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Hipmunk for the iPhone - here's how we built it

blog.hipmunk.com

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Re: Hipmunk for the iPhone - here's how we built it

#31

Post by lawnchair_larry »

danilocampos wrote: post #27
lawnchair_larry wrote: post #26

Why do you tie my flight searches with my UDID and submit it to third parties like flurry?

> Why do you tie my flight searches with my UDID and submit it to third parties like flurry? We collect the following data points via a single third party tool, namely Flurry. There aren't any others, aside from the obvious booking partners who book your flight at the end of the process. - How long is the import process - What tasks throw exceptions or otherwise crash the application - Which cities are most chosen -…

Can you use their tool without submitting my UDID? If not, can I opt out (other than by not using the app)? I like your app, but that is essentially a tracking supercookie.

Actually if I am not mistaken, it is against the app store TOS to submit a UDID to a third party without the user's consent. Apps that use Flurry's agent in particular took heat from Apple for this. This is basically spyware.

http://www.tuaw.com/2010/06/02/flurry-agrees-to-stop-device-... http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=57992

Really, there is no reason to track activity by UDID for booking a flight.

I am not trying to troll here - I actually love your website. But I really hate spyware!

For your other uses, most reputable apps ask the user if they would like to participate in a customer feedback program, and inform them what will be collected, and allow them to opt out.

Re: Hipmunk for the iPhone - here's how we built it

#32

Post by albertogh »

bengl3rt wrote: post #25

Binary plists over the wire? That's a hardcore innovation that I will file away in the back of my head for next time I'm building a backend for a mobile app.

Most JSON frameworks are faster than binary plists on iOS. I learned it the hard way, after spending a day writing a Python module for the server side and doing some tests. However, binary plists were around 5% smaller, so they might help if your bottleneck is the bandwidth (it wasn't my case).

Edit: removed wrong link

Re: Hipmunk for the iPhone - here's how we built it

#33

Post by kn0thing »

badmash69 wrote: post #30

Kudos to the Hipmunk team !! The fact that a talented young developer sought them out with his vision of a product for them as opposed to the safe/usual choices like facebook/Google etc. , speaks volumes for the excitement they have created around their venture.

Just wait until there are free candy dispensers all over the office ;)

Re: Hipmunk for the iPhone - here's how we built it

#34

Post by danilocampos »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #31
danilocampos wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do you tie my flight searches with my UDID and submit it to third parties like flurry? We collect the following data points via a single third party tool, namely Flurry. There aren't any others, aside from the obvious booking partners who book your flight at the end of the process. - How long is the import process - What tasks throw exceptions or otherwise crash the application - Which cities are most chosen -…

Can you use their tool without submitting my UDID? If not, can I opt out (other than by not using the app)? I like your app, but that is essentially a tracking supercookie. Actually if I am not mistaken, it is against the app store TOS to submit a UDID to a third party without the user's consent. Apps that use Flurry's agent in particular took heat from Apple for this. This is basically spyware. http://www.tuaw.com/2…

We're not using AppCircle, so there should be no UDID shenanigans. I've asked Flurry to confirm this.

Re: Hipmunk for the iPhone - here's how we built it

#35

Post by robterrell »

ben1040 wrote: post #4

I've never heard of Opacity before but this looks pretty awesome. Anyone else used it for iOS or Mac apps and can weigh in on how well it works?

We use Opacity for everything, everything. It's fucking fantastic. I'm torn between telling everyone how great it is, and trying to keep it my secret to give me a competitive edge. Way worth it for the expensive version.

Integrate it with Xcode and treat your vector artwork as source -- when you build the project it will spit out all the little PNG files you need at all the different sizes. Your artists just tweak the opacity files, and when you build the PNGs get made. So awesome. We had to buy an extra copy for the CI server, but it was worth it to never again need to sit around and export png files.

Plus, if you need to draw something with Quartz, you can mock it up first in Opacity, and then have it generate the source code for your drawing, which you then integrate into your class. We quickly made classes that implement dynamically blurred drop shadows, customized numeric "badges" of any size, shape and color, and so on, just by drawing the effect we wanted, generating the source code, and combining the drawing code into a custom class. So awesome. Feels like cheating. (You have to work around Quartz's lack of Unicode support, but still.)

Re: Hipmunk for the iPhone - here's how we built it

#36

Post by danilocampos »

robterrell wrote: post #35
ben1040 wrote: post #4

I've never heard of Opacity before but this looks pretty awesome. Anyone else used it for iOS or Mac apps and can weigh in on how well it works?

We use Opacity for everything, everything. It's fucking fantastic. I'm torn between telling everyone how great it is, and trying to keep it my secret to give me a competitive edge. Way worth it for the expensive version. Integrate it with Xcode and treat your vector artwork as source -- when you build the project it will spit out all the little PNG files you need at all the different sizes. Your artists just tweak th…

> Integrate it with Xcode and treat your vector artwork as source -- when you build the project it will spit out all the little PNG files you need at all the different sizes

Whoa, really? Badass. How do you set this up? Have a link?

Re: Hipmunk for the iPhone - here's how we built it

#37

Post by Xuzz »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #31
danilocampos wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do you tie my flight searches with my UDID and submit it to third parties like flurry? We collect the following data points via a single third party tool, namely Flurry. There aren't any others, aside from the obvious booking partners who book your flight at the end of the process. - How long is the import process - What tasks throw exceptions or otherwise crash the application - Which cities are most chosen -…

Can you use their tool without submitting my UDID? If not, can I opt out (other than by not using the app)? I like your app, but that is essentially a tracking supercookie. Actually if I am not mistaken, it is against the app store TOS to submit a UDID to a third party without the user's consent. Apps that use Flurry's agent in particular took heat from Apple for this. This is basically spyware. http://www.tuaw.com/2…

I believe PrivaCy supports Flurry, if nothing else works: http://cydia.saurik.com/package/com.saurik.privacy

Re: Hipmunk for the iPhone - here's how we built it

#38

Post by arach »

danilocampos wrote: post #21
nuggien wrote: post #15

From a UX perspective, I’m really pleased with how the pinchable, stretchable, draggable time bars came out in the application. They feel really good to use. But from a development perspective, this is some of the stupidest, craziest code I’ve ever written in my life. Don’t ask me how I did it because it did it entirely the wrong way. Maybe I'll share once I figure out the non-stupid approach. But this is perhaps the…

I'm insecure enough sharing code I know works. Code I know is stupid is untenable for me. It comes from starting off as a newb and being led down the wrong path by people who'd blog without really knowing they were wrong. So I'd waste my time, or worse, internalize a bad design pattern because I didn't know any better. Hard to be that guy.

> So I'd waste my time, or worse, internalize a bad design pattern because I didn't know any better.

Maybe. Or maybe someone would point out that you took a wrong path, you'd be embarrassed for a few minutes and learn the better design pattern way faster.

I say this, but it's not something I do. I'm working on it though.

Re: Hipmunk for the iPhone - here's how we built it

#39

Post by phil »

robterrell wrote: post #35
ben1040 wrote: post #4

I've never heard of Opacity before but this looks pretty awesome. Anyone else used it for iOS or Mac apps and can weigh in on how well it works?

We use Opacity for everything, everything. It's fucking fantastic. I'm torn between telling everyone how great it is, and trying to keep it my secret to give me a competitive edge. Way worth it for the expensive version. Integrate it with Xcode and treat your vector artwork as source -- when you build the project it will spit out all the little PNG files you need at all the different sizes. Your artists just tweak th…

>Plus, if you need to draw something with Quartz, you can mock it up first in Opacity, and then have it generate the source code for your drawing, which you then integrate into your class.

Wow, that's worth the price of admission alone. Writing drawing code by hand takes forever and is the worst kind of time sink: the almost-but-not-quite mindless kind.

Re: Hipmunk for the iPhone - here's how we built it

#40

Post by robterrell »

danilocampos wrote: post #36
robterrell wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We use Opacity for everything, everything. It's fucking fantastic. I'm torn between telling everyone how great it is, and trying to keep it my secret to give me a competitive edge. Way worth it for the expensive version. Integrate it with Xcode and treat your vector artwork as source -- when you build the project it will spit out all the little PNG files you need at all the different sizes. Your artists just tweak th…

> Integrate it with Xcode and treat your vector artwork as source -- when you build the project it will spit out all the little PNG files you need at all the different sizes Whoa, really? Badass. How do you set this up? Have a link?

Sorry, I didn't come back to this thread yesterday. The link is http://likethought.com/lockfocus/2008/05/compiling-opacity-i...

"Opacity includes opacityutil, a command line utility that can convert images between the formats supported by Opacity. You can use this functionality in Xcode to create a Build Rule that will dynamically convert .opacity images in your project to TIFF files (or any other supported format) at compile time."

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