Get your iPhone Apps off the ground

My day job is exactly that - it takes up all of my day! As Technical Director of a software company specialising in the hospitality sector, I am faced with keeping our current clients happy with their current requirements whilst magically embracing all the new emerging technologies, especially mobile applications.

During 2008, I dabbled with a number of solutions providing web-based applications designed for use on mobile technology such as a Blackberry Storm, Windows Mobile, iPhone or iPod Touch.

However, using Mobile Explorer on Windows Mobile or Mobile Safari on Apple devices felt like cheating, and once I looked into what you can do with Xcode (the development platform for Mac/iPhone), I was quickly convinced there is only one route to go. The Blackberry Storm and Windows Mobile devices are now sitting in my desk drawer gathering dust whilst the iPhone sits happily in its prominent new home - an iPhone 3G docking station from the Apple store.

Six weeks on, I'm an Apple Certified iPhone Developer and I thought a newbie in the world of iPhone development would appreciate a quick introduction into what's required to get up and running. So here goes.


First off, you need to ensure you have signed up for the Apple iPhone Developer Platform and have downloaded the free iPhone SDK:

• http://developer.apple.com/iphone
• Download the free iPhone SDK
• Install the iPhone SDK (it includes the latest version of Xcode)
  

iPhone Developer Site Resources

The iPhone Developer site has an abundance of useful information including some very useful 'Getting Started' videos. They are well worth a download and perfectly suited to viewing on your iPhone when you're not near your Mac.


What else do I need?

In three words: Beginning iPhone Development. Published by Apress and written by Dave Mark & Jeff LaMarche, it is simply the best £28 I've ever spent on a technical book.

There are a wealth of tools out there, but by simply installing the iPhone SDK, watching the Getting Started videos, reading this book from cover to cover and sitting with the book to complete the exercises resulted in an instant understanding of Objective-C and Cocoa Touch. I am seriously impressed. Buy it from Amazon today. Enough said.


Putting Your Apps on iTunes

Once you have built your first app and have successfully debugged it using the iPhone simulator, you will no doubt want to ship it out to the masses using the iTunes store. To do so, you must subscribe to the Apple Developer Program which costs £49 per annum via the iPhone Developer site.


And there you have it. The basics of starting out in iPhone development using Xcode, the iPhone SDK and the best technical book ever published!


Review and Buy on Amazon

• 'Beginning iPhone Development' by Dave Mark & Jeff LaMarche (Apress)
• iPod Touch (8gb) by Apple
  
• iPod Touch (16gb) by Apple

Keywords
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Using your own email address with MobileMe and your iPhone/iPod Touch

As a follow up to my last blog 'Using your own email address with Mobile and Apple Mail', this blog focuses on how to set up your iPhone/iPod Touch with the same functionality.

When adding a MobileMe account to your device, it will do all the hard work once you've entered the basics. Unfortunately, it locks you out of any changes to mail configuration within the MobileMe settings.

All we need to do to overcome this is to turn off MobileMe mail and set up a new Mail-only account that talks to MobileMe for incoming mail and the server of your external email account for outgoing mail.


Firstly, let's set up your MobileMe account on the iPhone/iPod Touch
(If you have already done this, you can skip this section)

1. Click the Settings icon on your device.
2. Select Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
3. Click Add Account and select MobileMe.
4. Enter your Name, Address, Password, the description 'MobileMe' and click 'Save'.
5. The device will configure the MobileMe account automatically.

Next, we need to deactivate MobileMe Mail

1. Click the Settings icon on your device.
2. Select Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
3. Select the MobileMe account and set Mail to 'Off'.

Finally, we need to set up a separate MobileMe Mail Account

1. Click Add Account and select 'Other'.
2. Enter your Name, MobileMe email address, MobileMe password and the Description 'MobileMe Email' and click 'Save'.
3. Your device will source your account information. Once it has, ensure the IMAP tab is selected.
4. Change the Email Address to your external email address.
5. For Incoming Mail Server, enter smtp.me.com as the hostname, your MobileMe account name for the user name and your MobileMe password.
6. For Outgoing Mail Server, enter the outgoing SMTP server, username and password for your domain email account.
7. Click Save.

Incoming email from your external email account

As explained in the prequel to this document relating to Apple Mail, you need to ensure that you are forwarding your incoming email from your external email account to your MobileMe email address to complete the process.


iPhone/iPod Touch with incoming MobileMe and external email account - Done!


Read Reviews and Buy on Amazon

• MobileMe by Apple
• iPod Touch (8gb) by Apple
  
• iPod Touch (16gb) by Apple

Keywords
MobileMe Settings iPhone
MobileMe Settings iPod Touch
MobileMe Own Email Address
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iPod Touch IMAP Settings
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