Joe Hewitt's Three20 Project
With Apple’s WWDC currently going on and the upcoming 3.0 iPhone OS getting closer to release, there are tons of new developers jumping onto the platform. Whether you’re a new developer or have been developing for a while, here are some great free resources for designing and developing your iPhone Apps.
Google generously provides a large set of their APIs in Objective-C for both Mac and iPhone development. These APIs include:
Check out my previous post on How to add the Google APIs to your iPhone App project.
Joe Hewitt is the developer behind the popular Facebook iPhone App and the Mozilla Firefox plugin Firebug. He’s created a new projected called Three20, which is a collection of iPhone UI classes, like a photo viewer, and general utilities, like an HTTP disk cache. The project and instructions on getting it into your iPhone App project are hosted up on GitHub.
iPhone Photoshop PSDs
It’s always a good idea to start with a design before you start developing your iPhone App. It’s also easier to show a potential client a PSD mock-up of the app before doing actual development even though Interface Builder makes it an easy process. Here are a few Photoshop PSDs to get you going.
Note: If you are planning on using these for making an iPhone Apps website, make sure either you or your client has gone through Apple’s Available on the iPhone App Store logo license program to avoid any legal issues. This can be found in your Apple Developer Connection Program Portal’s Distribution -> App Store tab.
OmniGraffle Stencil Kits
If you’re on a Mac and use Omni Group’s OmniGraffle for wireframing or mindmapping web design, you can do the same with iPhone apps.Here are 3 iPhone Stencil sets for OmniGraffle. Also, Yahoo!’s set can be found on the Yahoo! Developer site with stencils for many other things and also in makes them available in Photoshop PSD format.
The Glyphish designer has generously put out 80 free icons for use in your iPhone App’s toolbar. These are all free and licensed under Creative Commons.
3 Bonus Resources
Working in Illustrator instead of Photoshop? These free vector elements great for designing.
eddit’s 120 iPhone Toolbar Icons
While this one isn’t free, it is a really good and worthwhile one. Eddie Wilson over at eddit has created 120 iPhone Toolbar Icons for sale at $69. If you want the vector format, it’ll cost you a pretty $189 for the PSDs.
Open Source iPhone Apps
Have I missed any others? Do you have any more free resources? Please feel free to share them in the comments!
Edit 6/23/09:
An additional Adobe Fireworks set of UI elements has been found thanks to Building43.
Fireworks toolkit for creating iPhone UI mockups by MetaSpark
Also check out Building43’s video on designing iPhone Apps with Adobe Fireworks.
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Adding Google API support to your iPhone App could not be any easier. Google provides Objective-C APIs for:
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Google just released Page Speed, their competitor to Yahoo! YSlow. Both plug-ins for Firebug. Obvious requirements include Mozilla Firefox and Firebug plug-in.
So far it’s been pretty to look at. There’s 2 tabs instead of YSlow’s 1 tab. You can also Record Activity and measure page loading speed as well.
The one thing I do not like right now is that Page Speed creates 2 folders in my home directory on the Mac OSX. I’m not sure where the folders go in Windows systems yet. These folders just hold some cached items when you run the Page Speed to analyze performance.
Google’s Page Speed results are a bit different than Yahoo! YSlow. YSlow gives you “grades” and Page Speed just gives you green, red, or yellow signs. It also gives you an explanation of what you can do to make your pages load faster. Page Speed also does not give you the little icon next to Firebug that tells you how long it took to load the initial page. Something I actually like to know even if I’m not performance tuning my own website.
So far, Page Speed is a welcomed addition to the Firebug arsenal. Also check out SitePoint’s CodeBurner Firebug plug-in. It’s a great little reference for HTML and CSS. And Robert Nyman’s FireFinder for Firebug is handy search for Firebug.
What are your thoughts on Google Page Speed? Are you using both Yahoo! YSlow and Google Page Speed?
Introducing Page Speed – Google Code Blog
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Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, law student or anything remotely close and/or in any way related to the law field.
That said, I do still have my own legal issues to be aware of. Recently, I have started up my own company, which brings even more legal nightmares. As for my design and development work, there are quite a bit of legal things that I needed to be aware of.
Copyright
These are pretty easy to register. At least in the U.S. it is. I’m not so sure about how other countries work. For the U.S. head on over to the U.S. Copyright Office’s website and do the online registration. It costs about $35 per copyright. This is good for just about all design work and also includes the programming code.
Licenses
These are the ones that have most recently driven me crazy. You can license your code, design work, photos, etc with various different licenses such as Creative Commons, MIT, GNU and many more. There are a lot of resources available online for these and Creative Commons helps you pick the license you want to use. My confusion comes from having both a Copyright and License on the same material. As a general understanding, everything I write and put on my website is Copyrighted. But at the same time, I have some code that is freely available for downloading and modification under MIT license both on my website and also on GitHub.
Another issue I am working on figuring out all the legalities of, is how to properly license out work to a client. I have seen quite a few articles online and even some books stating that it’s best to retain the Copyright for the websites I design and build, while licensing out the design to the client. That’s a great idea, but there’s no legal paperwork or explanation on how this whole process works. AIGA has a pretty good write-up for designers.
I’m still trying to figure this all out, but I have run into some good resources.
Additional Resources
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Happy Earth Day!
Disney has gone green and launched Disney Nature (on April 21, 2008). Today is the release of the much anticipated movie Earth. The movie is narrated by James Earl Jones and Produced by Alastair Fothergill of Planet Earth and Blue Planet fame.
Disney Nature has 6 more projects lined up for release through 2012.
- The Crimson Wing: Mystery of the Flamingos – Co-directed by Matthew Aeberhard and Leander Ward, and produced by Paul Webster (Kudos Pictures), this film will take viewers to mysterious lives of flamingos. Worldwide roll-out begins December 2008
- Oceans — Nearly three-quarters of the earth’s surface is covered by oceans. French co-directors Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud have set out to capture the full expanse of these waters that have played such a crucial and constant role in the history and sustenance of man. The deep and abundant oceans are places of great mysteries and dangers that this film will dare to explore. Domestic release 2010
- Orangutans: One Minute to Midnight – Directed by Charlie Hamilton James and produced by Frédéric Fougea, this film tells the true story of a six-year-old male orangutan and his little sister, who must take an incredible journey to find a home and a family. Worldwide release 2010
- Big Cats – Audiences will get to meet three mothers – a lioness, a leopard and a cheetah – as they explore their world on the great plains of Africa. Co-directed by Keith Scholey and Alastair Fothergill and produced by Alix Tidmarsh, this film will show how these magnificent animals survive on their power and their cunning, while they protect and teach their cubs the ways of the wild. Worldwide release 2011
- Naked Beauty: A Love Story that Feeds the Earth – In this film, nature is ready for its close-up … a very close-up, as exacting macro photography takes us to the realm of flowers and their pollinators. Acclaimed filmmaker Louie Schwartzberg introduces us to a bat, a hummingbird, a butterfly and a bumblebee, demonstrating their intricate interdependence and how life on earth depends on the success of these determined, diminutive creatures. Naked Beauty is produced by Blacklight Films and Alix Tidmarsh. Worldwide release 2011
Press Release in PDF
Are you going to see the film?
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