TapLynx put to the test

We've been promoting how easy it is to use our iPhone Application framework - TapLynx - and how anyone can do it without writing any code. So I thought I might give it a try and see if the framework lives up to the promise.

I don't code but I can stumble my way around Photoshop, and there is a Mac laptop that we use for testing that already has Xcode on it. How hard can it be? As it turns out, its a bit more involved than our widget framework, but not by much.... oddly enough most of the difficulty comes from getting set up with Apple which was a bit of a surprise given how elegant their interfaces are.

So here's how it went-

1) Got my Apple account.
Any app developer needs to get an account as a registered Apple developer, and you'll need to join the iPhone developer program for $99/yr (standard program will do). If you sign up as an individual, signup is immediate, and you'll be accepted into the program as soon as your credit card clears. If you are a company, there are forms to fill out, you need proof of your business, and if you get stuck you'll be dialing an 800 number in Scotland. It takes a few weeks.

2) Got a copy of the TapLynx SDK. Free download, easy.

3) Made an app & built it.
For those of you who are ventureing into Xcode for the first time (like I did), there is a getting started guide on the NewsGator wiki. All I did was to follow the 'getting started' section to get set up, then followed the instructions in this aptly named doc "Where to get RSS content from your favorite sources", which helped me grab some RSS feeds from my blog, youtube, twitter, picasa accounts and threw them together into the configuration file. It was surprisingly easy. Then spent some time in Photoshop making a splash screen, icons, and built the app. I felt quite proud of my 45 minute investment thus far.

4) Loaded it on the iPhone
This is where I had to pay a little more attention. Apple makes it easy for you to get your app running in the simulator, and even to load the app onto a device that is teathered to your computer. When you'd like send the app to someone so they can also try it out - its called an 'ad-hoc build' and it takes several steps, but these steps are very well laid out in the iPhone developer portal.

4a - create your development provisioning profile (login)
4b - register the UDIDs (login) for any external iPhone/iTouch you want to send your application to (or skip this if you're only going to load onto a tethered device)
4c - Finally, follow the directions for creating an 'ad-hoc' distribution

So i'm now a few hours into my app (I re-did my splash screen & icon again) and i've managed to spit out a zip file with my app and a mobileprovision file that I can send to my friends and neighbors to graciously offered to look at the Frankenstein I created. After some quick feedback from them, (most said "keep your day job") I was ready to upload my app to Apple.

5. Uploaded to Apple
This process is pretty straightforward, quite frankly it was more effort to put together an ad-hoc distribution than it was to upload to Apple. But there were a few gotchas I ran into regarding having the right icon sizes & screenshots - see this doc on iPhone graphicsfor more detail on what Apple needs to accept your app.

Then I waited. Apple says that 95% of all apps are accepted within 14 days. That's a pretty safe timeframe for planning purposes but it seemed to take forever. Secretly i'm kind of glad that it takes 14 days to approve for a few reasons:

1) I'll never have to do it again. The configuration file that I filled out that determines look/feel/content in the app lives online. I can make as many changes as i'd like without having to re-upload my app. That alone is worth the price of admission in my book.

2) the longer it takes other apps to get in, the more chance I have to get noticed amongst the other apps already in there. :)

When Apple says your app is "in Review" there is nothing you can do but wait. There is no visibility into the process, which may be by design, but is likely because they are slammed & don't have time to get into a discussion with developers about their apps. Decisions are swift and App store selections are binary. You either get in or you don't. If your app gets rejected, you start over at the back of the line. So having all the flexibility of changing whatever I want whenever I want is pretty nice.

All in all, the process of building the app was fun. It was really easy - and I'm happy to report that the framework does live up to its promises. I didn't write a stitch of code, and it was quick to put together. Brent did a fantastic job.

Want to check it out? Follow this link to download the app to your iPhone or iPod Touch. Let me know what you think!