iPhone Development Tools

[DaveLG526]

Are there any special or useful development tools to develop web aps for the iPhone?


I have the Safari Windows browser but would like a way to emulate what my application will look like in a representation of the iPhone.

 

[cmaier]

Are there any special or useful development tools to develop web aps for the iPhone?


I have the Safari Windows browser but would like a way to emulate what my application will look like in a representation of the iPhone.

I actually haven't yet found any difference (other than performance) between safari-windows and safari iphone while developing my webapps for iphone.

 

[michelle21]

I actually haven't yet found any difference (other than performance) between safari-windows and safari iphone while developing my webapps for iphone.

Are you on a mac or a windows platform? I'll try to cover both.
I have been in a very short time frame ramping up my development resources, here's what I'm finding useful, there are others, some are free , other cost a bit.

IF THIS ISN"T in a sticky it should be...

1) development environments- aptana development environment, free and open source javascript/ajax editing, mini webserver for testing apps right on the iphone, navigation templates and wizards, incapsolates all the common javascript/ajax libraries. dojo, jmaki, adding php support, iphone on phone console debugger - windows/mac - can't live without.

http://www.aptana.com/

2) A good css visual editor -
On the mac this would be cssedit, http://www.macrabbit.com, on the windows platform stylemaster is pretty good, Tried the trial but decided to stick with cssedit because I do a lot on my macs.

3) GWT, google webtookit, takes java code and converts it to javascript.


4) Firefox web browser with the firebug debugger plugin - lets you debug your web 2.0 applications, extract stylesheets from other applications, including iphone apps, has some of the features of cssedit, as it can "see inside" any javascript page, and modify a local copy with css on the fly. note: if you don't do something special to obsculate your javascript code, it is wide open, don't let the fact you can't see it in view source fool you, these debuggers are to view source is to an xray compared to an mri. In fact the cssedit function is called x-ray.

5) download the latest copy of webkit from the apple site, in addition to the latest libraries has some rudimentary debugging and x-ray tools.

6) resources

safari.oriely.com

for a monthly subscription you can read online any book or forthcomming book that oriely publishes. - can't live without, bit expensive, but also invaluable on my real job.

Ajaxian newsletter and website, Joe Hewit who came up with the web 2.0 clone of the iphone user interface, everyone seems to use, maintains a column.

iphonedev group at googlegroups.com

Sitepoint books and videos - cheap and up to date




IS THAT ENOUGH.....

 

[michelle21]

Here's two web resources that should be on your favorites link.

http://www.aptana.com/blog/?p=168
Read the stuff about the conference its pretty cool

http://ajaxian.com/


Apple didn't invent web 2.0 and ajax it was around for a little while, but the iphone has pushed a lot of stuff that was slowing ramping up to become more mainstream to the forefront.

Its ironic, before itunes there was napster, Itunes and napster did not invent peer to peer music downloads, but itunes took a bunch of unrelated technologies that were floating around and package them in a more assesable way to reach a larger user base.

With Iphone, apple is fully embracing a web 2.0 technology that was ever so slowly pushing its way to the mainstream. Not to say web 2.0 wasn't moving forward without the iphone, google with its gears and its web toolkit were making strides. But all of a sudden there seems to be an acceleration of the web 2,0 tech, spurred by the iphone.

None of these technologies are new, but the iphone is the first real mobile device that truly can take advantage of them and its causing the market to respond.

1) Online vs. on device applications , There many of these now hitting, from online office apps ie. gooffice to real cool online dictation applications, as developers gain knowledge of the device watch for new photo services, email services etc. there is no way apple can do this without 3g, my guess edge support only is a 6 to 8 month compromise, compare a 1st gen ipod to a 5th gen ipod.

2) apple may or may not give in and let native apps run on the phone, my guess is they are waiting for lepoard, but objective c apps on the phone will be a niche market if anything, what apple needed was something like visual basic and ajax/javascript gives them just that.

3) Google has stated more than once that it is working on incorporating gears into webkit, if you read the ajaxian newsletter you will learn that webkit is really gaining ground, Will safari surpass ie, doubt it, but I think Apple has every intent to leapfrog firefox. The Iphone must have a full version of webkit, webkit to safari is like the ie control for internet explorer, it has to be there, when gears is incorporated that persumably mean that iphone support would be a software update away. ie. persistant storage of code and data.

4) For me personally the iphone has changed my life, as a developer I had always just pushed javascript aside as that little scripting language, probably because it was a considerable time since I read a book on it, and of course I missed all the innovation that was added to it. It is becomming an object based language. And there are some powerful features. I am starting to incorporate ajax, js and toolkits in my everyday development, and trying to put a presentation together for our development team. The ajaxian newsletter somes it up, Apple has given a gift to the ajax/web 2.0 community.

 

[Eexus]

If you don't have an iPhone, theres an app called iPhoney that's pretty good. It simulates the screen resolution and size pretty good considering the iPhone has a 160 dpi screen.

Check out http://www.marketcircle.com/iphoney/