in, most of the functionality we’ll discuss has existed for some time in the iPhone SDK, but it’s been simplified for you by Apple. This is because the task of creating custom keyboard accessories is common in many applications. We’ll start by discussing how to implement custom keyboard accessories.
Custom keyboard accessories are views that are attached to the top of a keyboard. These views are bound to the keyboard’s animations and animate up and down as the keyboard is shown and hidden.