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Developing an iPhone App
Chris LaBelle
Oregon State University Extension
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Project overview
- Proof of concept, popular topic, good fit for the iPhone
Department focus (not software)
- Student workers (2) at ½ time for five months
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Lessons from ELI session on mobility (2010)
- licensing (variable and not transparent)- learning curve & time sink (Objective C)- A handful of players (Stanford, New Mexico, Florida)
The question:
Rogue (independent) or “by the books”?
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Some Barriers
- Buy in from admin and some faculty- Lack of understanding of mobile trends- Cost - Licensing - Coding competency- Maintenance and sustainability plan- Finding the right students- Design challenges (480x320)- I have other things to do!
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First Steps
(1) Licensing (10 months)
- key partners (CWS, legal) – don’t go it alone - assurances via policy document(s) - single point of control
- pros and cons of enterprise licensing - defining policy, appeasing legal, parallel effort - setting up personal account (iOS SDK, Xcode)
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First Steps
(2) Resources
- Competency with Objective C - Time (2 months of ramp up) - 3rd party or internal - Student worker(s)? - Funding - Subject matter expert (SME) - Approval for project
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First Steps
(3) Instructional Design
- Audience - Instructional objectives - Evaluation and iteration - User interface and nav conventions Features + functions + audience -> Platform
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Platforms
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First Steps
(4) Partnerships - Marketing, IT - Other universities - Other departments and units - Source Forge (sharing code) - Infrastructure (central web/IT) - New project proposals / SMEs - Grants
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First Steps
(5) Code Stuff
- Backing up (Redmine, SVN) - Programmers (audits) - Elegance - cleaning code with time - Acquiring and sharing skills - Database or XML? (SQLite, XML, php)
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First Steps
(6) Prototyping
- Maps - Paper prototype - Usability and interface - Jakob Nielson http://bit.ly/e2axI9 (Singh’s study) http://bit.ly/ho5bnI (mobile redesign) - Omnigraffle (list of others: http://bit.ly/hZuKUV)
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Some Dev Resources
• iPhone SDK Articles: SQLite• iOS Reference Library• UITableView – Creating a Simple Table View – iPhone SDK• CocoaDev: NSLog• Latitude and Longitude of a Point (time saver)• Custom UITableViewCell in IB << Matt Galloway's Tips• iPhone SDK 3.0 – Playing with Map Kit – ObjectGraph Blog• Guidelines for searching Google re: iPhone• Don’t overlook YouTube tutorials• Lynda.com, Stanford course
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Other Options
• Web app (CSS, html, Javascript library, images)
• iUI (Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 has iUI widget) - http://code.google.com/p/iui/wiki/Introduction
• Flash 5.5 to iPhone app (Adobe Air 2.6) http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/packagerforiphone/ http://www.adobe.com/products/air/
April 11, 2011 “we’re hearing from our developer community that new AIR applications for iOS devices are already being approved for the Apple App Store”
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Tree Tour Application
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Tree Tour Application
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Tree Tour Application
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Some positives
• First official iPhone at OSU• Lots of publicity (local, national)• Partnerships pay off• Developer community • Generated other similar project requests• Feeds into larger understanding of mobility • Academic opportunities• Student worker opportunities and benefits
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News & Marketing
• First app• Good rating• Scalable• Sharing• Follow ups
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Sharing Code
Source Forge http://sourceforge.net/projects/osutreetour/
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Testing
• Paper prototype• Internal testing (formative) - touch, attention, layout, colors, directions - navigational conventions (distance placement) - “faux” augmented reality - GPS is ancillary to tour
• IRB-approved end-user testing - more media (videos, audio) & more tours
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Total Number of Responses
Question Agree Disagree Neutral Comments
Was the application easy to use?
10 0 0
Was the navigation effective?
10 0 0 Unit distances unhelpful; relative distances and landmark references preferred.
Scrolling elements need to be more clearly indicated.
Do you think this would appeal to visitors and campus guests?
8 0 2 Maybe if it had more stories, history, medicinal uses, myths, etc...
Are you still interested in this application?
8 2 0 I don’t own an iPhone, but would be interested if similar application were developed for my phone.
More interested in other different kinds of tours.
Did you learn something of value?
9 1 0 Would like to see wider range of content.I already knew much of the information offered.
Do you think this approach could be used for other similar topics?
10 0 0
Tree Tour Survey Responses
Testing
• scrolling• learning • liked approach
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Tree Tour Survey Responses
June of 2011 – Where are We?
• The terrain has changed• Going native…Titanium, Phone Gap, Adobe CS5.5 • jQuery, CSS5, HTML5, SQLite• Objective-C is not easy and is so darn useless in other contexts• How do Extension professionals develop the skills? Can anyone become a “mobile developer”?
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Tree Tour Survey Responses
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Tree Tour Survey Responses
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Tree Tour Survey Responses
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Tree Tour Survey Responses
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Contact Info
Twitter: labelle_c
Electronic Papyrus Bloghttp://blogs.oregonstate.edu/instructionaldesign/
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