I’ve wanted to put a progress indicator of some sort over the UIImagePickerController ever since I’ve dealt with it, and now I’ve finally put together a way to do so (mind you, I should have done this a long time ago since it proved to be fairly simple.)

The problem with Apple’s UI.

Apple doesn’t provide any user feedback as to what is going on when it is saving your photo or handing it off from the UIImagePickerController to your view controller after you select it. You hit “Use” from the preview screen and it sits there doing nothing for a good 2-3 seconds. Poor UI. I used to think apps were frozen at times.

The solution!

So after hacking together some examples meant to do other things, I’ve finally figured out a decent way that involves some undocumented and hack-ish remedies. I present to you: SnaflHUD.

It’s as simple as creating your HUD view you want to show, having the user choose their photo, and in your didFinishPickingImage delegate method for the UIImagePickerController add the HUD as a subview of the UIImagePickerController and set an NSTimer to kick off the dismissModalViewControllerAnimated call of the UIImagePickerController.

Why is it so easy and seemed so hard?

The problem is that self.myUIImagePickerController.view is not documented anywhere. Not in the auto-complete, not in Apple docs, etc. It seems obvious, but it had just eluded me. Another neat side note is that this allows you to overlay graphics the entire time you use the camera too!

The NSTimer part is necessary to make sure the dismissModalViewControllerAnimated call doesn’t block the main thread from applying the subview HUD you just added. I found that if it was called in the same method, it wouldn’t ever show the HUD. With the NSTimer, it’s taken care of and provides a bit of UI consistency to your app to boot.

Feedback anyone?

Feel free to tell me if you think I’m wrong, if Apple rejects your app for it, or if you have a better way of doing it! I haven’t seen any other code out there to do the same thing, so I thought I’d put it up on GitHub and see what people say and hopefully save someone some time figuring it out. Hell, if nothing else, you just got a sweet free HUD view you can use in your app.

Go get the example project and code here: SnaflHUD on GitHub

I found out yesterday that I will be speaking at the 360|iDev Conference in Denver, CO in September! The conference will be going down September 27 to 30, 2009. You can find more details at the conference website: http://360iDev.com Buy your tickets asap at http://360idev.eventbrite.com to get the best possible price.

I’m really excited about this conference and it will have speakers covering all types of topics from beginner to advanced levels for iPhone Development. Here’s a small sample of the other talented speakers that will be there:

• Brent Simmons - NetNewsWire Developer
• Amanda Wixted - Mafia Wars Developer
• Bill Dudney - Core Animation Extraordinaire
• Phil Libin - Evernote CEO
• PJ Cabrera - Author of iPhone Games Projects

The list goes on…

I’ll be giving a session on creating iPhone apps without using Interface Builder. The pros, the cons, and how to code by hand to optimize your app’s performance and gain a more thorough understanding of the view-hierarchy and how objects work and interact with each other. I promise it’ll be exciting, interactive, and you’ll learn a lot! Level 100-200.

So buy your ticket now, book your flight, and I hope to see you there!

I’m happy to announce that the COOP Ale Works iPhone app is now available on the iTunes App Store…and free!

COOP Ale Works

COOP Ale Works is a micro-brewery in Oklahoma City offering the best local ales in town! Now you can find your COOP from anywhere. With the COOP App you can see all locations serving COOP within a 100 mile radius and get directions to get there. You can also browse COOP’s catalog of fine brews and read detailed information about them.

I’m excited to bring this app to the store because so few breweries have a presence on the iPhone. This is really a great chance for them to create a more modern and immersive experience for their fans and potential carriers.

Just over a month ago, I started selling my first app in the iTunes App Store. It was a great accomplishment for me to finally become a “paid” iPhone developer and I went into it with no real expectations. One month and 3 apps later, what I found was not the world of the iPhone developer’s goldmine as the Telegraph recently reported on, nor did I have an amazing experience with the App Store process like the Apple iPhone case studies rave on about, but I did see all aspects of the system and these are my experiences.

Not Everyone Becomes A Millionaire

I started Instant FAIL as a learning project. I gave it away for free and as I started adding features I thought people should pay for, I upped the price to $.99. Now the app will have a lot to do with how it takes off in the store, but I feel that my experience is one of many developer’s situations where they can’t market the app very well, have no funding initially, and just spread their app by word of mouth on Twitter, Facebook, and such. Here is what I found for month one: (chart provided by AppFigures.com)

Keep in mind that the orange line above is for app updates and the bottom blue line is actual sales. Since the app was free, people still get all of the updates as such, which I don’t mind. So the first month was not bad, I had initially set a success at $10 so that I could buy lunch for myself, I did 10x that but it’s certainly no million dollar goldmine.

The Approval…Well, The Rejection And Confusion Process

My biggest complaint with Apple is the App Store Approval process. First off the UI of iTunes Connect is abysmal, but past UI, their communication with developers is horrible. When I submitted the pay-for update for Instant FAIL, they set it up to look like I was creating a new app, so I uploaded all of the new screenshots, the new description, and submitted it. Come to find out that until it’s approved, all of those new images and text go to the existing version on iTunes! So I had to go back and change everything on the old version, but because I was starting to sell it and it had not been approved for sale, they politely removed my app from the store, and I didn’t find out until a friend tried to download it later that week.

I was launching a new app at work (Share It Live) and it had been in review for about 2 weeks. I received a rejection letter from Apple stating that it did not do what was described and they explained where the app crashed. I assumed it was my fault…I was wrong. First off they use the Simulator for testing, which as all developers know, doesn’t work exactly the same. Secondly, their simulator had frozen on Apple’s code when you try selecting an image from your library. I wrote them back and explained for them to try it again because there was no possible way it was our app, simply because we don’t have any interaction with the code at the point where it crashed. I heard back 5 days later with an automated response of, “please re-submit your app.” Great, now 2 weeks turned into 5 weeks. 1.5 months after the initial submission, the app was approved.

The problem is that they have no real way to communicate to anyone with issues you have. It’s all void-type email addresses, and even those are sometimes hard to find on the site. All responses are generic and you really feel left out in the cold. After you choke that down, it’s all up in the air as to when the app will launch. You find yourself racing to a computer when you get the email saying it launched so that you can adjust the release date to the current day (or else it may show up on page 3 of the section you’re in on the store), and if it’s an upgrade, you have to push out the new description and screenshots before people start seeing the app. Frustrating.

Traffic, Marketing, And Money

So over the last 30 days, I’ve seen a bump in site traffic, I’ve had friends say they saw someone with my app in other states, and I’ve made a little bit of money. I can’t really complain that much. Yes, the approval process is terrible. Yes, they take money behind-the-scenes to put apps in the New and Noteworthy section of the App Store, meaning the market doesn’t decide if they really are “noteworthy.” And yes, I’m a bit sad that I don’t get paid until I accrue a certain amount of sales. But looking on the bright side I’ve gained a lot of experience in the process and I know what to expect going forward.

So is it a goldmine? Not really. If you happen to make a great app and get a good leg on marketing it around, then yes. If all you expect is to have fun and make some apps that you enjoy, certainly yes. If it’s just REALLY pretty, maybe. If you’re most developers though, no. You’ll make a little bit on it and you’ll gain some experience. If you really want to make money making apps…make them for people who will pay to have them made. This means full-time jobs and freelance gigs. There are currently 1 million people who want you to make their app and you can have a share of the “millions” the app will make. It’s a trap. Your chances of hitting that luck are the exact same by spending your time creating own app ideas. So have fun with it, try to make quality apps, and realize that if you’re only doing it for the millions…move along.

Swine (H1N1) Flu Detector was finally released to the iTunes App Store today! For some reason, Apple has taken 2-3 weeks to decide if this simple app was ok for the store, very strange. In either case, now it’s out there!

Swine (H1N1) Flu Detector

Swine (H1N1) Flu Detector allows you to prank your friends and un-suspecting co-workers with a breath analyzer test to tell if they have the dreaded Swine Flu! Laugh at the horror when they have it or high-five them when they have an all clear result!

As of right now, it’s the only app dubbed as a “Swine Flu Detector” so kudos to Tommy Yi for getting the artwork out as quick as he did. I think you’re going to like what you get, and if not…well…at least is was only $.99.