Monthly Archives: December 2009
iPhone devsugar: Improved Network Reachability routines
Apple makes it clear: when applications rely on network connectivity, they must always test for a valid connection and report those results to the user. If the app cannot reach the Internet, the user needs to know. App Store reviewers regularly reject applications that do not test, and when a connection is not found, report that the network cannot be accessed.
Developers need to integrate this process into their apps. If your app connects to a server, for example, it must test the current iPhone configuration and report to the user whenever the network cannot be reached. Apple provides sample code to help with this.
iPhone developer Andrew Donoho was not particularly impressed by Apple’s sample reachability code. So he decided to do something about it. He has created an open source, BSD-licensed update, which he posted on his website. His updated reachability utilities fix a few Apple misspellings and tunes up the code, allowing you to revert to the original implementation via compiler flags.
Das Cube for iPhone
Das Cube [iTunes link, $1.99] is a simple little iPhone game that comes with a pretty impressive pedigree: it’s made by one of the creators of Aquaria, Mark Johns of Space Barnacle, and features music by the composer of Canabalt‘s crazy addictive soundtrack.
As you can see in the video, it’s got more
China Unicom has now sold 300,000 iPhones
Things started off looking grim for the iPhone when it went on sale in China in October of this year with sales of only 5000 phones in the first week. Forty days after the initial launch however, China Unicom reported they sold 100,000 iPhones. Now, just twenty days after that 100,000 mark, Dan Butterfield over at iPhonAsia.com is reporting a surge of iPhone sales equaling 200,000 in the last three weeks. That brings China Unicom’s iPhone sales to 300,000. in just two months.
This really isn’t surprising considering the massive popularity of the iPhone with some of China’s neighbors and another pretty big country.
It also looks like China Unicom is putting their money where their mouth is when they said “iPhone will become China’s best-selling smartphone.” This week they’ve kicked off a 46-city roadshow tour to promote the iPhone to prospective buyers across the country.
LinkedIn app releases version 3.0 for the iPhone
LinkedIn has always seemed like the “me too” of social networks, in my mind. They started out as a site more about careers and job networking, but with the big growth of Facebook the last two years, it seems like they’re working as hard as they can just to keep up with what’s going on over there.
And that seems to be the case with their updated iPhone app as well, just released on the App Store [iTunes link, free]. There’s a lot of new features, but as TechCrunch’s MG Sielger points out, they’re very similar to what’s already in the great Facebook app: a revamped UI, the ability to comment on status updates, share pictures, and so on.
The power of LinkedIn, if you ask me, is in its demographic — Facebook is where I share with my family and friends, and LinkedIn seems to be where I have connected with coworkers and colleagues.
Our Favorite Apps: Stuff that stayed on our phones in 2009
As the year draws to a close, we thought we’d shine a spotlight on some of the favorite apps we used this year. These are the “sticky” apps, the ones that lingered on our iPhones after we gave them a preliminary spin. There’s so much on the App Store, good, bad and indifferent; here are a few suggestions for items that deserve your attention.
- iAssociate [$1.99] Hugely challenging and long-term fun, this Funny-Farm-style game makes you brainstorm out associations from a core word or phrase. — Erica Sadun