iPhone Programming Course Over

11 days with 1 day off in between. 4 days in ANSI C (fantastic fun, learn do a lab, learn do a lab). Then 2 days in Objective C. Then 1 day off (Washington DC baby!). Then 5 days on the trot of iPhone programming starting not with the graphical Interface Builder but doing everything by hand. For me, this was THE way of learning and building real understanding and strength.

Day 1 of 2 in Objective C Programming

Having spent the last 4 days in ANSI C and getting as far as creating structs and dabbling with function pointers the move to Objective C was fantastic. We were shown comprehensively how Objective C is really only C with an added layer of syntax which allows us to deal with the unwieldy (though evidently powerful) structs and functions we learned in C. This time calling “functions” that relate to those “structures” involves nothing less than sending a message to an object.

Day 4 over ANSI C course for iPhone Programming

I’ve just finished 4 very satisfying days delving into a good deal of the inner workings of C using Apple’s Xcode. We’ve done “labs” (ie. tests of our knowledge in real programs) on arrays, pointers, structures, passing various structures and variables in and out of functions.

Max O’Malley About Objects iPhone Beginner’s Course

I’m in Reston, Virginia on an 11 day intensive training course including 4 days ANSI C, 2 days Objective C and 5 days iPhone Programming Workshop. The trainers are “About Objects”, principally, Jonathan Lehr.

iPhone 3GS, o2 and Twitter Journalism

Information travels really really fast these days. As quick as Apple had announced the new iPhone 3GS in San Francisco last night, it was tweeted all round the world. Those twitterers in the UK then began their online barrage of investigations to find out how quickly and cheaply they could upgrade their existing phones (as most of them already had the blessed device).

Max O’Malley at Belfast Apple Store Grand Opening

The BBC coverage is excellent, Max O’Malley can be seen coyly entering and high fiving the double line of Apple staff. I was there from 6:40am, an enthusiastic effort on my part. The crowd were in great spirits and I met some great people – thanks also to Starbucks for donating free mini hot chocolates! My own footage is here:

At home with EyeTV and Apple TV in the UK

I never should say this but my computer media setup feels like it is “complete”. For so long we are always looking for the “one more thing” to make our home computer/media life just right. I am glad to say that I think (and I could be wrong) I am there.

Let me describe the beauty of my setup.

We have two main rooms in the house with the following equipment:

1. The Main Lounge with a Samsung 40″ HD LCD Television and Apple TV with version 2 software installed

2. The Playroom with an iMac with 2GB Ram, 500GB Hard drive and EyeTV 400 plugged into aerial socket

Here’s how it works:

iPhone Review – Connection speeds on wifi, GPRS and EDGE

According to www.inetworktest.com the average speeds users of the site are getting are as follows:

Average WiFi 800 kbps
Average Edge 210 kbps
Average Speed 520 kbps

Bizarrely, in my own tests I’ve been getting average wifi of 450kbps and today average GPRS of 283kbps!! Something might be off there in the speed test methods but the square box (for GPRS) was showing on the iPhone, not the blocked E for Edge.

Read the rest of this review at www.dotphone.net

iPhone – the week after review

the iPhone in my daily “lifeflow”:

Saturday after the MAGNIFICENT LAUNCH PARTY – iCal

Chatting to some friends in Belfast’s wonderful, St. George’s Market, we discuss a possible lad’s night this coming week. I consult my iPhone and notice that the Thursday evening is free. I add it to my calendar there and then before it can be stolen from me by other members of my family. At home it syncs and by the magic of .mac my work computer has the same information the next morning in its calendar.

Thursday arrives

I’m at work and I want to check train times to Belfast for this evening. I check them on my office Mac, take a pic of the results (a simple CMD-SHIFT-4) and drop them into a Note in the new Leopard Mail. I know that i will have access to this note on my iPhone as it syncs everything – images, pdfs using my .mac account.

Leopard Mail integration

Sure enough I get home and begin negotiations with my legally and spiritually bound female, my wife. I secure a lift to the train station. En route I open up the iPhone to check the times again in case I could make the earlier train. Sure enough my notes are synced – train time image appears – and we have EDGE here and its not wifi but its fine. Even if they hadn’t synced I could open up the web browser and check them again live on the website. I’m the sort of person who forgets something the minute I see it that’s why I take pictures.

Music and Phone Calls

I get dropped off at the train station and try out the iPhones handsfree headphones for listening to music. As I enjoy the latest Sigur Ros live offering the music dips in volume and a ringing tone in my ear indicates a phone call. I push the sleek mini button on the headphones and I’m speaking to a friend who is trying to organise his own public transport to our combined destination. The sound quality is good and I don’t have to repeat myself. [NB As we chatted text messages were coming through by my other friend, these appeared with the full text on the iPhone screen - I like that - better than "you have 1 message"] The big plus about the headphones is that because it is, to all intents and purposes a set of iPod headphones, wearing it makes you look more like a cool muso and less like one of those Dads who have a mobile phone on their belt buckle and a permanent bluetooth headset attached to the ear whilst shopping with their wife in As Qmonkey has stated these people have such technology in place “just in case”. These people do NOT work for the CIA and have been watching too much Spooks. With the iPhone headphones / iPod combination you spare yourself some scorn.

Fumble-Less Technology

I’m standing by now in a drafty train station on a chilling November evening in Northern Ireland. Several phone calls and text messages take place but all seamlessly on the one unit whilst listening to music, my iPhone. I am the sort of person who tries to put a train ticket in the exact same place every time so that when asked I can find it without fumbling. Yet every time I need to get the train ticket I have to fumble around in every possible pocket (2 front and back on jeans, at least another 2 on jacket or coat) because I have forgotten again. With the iPhone I am decreasing that amount of fumbling. One device, one set of wires.

Train Home

After a great night of banter, steak and beer I get the train home; I ritually check facebook (which has its own iPhone friendly webpage). A friend wants to know what I think of the iPhone – I tap a response directly into facebook’s regular mail section “I’m writing this on a train from Carrick to Belfast, its easy”. The fact that I am doing that is testament to the ease of use of the iPhone. Somewhere along the train route the signal differed from GPRS to EDGE and back again. It didn’t matter, the software just handled that for me in the background.

The Morning after

Friday morning in work I check my emails on the the iPhone – several discussing the night before, the ones I have already read at home on my mac before leaving appear but without a blue “unread” dot. I am so used to SMTP emails in perfect sync across many computers I forget what it is like to go to POP accounts where you have to wade through already read mail! I can immediately see the new mail no matter whether it is on my home laptop, my work iMac or now my beautiful iPhone. Easy.

in short:

- effortless syncing of calendar, address book, web bookmarks, music, podcasts
- Leopard integration lovely
- iPod to iPhone seamless integration. Music dips, text message chimes, phone rings, single click of headphones and we are chatting clearly.
- its the REAL web, my emails using .mac are my real NEW emails, my calendar is my ACTUAL calendar synced across two home macs and a work mac.

iLove her

*Max O’Malley realises that to live the sort of experience he has had this past week one needs :

1. Mac(s)
2. Leopard (Max OS 10.5) installed
3. a babysitter and/or permission from his wife for the night out

The experience can be mimicked with lesser equipment but you are on your own there.

With thanks to Apple and Lilytodd for providing all of the above services.

More ichat effects – free for Leopard

Great news for people who want to play around even more with the wonderful new ichat effects. If like me you have kids, they’ll love the extra effects in this software from Macpopou. I particularly appreciate the ability to provide hologram advice to Jedi Knights and twittering robots…

[Max O'Malley giving business advice to Jedis and financially ignorant robots.]

Did I say if you have kids? Forget the kids… I love this stuff!

Highlights include:

Mona O’Malley
One2Many O’Malley

Phantom Zone O’Malley
Mercurial O’Malley

[These are images of the software author, not Max O'Malley]

Max O’Malley – not just a business guru