iPhone Development
Today on the news I heard about one of the latest iPhone applications which is supposed to detect the meaning of your baby's cry. I guess you can make an iPhone app for just about anything. I'm interested in hearing how popular it becomes and if it's actually reliable. If it is I guess it might be worth the $10. Now I’ll move on to some technological insight on developing for the iPhone.
General iPhone Web page best practices
The number one practice seems to be to test your app as much as possible, which is true when completing any application. With an iPhone's unique features and touch screen, user experiences may not be predictable and testing is invaluable. Also with an application for a mobile device means there is added significance to displaying appropriate content and not cluttering the small screen with too much information.
Working with the viewport
Effective use of the viewport makes a webpage look professional when rendered on the iPhone. The standard width in portrait for a page on an iPhone is 320 pixels. It is recommended that developers use that standard. Pages that are too small will be rendered with extra white space and those that are too large will require scrolling left or right. I think its best to design pages that require as little scrolling as possible, because it is easy to lose your space while reading on a page like that. The Bank of America website utilizes the viewport really well, in both landscape and portrait mode.
CSS for good iPhone Web pages
CSS is highly recommended for iPhone web development just as is in general. It is noted that a page renders poorly on a computer will be just as bad if not worse on the iPhone. Specific stylesheets for the iPhone allow content to be customized for iPhone users. CSS is the primary tool to control this.
The WebKit and using it's features for iPhone Web apps
I really like the canvas feature which can be used in iPhone apps. The look and feel is really professional and it seems like it's not too difficult to learn. Many of the widgets in apple's dashboard were created using the canvas. Also since iPhone's do not show flash content using the canvas for animation is another option.
The iUI: iPhone User Interface
The iUI is used to (1) "create navigational menus and iPhone interfaces from standard HTML"(2)"handle phone orientation changes (3)provide a more "iPhone-like" experience to Web apps (on or off the iPhone) (http://code.google.com/p/iui/). Joe Hewitt who created this interface has since upgraded it so that there are fewer bugs. This interface makes for a polished iPhone web app where the back button is easily implemented and pages load faster. Ajax is often used to keep transitions smooth. I will definitely experiment with iUI.>
General iPhone Web page best practices
The number one practice seems to be to test your app as much as possible, which is true when completing any application. With an iPhone's unique features and touch screen, user experiences may not be predictable and testing is invaluable. Also with an application for a mobile device means there is added significance to displaying appropriate content and not cluttering the small screen with too much information.
Working with the viewport
Effective use of the viewport makes a webpage look professional when rendered on the iPhone. The standard width in portrait for a page on an iPhone is 320 pixels. It is recommended that developers use that standard. Pages that are too small will be rendered with extra white space and those that are too large will require scrolling left or right. I think its best to design pages that require as little scrolling as possible, because it is easy to lose your space while reading on a page like that. The Bank of America website utilizes the viewport really well, in both landscape and portrait mode.
CSS for good iPhone Web pages
CSS is highly recommended for iPhone web development just as is in general. It is noted that a page renders poorly on a computer will be just as bad if not worse on the iPhone. Specific stylesheets for the iPhone allow content to be customized for iPhone users. CSS is the primary tool to control this.
The WebKit and using it's features for iPhone Web apps
I really like the canvas feature which can be used in iPhone apps. The look and feel is really professional and it seems like it's not too difficult to learn. Many of the widgets in apple's dashboard were created using the canvas. Also since iPhone's do not show flash content using the canvas for animation is another option.
The iUI: iPhone User Interface
The iUI is used to (1) "create navigational menus and iPhone interfaces from standard HTML"(2)"handle phone orientation changes (3)provide a more "iPhone-like" experience to Web apps (on or off the iPhone) (http://code.google.com/p/iui/). Joe Hewitt who created this interface has since upgraded it so that there are fewer bugs. This interface makes for a polished iPhone web app where the back button is easily implemented and pages load faster. Ajax is often used to keep transitions smooth. I will definitely experiment with iUI.>
Nice set of references.
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