Articles about programming in Cocoa are many and in many places. The majority of them are of very high quality. To help out, I made this collected index, searchable by title or by article content. This page is very easy to maintain, so please email me any other articles out there that I've missed. Of course, make sure you also know about Apple's Cocoa docs! Also note that there are many Cocoa languages beyond Objective-C.

It’s just that the tide of Android devices is going to be primarily composed of “free with contract” uglies, not the kind of cool phones that compete with the iPhone. (Which is not to downplay cool Android phones, which I suspect will get more competitive, not less.)

It’s a typical design problem: it can’t be heavy and light and big and small. Neither decision will satisfy everyone all the time or cover every edge case: if Apple implemented Mute in Ihnatko’s preferred way, millions of people would be just as irritated when their scheduled alarms didn’t wake them up.

iosframeworks.com provides a carefully selected list of frameworks and classes that can be used as building blocks when creating apps for iOS devices.

Custom UI Component Database for iOS and Mac OS X

In this post, I present a tiny iOS app that generates a continuous tone at a frequency determined by a slider. It's a small sample app intended to show the simplest way to send audio data you generate to the speaker.

No code changes need. Just build your app for the Simulator (rather than the Device), and upload your .app to us. We give you back a link to your app on the web.

In this article, we will show you the building blocks required to incorporate fixed position into your own mobile web applications.

WordPress is incredibly popular, so it’s no surprise that there are a few iOS apps out there written either specifically for WordPress or to at least integrate with WordPress.

WordPress for iOS – Of course, you have to start off the list with this app, the official WordPress app from Automattic. “With WordPress for iOS, you can moderate comments, create or edit posts and pages, and add images or videos with ease.” Requires a self-hosted WordPress or WordPress.com blog. (iTunes)
Express for WordPress – “Express is an iPhone app built to quickly and effortlessly publish images/links/notes and short posts, on the go, to your WooThemes powered WordPress website.” Requires either a tumblog theme from WooThemes or the WooTumblog plugin. (iTunes)
PhotoSmash – “PhotoSmash makes sharing images on your WordPress blog a snap! Don’t wait until you get back home to post your images.” Requires the PhotoSmash Galleries plugin. (iTunes)
Polldaddy – “Take the pulse of your customers directly for the first time ever with Polldaddy for iOS. Now all the power and flexibility of Polldaddy surveys are literally at your fingertips.” Requires a Polldaddy account and the Polldaddy Polls and Ratings plugin for WordPress interoperability. (iTunes)
ShoZu – “ShoZu connects you with all your favorite social networks from one app. Update all of your social networks at once – upload photos and videos to over 50 of your favorite sites including Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, Photobucket, WordPress, MySpace, Photoshop, and email addresses at the same time.” Requires a ShoZu account. (iTunes)
WordPress Mobile Statistics – “WP Mobile statistics gives you the opportunity to check the information available from the WordPress.com Stats plugin from your iPhone/iPad or iPod Touch.” Requires the WordPress.com Stats plugin or a WordPress.com blog. (iTunes)
WP Dump – “WP-Dump is a simple and fast photo app for WordPress blog users to upload photos directly into their blog.” Requires the i-Dump iPhone Photo Uploader plugin. (iTunes)

Do you use an iOS app with WordPress that we’ve neglected to list? If so, we’d love to hear about it!

Apple has revealed the most popular and highest-earning iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad Apps for 2010 thus far, including top-sellers in the highly competitive Games category.

Apple’s lists divide apps into three categories — the most downloaded free apps; the top-selling paid apps and top-grossing apps (which includes both sale price and in-app purchases) — and also further divides those categories into categories such including games.

Chillingo’s Angry Birds was a top performer across devices, cracking the top ten in terms of both gross and paid downloads on both the iPad and iPhone/iPod Touch, with a free Lite version reaching the top ten list for iPhone/iPod Touch downloads. The lite version of the company’s Cut the Rope puzzle game was also a top free iPhone/iPod Touch download.

Popcap also had cross-iOS-platform success, with paid versions of Plants vs. Zombies appearing on the top selling and grossing lists for both platforms. Bejeweled 2+ Blitz also appeared on the top ten sellers and grossers lists for the iPhone/iPod Touch

In word games, Newtoy’s Words with Friends showed up on all three iPhone/iPod Touch lists, while EA’s licensed Scrabble achieved top sales and gross on the iPad.

Game apps dominated overall app downloads on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Nine of the top ten paid iPhone/iPod Touch apps across all categories were games, as were seven of the ten top-grossing apps on the devices and five of the top ten free apps.

On the iPad, however, games represented only two of the ten top-selling apps, one of the top-downloaded free apps and four of the ten top-grossing apps overall.

Unlike Apple’s regularly updated daily lists of to-selling and downloaded apps, which FingerGaming tracks regularly the 2010 lists are not ranked numerically. However, a look at the titles that reached the Top 10 gives some insight into the state of the iOS game market.

For instance, despite the iPad’s reputation for maintaining a higher average price point than the iPhone and iPod Touch, seven of the top ten selling games for the year are currently priced at $0.99. Five of the top-ten-grossing games on the device sell for $9.99, however, with only one $0.99 game cracking that list.

On the iPhone/iPod Touch, Playforge’s Zombie Farm managed to make the top-ten-grossing games list despite being offered as a free download.

The full lists of 2010 sales and downloads so far for 2010 (in alphabetical order) are as follows:

Most Downloaded Free iPhone/iPod Touch Games For 2010
Angry Birds Lite
FallDown!
Glow Hockey 2 FREE
Pac-Man Lite
Paper Toss
ROCK BAND FREE
Tap Tap Revenge 3
Unblock Me FREE
Words With Friends Free
Zombie Farm

Top-Selling Paid iPhone/iPod Touch Games For 2010
Angry Birds $0.99
Bejeweled 2+ Blitz $0.99
Cut the Rope $0.99
Doodle Jump $0.99
Fruit Ninja $0.99
Gamebox 1 $0.99
Plants vs. Zombies $2.99
Skee-Ball $0.99
Tetris $2.99
Words With Friends $2.99

Top-Grossing iPhone/iPod Touch Games For 2010
Angry Birds $0.99
Bejeweled 2+ Blitz $0.99
Call of Duty: Zombies $4.99
Doodle Jump $0.99
Monopoly $2.99
Plants vs. Zombies $2.99
Tetris $2.99
The Sims 3 $2.99
Words With Friends $2.99
Zombie Farm FREE

Most Downloaded Free iPad Games For 2010
Bubble Popper FREE
City Story
Farm Story Summer
Hit Tennis 2
Pimple Popper Lite
Pocket Frogs
Restaurant Story
Solitaire
Stair Dismount Universal
Texas Poker

Top-Selling Paid iPad Games For 2010
Angry Birds HD $4.99
Cake Doodle $0.99
Monkey Preschool Lunchbox $0.99
Pinball HD $0.99
Plants vs. Zombies HD $0.99
Predators $0.99
Real Racing HD $9.99
Scrabble for iPad $9.99
Shanghai Mahjong $0.99
Slice It! $0.99

Top-Grossing iPad Games For 2010
Angry Birds HD $4.99
Flight Control HD $4.99
Labyrinth 2 HD $7.99
MADDEN NFL 11 $2.99
Need for Speed Shift iPad $9.99
Pinball HD $0.99
Plants vas. Zombies HD $9.99
Real Racing HD $9.99
Scrabble for iPad $9.99
X-Plane for iPad $9.99

In tutto sto casino contro l’accordo Google-Verizon, ci si scorda che tutto ciò è un segno di debolezza da parte di Google. Non tanto tempo fa non si pensava che Google avrebbe lanciato addirittura una propria compagnia telefonica? Poi, il flop del Nexus One deve averli piegati a più miti consigli, e a comportarsi come una Apple qualunque, che con gli operatori fa accordi (anche se Apple non in violazione della net neutrality, va detto). Tra l’altro, cosa succederà il giorno in cui Facebook dovesse lanciare il prorio Facebook phone e vendere con gli operatori abbonamenti a 10 Euro al mese per l’accesso a Facebook e basta? E’ solo una mia impressione, o Google è, dei tre grandi (FAG, Facebook, Apple, Google), quello messo nettamente peggio per quanto riguarda Internet in mobilità?


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Remember back in the day when Google was only activating 100,000 Android units a day? You should — it was May. By June, that number had jumped to 160,000 units a day. And today it now stands at 200,000 Android units activated a day. That’s pretty incredible.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt revealed as much today during a sit down with a group of journalists after his panel at the Techonomy conference in Lake Tahoe, CA. When asked about how the Android platform is doing, Schmidt was practically glowing. He cited the recent quarterly shipment numbers (the ones showing total shipments passed those of the iPhone in the U.S.) and said that he just checked their own internal numbers this morning.

When someone said they didn’t know a good way to measure Android’s success, Schmidt quickly responded, “trust me, we do.” He then joked about the fact that he carries around the recently cancelled Nexus One. When someone suggested that was a classic, sort of like the Apple II, Schmidt joked: “is that a compliment?“

Schmidt specifically cited the Droid X as a reason for the recent Android surge. And he noted he was excited about the new Galaxy as well because it’s on all the carriers.

When questioned if the revenue coming in from Android was enough to make the whole project worthwhile, Schmidt said that it absolutely was. He noted that the idea behind Android is that it drives search — and that search is still their primary means of revenue. “Trust me that revenue is large enough to pay for all of the Android activities and a whole bunch more,” he noted.

He said that they don’t break out Android revenue numbers because they consider it a part of search.

Schmidt also quickly transitioned to note that they “love the success of the iPhone” as well thanks to how much it also drives search.

Below find the video of him talking about Android.

More from Schmidt:

Eric Schmidt: Every 2 Days We Create As Much Information As We Did Up To 2003

Schmidt Talks Wave’s Death: “We Celebrate Our Failures.” [Video]

Google’s Schmidt Doubts Company Will Get Into “Significant” Gaming

CrunchBase InformationAndroidGoogleEric SchmidtInformation provided by CrunchBase

Yesterday, Robert Scoble wrote a post about “Foursquare’s Yelp problem.” It’s an interesting read, with some good thoughts about how Foursquare can withstand feature-copying from a much larger rival. He asked for my thoughts, so I figured I’d jot some down here. Most importantly, his post got me thinking about the next phase of location, which I think we’re just about to enter.

First, Scoble’s thought that Foursquare might be in trouble because Yelp copied its check-in badge idea seems a bit premature to me. It was a much bigger deal when they added the whole check-in concept back in January, but the fact that Foursquare has started growing faster than ever since that point shows they have an advantage over Yelp in the realm. That advantage is that they have a social graph built for location, Yelp does not (yet).

As we all know, Yelp was built as a rating and review system for local restaurants. It has a social graph, but most people on it are connected to other people because they’re interested in their food/restaurant reviews. It has nothing to do with wanting to see which of their real friends are nearby (which is what Foursquare is all about). That’s why I think it would have been smarter for Yelp to partner with Foursquare (or Gowalla, or Loopt, etc) in the same way a service like Hot Potato has (using APIs). Yelp + Foursquare would have been a formidable power play in the location space. Instead, Yelp’s check-in offering is still pretty weak, while Foursquare’s is still pretty small.

Scoble also mentions that it might be wise for Foursquare to buy another service to bolster its offering. That’s not a bad idea, especially when they close that round of funding they’re working on. Scoble specifically menions Foodspotting — a service I like a lot — and that makes a lot of sense. But it may be wiser to think beyond that (or buy Foodspotting and extend their services). Foursquare needs a way to upload pictures and make comments on check-ins (and pictures). Basically, they need to copy the functionality Gowalla has right now. There’s always a fine line between keeping a service simple and cluttering it up with feature creep, but Gowalla’s mixture of check-ins, comments, and pictures is pretty damn perfect in my view right now.

Another idea Scoble brings up is a “check-out.” I love this. He talks about it from customer loyalty perspective, which is a good point, but I think it goes beyond that. One problem I have with Foursquare is that it’s too often populated with inaccurate (old) information. That is, I may go somewhere check-in when I get there, but 30 minutes later I’m gone. Someone who shows up 15 minutes after that (after seeing my check-in on Foursquare) will have missed me. This happens quite a bit. Sadly, the only way to “check-out” of a venue is to check-in to another one. That’s no good.

The problem with a check-out is that it’s total feature-creep. And I would bet that only a small percentage of those that check-in would ever explicitly check-out too — it’s simply asking users to do too much. That leads me to my main point. I think we’re on the verge of location services getting even more interesting thanks largely to one thing: iOS 4.

Apple’s new mobile operating system (formerly known as iPhone OS 4), which is launching in about a week, brings with it the ability for third-party applications to run in the background for the first time. One of the allowed functions is background location. Here’s how I see this working with Foursquare: you go to a venue, you load up Foursquare and check-in. The app then stays open in the background for a set period of time, notes when your location changes, and checks you out of the venue when you move far enough away.

Obviously, this would auto check-out would need to be opt-in, but it seems like the perfect initial use of the new iOS with background location. The next step is the auto check-in — but that’s a bit more complicated, and I think users may not be ready for it yet. Still, it would be a cool option to have. The app could track you location in the background and if you stop at some place for long enough, it could ask you if you’d like to check-in there.

By now, you Android fanboys have probably already left several comments along the lines of ”but Android has been able to run location in the background for 2 years.” That’s true, but let’s be honest: it’s the iPhone that’s going to help this type of activity take off (just as it was the iPhone that helped background location take off in the first place). Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, etc still see the vast majority of their activity on the iPhone. Android may be able to extend upon these new location ideas, but it will be the iPhone that puts them in the mind of most consumers.

And this is just the most basic functionality made possible by the new iOS. I bet we see a new range of location service pop-up this year thanks to the background location-functionality. And I still bet that a lot of those companies get snatched up by the bigger players looking to compete. And the location turf wars will heat up even more.

CrunchBase InformationFoursquareYelpiPhoneInformation provided by CrunchBase

Da un po’ di tempo a questa parte sto cercando di farmi un’idea sulla lettura e soprattutto sulla narrazione. Dopo la presentazione di iPad, in molti hanno definito il nuovo gadget-totem di Apple come l’ammazzakindle. E in effetti l’hype che Cupertino ha saputo generare ha messo un po’ in ombra l’ebook reader di Amazon. Era piuttosto ovvio che Jobs usasse anche i libri elettronici per far leva sull’immaginario delle persone che magari faticano a comprendere le implicazioni e le possibilità aperte da un oggetto come iPad.

Nulla però mi toglie dalla testa che il formato stesso del libro, ormai antichissimo, sia pronto a un salto evolutivo. Che non vuol dire, beninteso, che il libro sparirà del tutto. Ovvio. Piuttosto sarà necessario pensare e ripensare alla narrazione in nuovi contesti, che non hanno al centro tanto i gadget tecnologici dove questi contenuti bene o male finiscono, quanto soprattutto l’interattività.

Ok, sento già le persone urlare cose come “CD-Rom interattivi” o “Enciclopedie multimediali”. Avete ragione. Ci siamo già passati. Ci abbiamo provato e abbiamo fallito. Io in quegli anni uscivo dal liceo e cominciavo a muovere i primi passi nella grafica 3D, quindi conosco poco quel contesto. Quello che posso dire ora è: no. Non si ritornerà a quello (o meglio, non ritorneranno a quello le persone che davvero vogliono esplorare un mondo più o meno nuovo). Non succederà perché è cambiato il panorama, e magari perché siamo cambiati noi.

Ma torniamo alla narrazione. E alle possibilità. Un po’ di tempo fa sono rimasto affascinato da questo gioco di Daniel Benmergui. Si chiama Today I die e ve lo lascio scoprire, insieme alle altre cose che ha messo sul suo sito. Ecco, se oggi mi chiedessero: dove può andare la poesia in un mondo veloce, digitale e interattivo? Risponderei con il link a Today I die.

La gente legge poco. Lo sappiamo. Forse se lasciassimo che la narrazione emerga attraverso un mondo, uno spazio di possibilità da esplorare, ritornerebbe ad appassionarsi. Abbiamo bisogno di muoverci, di esplorare. Certo, non è facile, e siamo solo agli inizi. Mi viene da pensare che un Bolaño che ha scritto 2666 come una serie di romanzi che il lettore può affrontare nell’ordine che preferisce abbia già fatto un piccolo passo in questa direzione.

Certo, creare un mondo è più complicato. Ma per fortuna oggi non abbiamo solo più la parola (che per sua natura si presta a una narrazione lineare e finita). Possiamo cominciare a pensare, come ha fatto Benmergui, a piccoli mondi da esplorare, piccoli mondi che cambiano con il nostro intervento e che ci offrono storie diverse. Ecco, credo che sia necessario cominciare da qui e pensare in piccolo. Il romanzo breve è forse la prima forma da esplorare per vedere se può evolvere in qualcosa di diverso. Da lì si potranno forse costruire esperienze più complesse; ovviamente il linguaggio dei giochi diventa parecchio importante in tutto questo. I giochi sono da sempre spazi di possibilità. Forse è il momento che lo diventino anche le narrazioni.

Pur non avendo ancora avuto tra le mani iPad, trovo che una prima idea interessante sia quella della versione di Alice. A quanto si vede dai filmati in rete siamo però ancora lontani da una vera interattività. La versione iPad di Alice mi ricorda di più i vecchi libri animati (che personalmente adoravo): piccoli mondi costruiti con finezza e ingegno, che però lasciavano spazio a pochi interventi da parte del lettore. Erano come acquari da guardare con meraviglia per scoprirne ogni piccolo dettaglio, ma poco più. Ora, se mettessimo insieme le possibilità interattive di una cosa del genere (che sfrutta con intelligenza l’accelerometro e il multitouch) con le idee di testo che muta e di esplorazione di Benmergui, probabilmente saremmo abbastanza vicini a quello che immagino e che mi riesce difficile spiegare.

Una cosa del genere si presterebbe anche a fruizioni successive, perché sarebbe molto difficile vedere ogni lato del mondo e ogni evoluzione della storia durante la prima esplorazione. Qualcosa di simile a quel che succede in Heavy Rain, ma insieme più raffinato (nelle modalità del racconto, nel raccordo tra le varie “scene”) e meno ambizioso (ovvero meno film a tutti i costi).

Mi piacerebbe vedere qualcosa del genere presto. E sono piuttosto sicuro che accadrà. Là fuori ci sono moltissimi autori e studiosi che stanno ragionando in modo nuovo.

The real lesson of the iPhone turned out to have very little to do with the phone at all. The iPhone–and now Android–experience underscores the versatility of business platforms and ecosystems when connected to a powerful mobile device. But the mobility experience has also taught us another thing: there are new vistas of human behavior and tremendous opportunities for industries and institutions are being revealed—opportunities that many companies and governments misunderstand when they judge the value of mobility in their futures.

Many see mobility as simply another communication channel or another medium. Others mistakenly view mobility as simply another information technology, much like those that preceded it. They do not see how a mobile device combined with a business platform (elsewhere I have discussed the characteristics and success factors of business platforms) can lead to new business models, entirely new businesses, and new growth options.

Here are five critical elements executives must understand about mobility. Mobility creates:

Micro-tasking. How small can a meaningful piece of work be? Is not the right one-word answer immeasurably productive at the right time? What about a single word of encouragement at the right moment. Rehearsing a new set of phrases for a new language as an adult or reviewing multiplication tables during a couple of available minutes as a child can be remarkably effective and efficient. This is the power of micro-tasking and mobile platforms enable this behavior in ways and times not possible before. Multiply this by the millions or perhaps billion moments per day and you have new levels of potential human productivity and significantly revised time budgets. And there are examples: The Extraordinaries harnesses voluntary micro-tasking to help those in need and see Denis Hancock’s post, “The iPhone, growing up digital, and my daughter’s education,” on the way micro-tasking changes the way pre-schoolers learn.
New Creativity. Humans are fundamentally asynchronous and associative. We require props to operate on schedule. Most of the time our ideas, inspirations, and breakthroughs seem random or triggered by some event, association with another idea, or situational experience. Because our devices are always with us and allow us immediate access to tools that were formerly attached to a desk or office, mobile platforms enable us to work in a more natural way – asynchronously and associatively. When did you have your last creative idea? Being connected to a global infrastructure, able to access capabilities at a whim, or simply using an appropriate app at the appropriate time enables new levels of creativity.
The Growing World of Sensors. Mobile devices loaded with sensors will revolutionize health, safety and security. Sensor technology is growing in its ability to sense the world that is visible to humans as well as the world that is not. When you integrate sensor technology (biosensors, temperature, radiation, personal sonar/radar etc) into mobile devices married to platform infrastructures, every human being becomes a sensing station that can measure environmental pollutions, noise pollution, unhealthy emissions, or dangerous hazards. The implications for health, safety and personal care surpass any in a non-mobile, non-sensor based world.
Enhanced experience or augmented reality. Much like the headphones issued at some public museums enhance the one’s understanding of museum artifacts, all facets of daily life can be enhanced by location, context and proximal awareness. Location data can enhance the experience of the local opera, theatrical performance, or visit to a museum. Commercial enterprises, whether serving B2C or B2B marketplaces, have the ability to augment the entire procurement process through mobile platforms. Employees can be augmented with relevant information and tools when serving customers and providing contracted services.
Digital Identity and the Rich Digital Self. As remarkable as the human capacity to remember is, it remains limited in many ways. The same is not true of devices that sense and store, activities that mobile platforms do in unique and often helpful ways. If my rich digital self is only based on what I can recall, it is limited. On the other hand, a rich digital self enhanced by streams of unbounded data collected through my mobile platform can create personal value and protect my privacy.

Are these areas where the greatest opportunity awaits? Are there others that I have missed? Are there companies and institutions that seem to really recognize—and leverage accordingly—the power of mobile platforms? Is there a role of for mobile business platforms to meet the special needs of your marketplace? Or will you stand by and let others, competitors and new entrants till the fields of mobility?