I have been itching to develop for the iPhone since I got one, however you need Mac OSX 10.5 in order to use the official SDK.
With the MacBook Aluminum on sale I decided to take switch and get a Mac.
I must say it has been a long time since I have used MacOS as a primary OS but over all I am liking it so far.
It is also nice to have two computers at home again, I have been taking my work laptop home but it is a pain to lug back and forth more often than the weekends.
I am hoping to apply for the developer program and publish some apps to the app store, I mean if iFart (http://www.joelcomm.com/updated_app_store_data_122008.html) can move 1 to 5 THOUSAND units a day I figure there is a reasonable chance to at least get back my investment in the MackBook.
And another falls to the darkside. ;)
+1!
Oh, sorry, I have to go, it's been 3 days so Apple is again telling me to download the latest updated version of Quicktime and Safari even though I never use them...
Well, last I looked iPhone developers were making about $200 an hour US so ... it might be a worthy avenue to explore.
Well apparently iFart was netting 10,000 a day during its launch week.. Other iPhone apps have earned 200,000 in their first two months.
So , if I keep it simple my expectation is for me to be able to pay off the investment in the MacBook and $99 dev fee in a short period of time. Beyond that will depend on making something people really want and isn't already free.
At any rate I have been itching to do some programming again, so this is going to start as a hobby project.
Really depends on how good the app is, how quickly you get it out, and whether or not your app gets in the Top Picks or whatever they call it. Here's a good read:
Cruel Economy of the App Store (http://latenitesoft.blogspot.com/2008/09/cruel-economy-of-app-store.html)
O very true.
My expectations are not very high, but the potential is there.
The app store it self is still maturing, for example apple made the smart move of only allowing those that have purchased/installed an app to rate the app. The app price cap does not concern me yet as my initial apps are likely to be minor anyway.
Good luck with it Lazy. Unlike Cova, I'm not against Macs... I just don't prefer to use one. My choice. But I think you might have a good time with it.
One think I am really digging from a laptop point of view is the new multi-touch track pad.
- It's BIG, most trackpads I find are too small to move the pointer around the screen precisely.
- Most of the multi-touch gestures are very easy to use, use two fingers and drag down to scroll
- Need to right click, use two fingers and press down
- there are 3 and 4 finger gestures as well but they are less intuitive.
Still running a windows desktop at home and I might dual boot the laptop.
Yeah, the multi-touch track pad is an awesome idea! Strangely, very opposite to that long-running single-button mouse concept :P
I've heard that you can also zoom in on programs with two fingers moving in a spreading motion?
Yes there is a zoom gesture just like the iPhone.
The whole touchpad is one physical button btw, so it is still kind of a one button mouse.
Actually a coworker of mine just bought a brand new Macbook Pro and the touch pad is the same size as the iPhone interface.
I was reading that Apple (and ASUS I believe) may be releasing multi-touch tablet/laptops in 2009.
That has some interesting possibilities, especially for someone like myself.
Sounds fun :)
I managed to get OSX86 installed on my desktop. I have a couple apps I want to work on..
Quote from: Tom on December 28, 2008, 09:28:18 PM
Sounds fun :)
I managed to get OSX86 installed on my desktop. I have a couple apps I want to work on..
Hmm, I tried setting up a VM to test drive it however I couldn't get OSX 10.5 to work, only 10.3. You need 10.5 to run the latest official SDK.
Quote from: Lazybones on December 28, 2008, 10:21:09 PM
Quote from: Tom on December 28, 2008, 09:28:18 PM
Sounds fun :)
I managed to get OSX86 installed on my desktop. I have a couple apps I want to work on..
Hmm, I tried setting up a VM to test drive it however I couldn't get OSX 10.5 to work, only 10.3. You need 10.5 to run the latest official SDK.
I didnt get it working in Vmware server or VirtualBox, so I just made some room and a new partition for OSX. It runs fine but I dislike the lack of real virtual desktops, and proper mutimonitor support. While it did a good job of detecting and setting modes, I still had to resize them, and I still can't use the same workflow as I'm used to, theres no way to tell what windows are maximized on any given screen without cycling through them manually, its irritating when I'm used to a separate task bar on each screen only showing whats relevant.
Yes, the desktop / UI has some significant differences from Windows / KDE / Gnome. I getting used to using Expose for jumping between open windows, I don't use spaces as I never got used to virtual desktops under windows.
My problem is really the way the panel doesn't list windows. It lists apps. Click an app and all of its windows come forward. I don't think I would like that in most cases. I'm sure its fine for an ide, so long as that ide is like the old borland and I'm not putting windows on multiple monitors.
My work flow on multiple monitors is something borne out of the uniqe features on X. A useable pager (virtual desktops), a task bar that lets you filter out apps not on the active desktop, and not on the current screen, that also lets you (easily) have a task bar on each screen. This way I can sort apps into "activities", each virtual desktop is a separate activity, like "Dev", "Web", "p2p", and "other". No cluttering a single task bar with all of the windows, no magically switching desktops when clicking on a window item thats not on the current desktop (its annoying).
What OSX would do when I select say, Firefox, it would raise all of Firefox's windows to the top, regardless of which screen they are on. Say I have a firefox window open on each screen, and XCode open on the main screen, and I want to code while looking at some docs in firefox on the secondary screen, the firefox on the main screen will now be over XCode. Which I don't want. Maybe its not like that... But I'm pretty sure it is.
Quote from: Lazybones on December 28, 2008, 03:31:59 PM
The whole touchpad is one physical button btw, so it is still kind of a one button mouse.
I would say no, it's not like a one-button mouse, because it senses multiple fingers touching. With a one-button mouse, there's only one type of input possible. That was the point behind the two-button mouse - the ability to have two types of input from one device.
Well even the desktop macs no longer have a true single button mouse as they ship with the Mighty Mouse http://www.apple.com/mightymouse/ .