Check out those icons. I made those apps! They even do things.
As you can see, today was a big day. We learned a lot. It feels like Thanksgiving for my brain: I’m completely stuffed, but I’m craving seconds, and I will eat more no matter what.
The Quiz application is really simple. There are two buttons: one shows a new question, the other shows the answer. Even before the buttons worked, testing that first app on my phone was the most exciting thing I’ve ever done with Apple code.
“Far Away” made use of the CoreLocation class—the iPhone’s ability to use your current location. It tracks distance you travel (starting when you press the “Start Tracking” button), calculates your current altitude, and tells you how many miles you are from home. Everyone in the class had to walk about half a mile up the road leading out of here to even get a signal strong enough to get location data. (Notice the “Searching…” in the status bar of the screenshot? That’s what I see most of the day.)
“Hypnosister” introduced us to CoreGraphics. We created graphics on the fly (in this case, concentric circles of different colors with text on top of it) and learned how to pan & zoom with multi-touch events.
I think tomorrow we will cover the accelerometer (rotating your phone) and controlling the camera. If tomorrow is anything like today was, we will also cover about 1,000 other topics.
Memory management is still the toughest part so far. We haven’t written any apps big enough to have measurable memory leaks, but we will by the end of the week. Until then, it’s all conceptual, and without actually seeing the memory use skyrocket in an app you made, it’s harder to understand the whole thing.
I would say that dinner tonight was the best one yet. Grilled pork with peaches (we are in Georgia) and this amazing glaze, with sweet potatoes and grilled vegetables. Mmmmm.
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