Posted this just before I headed off to a meeting. Back from the meeting, and my server is fried :)
Rebooted and back up now. Thanks for all the comments!
iOS Libraries
21–30 of 78 posts
Re: iOS Libraries
#22I've never tried iOS development, and I'm a bit surprised by many of these library recommendations. For example HTTP requests, regular expressions and progress indicators strike me as something your platform definitely should provide you with. Of course it's great that there are quality libraries to fill in where the platform falls short.
Re: iOS Libraries
#23This one is of promise. We are evaluating it and trying it out (and sometimes ripping it out). http://restkit.org/ "RestKit is an Objective-C framework for iOS that aims to make interacting with RESTful web services simple, fast and fun. It combines a clean, simple HTTP request/response API with a powerful object mapping system that reduces the amount of code you need to write to get stuff done."
We were playing with it too, but ended up doing our own thing in the end.
Re: iOS Libraries
#24The list is quite crappy. E.g. :GData client" doesn't help you unless you really need it. If you search for the little things, like weak-linked yet self deleting delegates, or good image crunching stuff, check out PSFoundation. https://github.com/steipete/PSFoundation And if you wanna have it set up for you, just clone the app template: https://github.com/steipete/PSiOSAppTemplate
That's good stuff, helped me get started a while back :)
Re: iOS Libraries
#25I think we blew up "Flurry Analytics"; attempting to register just keeps returning the registration page, with no error messages...
Flurry's registration portal should be able to handle HN traffic without any trouble. I'll e-mail them.
EDIT: This looks like a bug, but a bug caused by a user registering with an e-mail already in the system. I'm guessing you've either used Flurry (or Pinch Media, which merged with Flurry) before. Try the 'forgot your password?' link, it'll send you a new one.
Re: iOS Libraries
#26ShareKit http://www.getsharekit.com/ is also an awesome library for sharing content on social sites.
I was just going to mention it. I think it's way better than the facebook library mentioned in the article. I'm using for my upcoming app and it was a snap to use it for facebook and twitter
Re: iOS Libraries
#27Are there similar libraries for Android development? The hardest problem I have is with making the UI look better than standard/default UI on both iPhone and Android. Libraries that made that easier would be awesome.
Re: iOS Libraries
#28I've never tried iOS development, and I'm a bit surprised by many of these library recommendations. For example HTTP requests, regular expressions and progress indicators strike me as something your platform definitely should provide you with. Of course it's great that there are quality libraries to fill in where the platform falls short.
Most of the functionality is there, it is just lower level coding than is required for many purposes. Sure, you can do HTTP requests, but if you are interacting with a ReSTful service, having a wrapper that understands ReST is better.
Re: iOS Libraries
#29Also, for game developers, Cocos2D iphone is pretty good too. It's reasonably lightweight, fast, and completely free. Pair that up with Box2D or chipmunk, which it comes with, and you have a complete game engine at no cost, with a good amount of community support. edit -- link: http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/
I played with Cocos2d and I liked it a lot. Do you know the differences between Cocos2d and the sparrow framework?
No, sorry. Cocos2d is the first I've tried using, as I only just started iOS dev.
edit: A quick peruse through some github samples from their framework, and it looks like their API is busier, but seems to be less mature. This is from five minutes of browsing so may not be completely accurate.
Re: iOS Libraries
#30I've never tried iOS development, and I'm a bit surprised by many of these library recommendations. For example HTTP requests, regular expressions and progress indicators strike me as something your platform definitely should provide you with. Of course it's great that there are quality libraries to fill in where the platform falls short.
These libraries exist because iOS (IMHO) is too low level in places, such as HTTP requests. There is an interface you have to implement in order to make HTTP requests, and you have to handle all the data (bytes) that come in incrementally. It is very handy to have a library that handles the connection, caching, redirects, errors, etc.