O'ReillyGMT - Tech News from 4 timezones either side of the Greenwich Meridian

DevDay for iPhone - re-scheduled 7th June 2010

Geeta Schmidt from Trifork writes:

Unfortunately because of the Icelandic volcano, we had to postpone DevDay for iPhone from its original date. It will now take place on Monday, June 7, 2010 Dexter House, London.

For those who don't know, DevDay for iPhone is a dedicated and interactive one day event for software developers who want to learn how to successfully launch and market iPhone applications.

For those who do know, there have been a few developments since the event was originally announced:

    1.  Daniel Steinberg is soon to release iPad Programming, A Quick-Start Guide for Developers

    2.  Save £100 on Registration, use the following promotion code: 100off upon registration

    3. AppFactor Competition: Sponsored by Teletext. Enter your unpublished iPhone or iPad app by May 9th and win a £50,000 marketing campaign, including a £3,000 cash advance.

Winner to be announced at DevDay for iPhone.

Speakers Include:

Raven Zachary
Director of Obama 08 and several other top 20 Apps and Founder of iPhoneDevCamp

Daniel Steinberg
Editor for series of Mac Developer titles and Author of  "Cocoa Programming, A Quick-Start Guide for Developers"  and upcoming book "iPad Programming, A Quick -Start Guide for Developers" by Pragmatic Programmers

Adrian Kosmaczewski
iPhone Expert and Entrepreneur/Owner of akosma software

KC MacLaren
Manager of Retail Consumer Technology for Starbucks and led development on myStarbucks app

Neelan Choksi
CEO of Lexcycle, company behind Stanza iPhone Application

Sumit Rai
Founder, Kulu Valley and Creator of Deutsche Bank iPhone Application

Program:

DevDay program has two tracks: Business and Technical. The technical track is for software developers interested in "code" and would like tips and tricks on app development.

There are also two workshops in the afternoon to choose from: one for new developers and an advanced workshop on Core Data including a workshop on developing apps for the iPad with Daniel Steinberg.

There is also a DevDay for iPhone in Geneva on the 9th June 2010.

AppFusion - Tonight, (Monday 8th March 2010) London, 7pm

Location
24:London
24 Kingly Street
London W1B 5QB

Craig Smith writes:

Tonight, the first iPhone Apps meetup of the year will take place at 24 in Kingly St in London, starting at 7pm. Mainman Jason Dunne has changed the name from the unwieldy iPhones and Smartphones Publisher and Developer Meetup to the snappier AppFusion.

What's in a name?
So, we changed our name from "London iPhone & Smartphone Publishers and Developers Meetup" to "AppFusion". The new name is easier on the eye, easier on the ear and easier on Google!

Inevitably we'll feature mostly Apple apps until such time as every other manufacturer catches up, but if you've got an interesting app you'd like to showcase then please bring it along, whatever the platform.

Who's coming?
Our speaker this month is Lance Stewart, creator of smash-hit London app Tube Exits. In a nutshell, Lance has mapped out the optimum London Tube carriage to sit in when changing between journey times. It's a great example of a focused and useful app, one that has really caught the imagination of the public and the press.

Daniel Steinberg Speaking At DevDay for iPhone

Date: April 26, 2010
Location: Dexter House,
No. 2 Royal Mint Court
London EC3N 4QN

Price: £399 + VAT

www.iphonedevday.com

Daniel Steinberg, the author of Cocoa Programming, A Quick-Start Guide for Developers, published by Pragmatic Programmers is speaking at Dev Day for iPhone in London on the 26th April 2010.

DevDay for iPhone is a dedicated and interactive one day event for software developers, web and mobile enthusiasts who want to learn how to successfully build and market iPhone applications. DevDay for iPhone attendees will:

• Learn valuable skills and expert tips on how-to design and deploy successful iPhone applications
• Participate in presentations and workshops run by leading international authorities in the iPhone application space
• Ask questions and meet others to help move iPhone application projects to the next level

Program:
DevDay program has two tracks: Business and Technical. The technical track is for software developers interested in "code" and would like tips and tricks on app development. There are also two workshops in the afternoon to choose from: one for new developers and an advanced workshop on Core Data.
The Business Track is for web development and design, entrepreuneurs and marketing enthusiasts and this track dives into the design, development stages, features and process of creating successful applications for the iPhone along with Case Stories on how Starbucks, TagHeuer, Stanza and Deutsche Bank. We will end the day with an insightful afternoon workshop provided by Raven Zachary which dives into the steps involved in taking an application from concept to reality.

Other than Daniel, the speakers include:

Raven Zachary
   Director of Obama 08 and several other top 20 Apps and Founder of iPhoneDevCamp
Adrian Kosmaczewski
   iPhone Expert and Entrepreneur/Owner of akosma software   
KC MacLaren
   Manager of Retail Consumer Technology for Starbucks and led development on myStarbucks app   
Neelan Choksi
   CEO of Lexcycle, company behind Stanza iPhone Application   
Sumit Rai
   Founder, Kulu Valley and Creator of Deutsche Bank iPhone Application

Jonathan Ive on Mac Design

Chingford-born Apple designer Jonathan Ive on Mac Design and Unibody MacBook manufacture:

Via Leftsetz Letter

Write-up of November's iPhone and Smartphone Publisher and Developer MeetUp

November's iPhone and Smartphone Publisher and Developer Night was another triumph, an Augmented Reality Special. 24 was kitted out in its Christmas garb, and once again thanks to Yuza Mobile for loan of the space. An audience of about 100 people turned out to see two excellent presenters:

Ravi Damani is the co-Founder of acrossair. He talked about his most famous app, Nearest Tube, which uses geolocation to orient the user to the nearest underground station. The app uses the iPhone's native ability to know where it is, to know which way it is facing and to understand how it is being tilted. It calls for data from the Nearest Tube servers for the nearest station and for directions for how to get there, and superimposes the data it retrieves on top of the image from the camera. The app can then guide the user to the station, following the directions on the screen.

Mark Cummins spoke about PlinkArt, his Art Indentification app. Take a shot of a painting, and the app searches the PlinkArt database for images that match. Three seconds later, it returns the name of the painting, along with information about the artist.

Mark is a PHD student who specialised in image recognition, and the things he has learned are rolled into PlinkArt. The same algorithms would work on anything which has a hard surface - he said it wouldn't work on something like a handbag, which is bendable. With PlinkArt, all the hard work is done on the server, not within the phone, which allows Mark and his team to develop the same application for platforms other than the iPhone: it has been ported to Android, and other platforms are in development.

Both Ravi and Mark made the point that the sticking point with all these applications is accessing the datasets. As Tim O'Reilly says, Data is the Intel Inside of the next generation of applications.

www.flickr.com

iPhone & Smartphone Developers & Publishers Night - An Augmented Reality Special

The next iPhone & Smartphone Developers & Publishers Meetup is an Augmented Reality Special:

For our 16th November meetup we'll welcome Ravi Damani, the co-founder of Acrossair, the agency behind the smash-hit Nearest Tube augmented reality app.

If you're not sure what augmented reality is then prepare to be gobsmacked. The technology holds huge promise and Ravi will know better than anyone in the UK where it's heading next. Acrossair are also the brains behind other popular apps such as TVGuide.co.uk.

There are still places left, so if you're in London on the 16th November 2009 in the evening, come along. Promises to be good.

Venue
24:London
24 Kingly Street
W1B 5QB

Photos from Monday's iPhone Apps Developer & Publisher Meet-Up

The 5th iPhone and Smartphone Publisher and Developer Meet-Up took place on Monday the 28th September 2009.

Due to growing demand - 40 people at the first Meet-Up, 140 at the fifth - we switched venues from the Horse and Groom, which is close to being my favourite pub in London, to 24 on Kingly Street, which was kindly lent to us for the night by the good guys at Yuza Mobile. With its interactive walls and tables, it certainly looked the part as a venue for a high-tech meet-up.

Disco:24 has a concept like no other night-club in London and is without doubt the first fully interactive bar in the world. Created with bespoke tailoring in mind, you can hire your own area and surround yourself with your own personalised back-drop.

Chief Organiser Jason Dunne had just one speaker lined up, but this is living proof of quality, not quantity: Luke Johnson, the Chairman of Channel 4, gave a 15 minute pep talk for all the would-be entrepreneurs in the audience. The message was simple - give it a go. There is great satisfaction to be had in making your own decisions, in choosing your own path, and if a particular idea proves unsustainable, there are worse things than failing. The internet has brought a golden age for start-ups, offering a lower barrier to entry than there has ever been, with the added advantage that if you fail, chances are no one will notice. After the talk, I nattered to umpteen people, half of whom were setting out on their own using the iPhone or the Smartphone as their platform, and it was clear they were each rallied by Luke's words of encouragement.

I ran a competition to win Programming the iPhone User Experience, which was won by Ross Sleight, who had remembered from the very first iPhone Meet-Up that the bestselling computing book of 2008 was the iPhone App of iPhone Missing Manual. Ross, you're a marvel!

www.flickr.com

iWork '09: The Missing Manual - Josh Clark

9780596157586: iWork '09: The Missing Manual by Josh Clark - £30.99

With iWork '09, Apple's productivity applications have come of age. Unfortunately, their user guides are stuck in infancy. That's where iWork '09: The Missing Manual comes in. This book quickly guides you through everything you need to know about the Pages word-processor, the Numbers spreadsheet, and the Keynote presentation program that Al Gore and Steve Jobs made famous.

Friendly and entertaining, iWork '09: The Missing Manual gives you crystal-clear and jargon-free explanations of iWork's capabilities, its advantages over similar programs -- and its limitations. You'll see these programs through an objective lens that shows you which features work well and which don't. With this book, you will:

• Produce stunning documents and cinema-quality digital presentations
• Take advantage of Mac OS X's advanced typography and graphics capabilities
• Learn how to use the collection of themes and templates included with iWork
• Get undocumented tips, tricks, and secrets for each program
• Integrate with other iLife programs to use photos, audio, and video clips

iPhone Hacks - David Jurick, Adam Stolarz, Damien Stolarz

9780596516642: iPhone Hacks by David Jurick, Adam Stolarz, Damien Stolarz - Prices: £26.99

With iPhone Hacks, you can make your iPhone do all you'd expect of a smartphone -- and more. Learn tips and techniques to unleash little-known features, find and create innovative applications for both the iPhone and iPod touch, and unshackle these devices to run everything from network utilities to video game emulators.

This book will teach you how to:

• Import your entire movie collection, sync with multiple computers, and save YouTube videos
• Remotely access your home network, audio, and video, and even control your desktop
• Develop native applications for the iPhone and iPod touch on Linux, Windows, or Mac
• Check email, receive MMS messages, use IRC, and record full-motion video
• Run any application in the iPhone's background, and mirror its display on a TV
• Make your iPhone emulate old-school video game platforms, and play classic console and arcade games
• Integrate your iPhone with your car stereo
• Build your own electronic bridges to connect keyboards, serial devices, and more to your iPhone without "jailbreaking"

iPhone Hacks explains how to set up your iPhone the way you want it, and helps you give it capabilities that will rival your desktop computer. This cunning little handbook is exactly what you need to make the most of your iPhone.

iPhone and Smartphone Developers and Publishers MeetUp

Last night (31st March 2009) was the first iPhone and Smartphone Developers and Publishers MeetUp in London. It was organised by my friend Jason Dunne, who recently left the publisher Wiley in order to make a play in the iPhone/Smartphone scene. I was nominally Jason's co-organiser, but Jason did all the work of booking the venue and lining up the speakers.

It was a fantastic evening, with a knowledgable, friendly, open, generous audience and two excellent speakers, venture capitalist Nic Brisbourne, and mobile games supremo John Chasey, President and Founder at Finblade and several other mobile start-ups. Jason kicked off the evening with a summary of where the spaces are in the iPhone apps market for publishers.

I buzzed around, chewing the fat and taking snaps, which can be found on the oreillygmt Flickr Photostream:

www.flickr.com

The next iPhone and Smartphone Developers and Publishers MeetUp will take place in early May - keep an eye on the Meetup page for details if you want to join in.