DOG Congress 2011 – iPad and iPhone App available now!

Nfonix is pleased to announce the release of a new conference event app, “DOG Congress 2011″, available from the App Store.

The 109th DOG Congress runs from the 29th September to the 2nd October 2011 in Berlin, Germany.

Developed for the German Society of Opthalmology, delegates at this year’s event will be able to plan their schedule and make the most of their time thanks to this handy app, now available in both iPhone and full screen iPad versions.

This comprehensive app contains detailed information about the sessions, speakers and exhibitors at the event, as well as including an interactive map of the venue and trade show.

FEATURES

Programme:
- Interactive timetable view of all events taking place on each day.
- Scientific sessions sorted chronologically, or by topic, or grouped into poster sessions, courses, social events and business meetings.
- Abstracts and speaker details for each session.
- Ability to enter notes during sessions and send by email.

Shortlist:
- Bookmark events and sessions to be attended and view your personal schedule in chronological order.

Industry:
- List of sponsors, exhibitors and contact details, with links to their location within the exhibition hall.
- List of industry sponsored sessions.

Maps:
- Detailed interactive maps of the venue, industry exhibition and poster sessions.
- Select a stand and view detailed information for the exhibitors.

Available in both English and German.

To download the app, visit the App Store.

Rossdales Guide to Equine Clinical Pathology – an invaluable resource for all involved in equine practice

Based on the Rossdales booklet ‘Beaufort Cottage Laboratories Guide to Equine Clinical Pathology’, the Rossdales Lab Guide is an interactive app available for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, and provides a wealth of useful data and information supplied by the Beaufort Cottage Laboratories team of experienced equine pathologists. The App is free and available in the App Store now!

FEATURES

Info:
- Introduction and contact information for Rossdales and Beaufort Cottage Laboratories.

Diagnosis:
- Categorised list of diseases and conditions, and a breakdown of potentially useful tests.

Lab Tests:
- Detailed descriptions, explanations and advice on various kinds of laboratory tests.
- Keyword search: tap the search button and enter a search keyword to find the information you require quickly and easily.

Sampling:
- Guidelines on how to collect and package samples to be sent for testing.
- Detailed list and information on sampling equipment to be used for collection of samples to perform different tests.
- In App sample referral form: save time by completing your details in the app, and submit sample information electronically. A reference number will be generated to attach to any samples submitted for analysis.

Reference Ranges:
- List of chemical parameters and reference ranges to assist with interpreting laboratory results.
- Ranges grouped into 7 categories including non-thoroughbred horses, thoroughbred yearlings, and thoroughbred horses in training.

TIPS

1. Tap the book button to quickly get a list of sections and navigate to the information you want (iPad only)
2. Double tap the title bar to quickly expand/collapse all title headings
3. Quickly find the reference results you want by using the search bar at the top of the table
4. Tap on images/graphs to see a larger version

For more information visit the Rossdales web site.

Right, so the latest incarnation of Mac OS X has finally been unleashed. I installed my update yesterday so I thought I’d share my first impressions after a day’s use.

Installation

Installation on my Macbook Pro took a bit longer than I had expected, not as you might imagine because of download issues on the first day, but as a result of some disk corruption I wasn’t aware existed on my drive. I got suspicious when the installer said 32 minutes remaining for about 40 minutes. ⌘-L brings up the log window so you can see what’s actually going on if you find the installation isn’t going anywhere. Once the disk had been checked and repaired the installation carried on fine.

Shiny new login screen

The first obvious change is a shiny new login screen. Well, not exactly shiny, as it is more of a matt grey colour, but it is different from Snow Leopard. Then once you log in you notice the two new icons in the Dock – LaunchPad and Mission Control. Lion includes support for a lot more multi-touch gestures and these can be used to access both of these new features. One new gesture is the four-digit pinch and the four-digit expand. I still haven’t got the hang of these but they can be used to get to the desktop and to bring up launchpad, which looks like the home screen in iOS and can be used to open applications. You can also create folders to group your applications together, just like you can on the iPhone and iPad. Just click and hold the icon until it starts wobbling, and then drag it over the other icon you want to group together.

Reorientation

Never let it be said that Apple aren’t willing to turn your world upside down – quite literally! In Lion, by default the trackpad has an option enabled that supports ‘natural direction’. If you use an iPhone or iPad, then basically this aligns the trackpad with the scrolling on those devices. However, if you are used to Snow Leopard, then it means that down is now up and left is now right. I disabled this feature almost immediately as I felt it was unintuitive, but I have since re-enabled it to see if it is something I can adjust to.
It is also worth noting that some of the old settings have disappeared from the TrackPad settings view. For example, if you read my previous TrackPad post, you’ll notice I use Drag Lock, which is no longer visible in the TrackPad settings. It is still available though if you go to System Preferences and Universal Access, and it is available under the TrackPad Options button. The new settings do allow you to use three fingers to drag instead though which may be worth investigating.

Mission Control – a journey into Spaces

Mission Control has replaced Exposé and Spaces. Now you have a series of desktops, and you can add to them as you see fit. Your dashboard and widgets are effectively Desktop 0, and appear on the left of all your screens. A three fingered swipe allows you to scroll between desktops and the dashboard, just like the four-finger scroll to switch apps on an iPad. You can also still use CTRL+1, CTRL+2, etc to jump to a particular screen. From Mission Control you can drag windows to other desktops to reduce clutter.
I used spaces prior to upgrading and I found my Finder windows weren’t appearing initially, until I used a right click to assign Finder to all desktops.

Apple Mail

Apple Mail has had a makeover, but from what I can tell so far it still doesn’t fully support multiple identities in mail accounts so I think I’ll be using Thunderbird for a while longer.

UI tweaks

A nice tweak to the UI that I’ve noticed immediately is that you can now resize windows properly – that means from any corner or edge, and you can maximise windows properly too. If the Dock hides then a maximised window occupies the whole screen, but if it is visible it leaves space for the Dock and fills the rest of the screen. The other change is that scroll bars are now hidden and appear only when in use – just like on iOS.
You can also enter accented characters by holding down the letter, like e until you get a list of accented characters to choose from. However this appears not to work in some non-Apple apps.

Gotchas

There are a couple of things to be aware of before updating to Lion.

• First of all, if you are a developer and you are on a slow network connection, or have a download cap, watch out – Lion is about 4GB, and you’ll need to upgrade XCode after you install too, which is another 3GB.
• Secondly, Lion is more 64-bit oriented than Snow Leopard. By default, it will boot a 64-bit kernel if it can. If you use VMware Fusion 2, this is a problem, as it needs to use the 32-bit kernel. Fortunately it is quite painless to switch, though it does require a restart. When you boot up your machine, hold down both the 3+2 buttons to tell the OS to boot the 32-bit kernel. VMware Fusion will then load and run.
• As a result of the new gesture support in Lion, XCode command bindings have changed a little. For example, in order to switch to the header file for an Objective-C module, you now have to use CTRL-⌘-↑ or CTRL-⌘-↓.
• Full-screen doesn’t mean multi-screen. I’ve noticed that though the full screen mode now supported by some Lion apps (like Preview and Safari) is very nice on my laptop, if I happen to be using two displays, it really doesn’t add much value. With full screen mode enabled, your secondary display becomes a grey desktop, and it doesn’t appear to allow you to display any other apps there. This is a shame because with two displays I often want to have a browser open on one screen and my development environment on the other. Hopefully this will be addressed in a future update.

You can see a rundown of the other features in Lion in my previous post.

Apple have just reported a massive increase in profits in their third quarter results – with net profits in excess of $7bn. Sales of iPads are up with a staggering 9.25 million sold in the last three months alone. Given their impressive sales figures recently, to increase profits by 125% is quite an achievement. Reports are also rife that Lion, the latest release of Mac OS X, is about ready to ship and could be released in a matter of days, perhaps even hours.

I’ve been having strange warning messages appear in my project every time I add a new class for quite a while now – I had hoped upgrading to XCode 4 would resolve the problem, but unfortunately it did not.

The error message that occurs is this:

[WARN]warning: no rule to process file '$(PROJECT_DIR)/Project.xcodeproj/ProjectHeader.h' of type sourcecode.objj.h for architecture i386


As it turns out, it actually was nothing to do with XCode itself, rather my choice of coffee…

Basically the compiler warning is just saying that it has been told to compile a header file, which it doesn’t know how to do. I had been manually fixing the warnings by going through my project and removing the .h files from the list of sources to be compiled.

However recently I managed to work out what was causing the problem after I realised that it wasn’t some weird XCode setting at all, but was specific to my installation. It turns out at some point in the past I had installed the Cappucino Web Framework to evaluate for a project I was working on. In the end I didn’t use it, but the installation had left some files in my XCode plugins directory. Cappucino uses Objective-J, which unfortunately also uses .h as the extension for its header files. As a result, there was a language template for Cappucino which told XCode that any .h files were in fact Objective-J header files and should be compiled. If I had been a bit more observant I probably would have noticed the tell-tale objj part of the error message earlier and twigged a lot earlier.

Since I am not using Objective-J, or Cappucino for that matter, the simple fix for me was to remove these files from the XCode plugins folder. This can be found in ~/Library/Application Support/Developer/Shared/Xcode/.

Since I switched to Mac OS X from Windows over a year ago there have been a few little things that have been bugging me with the UI and keyboard. For example, in Xcode keyword completion was done with the escape key, and I had been used to using CTRL+SPACE with Visual Studio. Apple have now resolved this in Xcode 4, and you can use either keyboard shortcut.

Similarly, in Windows, if you had a dialog box appear you could easily use the keyboard to select your preferred option. With Mac OS X I found I had to use the mouse. I hadn’t realised you can use the keyboard, and you just need to enable the feature.

To enable the keyboard in dialog boxes you just need to follow these simple steps:

• Go to System Preferences and select Keyboard.
• Select the Keyboard Shortcuts tab.
• Change the radio button for Full Keyboard Access to All controls.

Now when you have a dialog box appear you can tab to get the focus where you want it, and use the cursor keys to select the button you want. Note that you have to press SPACE rather than RETURN. If you press RETURN the default button will be activated.

Well, it looks like Apple have been busy. They have just announced a whole raft of features and enhancements at their annual developer’s conference in San Francisco.

So, where to start? OK well the first announcements were for the Mac – and the latest version of their operating system, Lion.

Mac OS X – Lion

Lion apparently will include over 250 new features, but the presentation focused on just 10 of these. To be honest, most of these features have already been announced but there’s still plenty there to look forward to, one of the best announcements being the fact that Lion will be available for download via the Mac App Store (no more rooting around for that pesky DVD!), and the price – just $29 in the US.

1. Multi Touch Gestures

I’ve already mentioned that I personally use a TrackPad at work, so this is a welcome feature for me, bringing multi touch gestures to the whole OS will make using the TrackPad even more seamless.

2. Full Screen Apps

This is a feature that Apple are introducing to reduce the screen clutter seen on so many computers. It also helps to bring a more unified UI experience as iOS applications run in full screen mode.

3. Mission Control

Mission Control is Exposé, only better. It also links in with full screen mode, as it combines Exposé with the Dock, and Dashboard to allow users to see their apps and switch between widgets, the desktop and different applications.

4. Mac App Store

The Mac App Store is already available, but with Lion, it comes built in. In-App Purchases are now built in to Lion, along with Push Notifications.

5. Launch Pad

Another feature intended to bring the Mac UI into line with those of iOS devices, Launch Pad looks very much like the app screens for the iPhone and iPad, allowing you to browse through pages of apps.

6. Resume

Finally, onto some of the stronger features of this release. Resume allows you to quit apps, and even shut down your machine, and then when you open the app again, or boot your computer, you are restored to the same position as you were when you quit.

7. Auto-Save

OK – hands up anyone who has lost some work because they accidentally closed an app (or it crashed without warning!) without saving their file? It happens to everyone sooner or later. Lion automatically saves your work. To use it you can click on the menu bar and a drop down list allows you to pick from other versions of your file.

8. Versions

Versions builds on Auto-Save and brings a Time Machine-style interface to individual files, allowing you to compare versions and go back to previous versions of your files. Different versions are tracked by their changes to minimise disk usage.

9. AirDrop

Another great new feature for Lion. You can already share files with other computers on the Mac, but this new feature makes it even simpler. Now AirDrop appears in your Devices list in Finder, and it shows you all the users in the vicinity that are using AirDrop. Now you can just drag your files to the image of the AirDrop user and it will be transferred to their Downloads folder.

10. Mail

I have to admit Apple Mail is a nice app. However I personally recently had to switch to Thunderbird, as I found it a little clunky when managing multiple identities. I use my iPad for Mail all the time though and Apple have now made Mail on the Mac look much like the iPad app, with a lean, uncluttered look. They’ve also thrown in a few extra bonus features, like Conversation View (follows message threads) and a smarter search facility that makes suggestions.

iOS 5

Apple have finally released details of what will be included in the next major update to their mobile device OS. There’s plenty of good stuff as you’ll see below. Again there are around 200 new features, and for us developers 1,500 new APIs to learn! Here are the 10 highlights:

1. Notifications

Apple have redesigned the notifications system and created a unified Notification Center that brings together all your reminders, messages, and email notifications into one place. They have also redesigned the display model so that you can pull down a list of notifications from the Lock Screen by swiping down. They have also made them less intrusive as they will no longer block when they appear, so you can carry on writing that email, or playing that game. A notification will appear as an overlay a bit like when you log into Game Center.

2. Newsstand

This looks very much like iBooks for subscription content, like magazines and newspapers. The UI is certainly very similar. Apparently the magazine covers will update automatically and download in the background.

3. Twitter

Twitter is now built in to iOS, bringing a number of benefits, such as being able to tweet articles directly from Safari, and tweet pictures taken with the Camera app. It also saves time by keeping your twitter credentials in one place.

4. Safari

Apple have finally brought some of the great features available in the desktop version to their mobile edition of their browser. One of these features is Reader, which simplifies your web page to group together the text to make it easier to read, and can even pull in multi-page articles into a single view. The second major update is that they have finally included tabbed browsing, so you can see your browser tabs without having to press a button to view all your open windows.

5. Reminders

This is an intriguing feature, particularly when you learn that it includes locations as well as dates. You can, for example set a reminder to say don’t forget to post that letter when you leave home. I’ve been using Calendar quite a lot recently, and it has always seemed to me to be a bit weak in comparison with the features Apple’s other apps provide. Hopefully this will help to redress that balance.

6. Camera

The Camera app has been improved. Apple say they have made it faster, and they have also made a shortcut available on the lock screen so you can take pictures. This will even work if you have a passcode set. The second major update to Camera is that you can now edit and retouch your photos from within the Camera app, directly on the device. A more minor tweak allows you to lock the exposure and focus levels.

7. Mail

As with the desktop version, there are several new improvements here. Searching is improved, allowing you to search an entire message’s contents, as well as improved support for Rich Text Format, and indentation. However more significantly is the support for draggable addresses, which allows you to drag a contact’s email address from the To field to CC without typing the whole thing in all over again. Another cool change is the addition of a thumbs-only keyboard option (I’m gonna call it the thumboard). The thumboard basically consists of two halves of a keyboard, which is a better layout for typing with the iPad if you are holding it in your hands at the time. This isn’t just a Mail app option – it is available within the OS. Oh yeah, and there is also a built in Dictionary which you can use to get definitions for words.

8. PC-Free

Finally!! You can now start using your Apple device without having to plug it into a computer before you can use it – updates and initial setup can now all happen over the air.

9. Game Center

Apple are improving Game Center with the addition of more social features within Game Center. The first big change is the introduction of Achievement Points, to allow you to compare yourself with your friends. You can also now recommend games to your friends, add your own profile picture, and support for turn-based games is also being added.

10. iMessage

Yes, Apple have created their own messaging client. I guess it was inevitable after the introduction of FaceTime and the conversational display of sms messages on the iPhone. With hindsight it seems like an obvious addition. However it is certainly unexpected and a very welcome improvement as it gives iPod and iPad owners some of the communication abilities that iPhone users have had for years. Messages are pushed to all your iOS devices and are encrypted.

One other notable feature is the ability to sync with iTunes over wi-fi which for me is probably a better feature than some of those I’ve listed above! As I said earlier, Apple have clearly been busy, and iOS 5 looks like a huge release. A developer seed is available now, but the final release won’t be until Autumn. The PC-Free theme is clearly something Apple have been putting a lot of thought into, as the final part of the keynote speech is all about iCloud, with the goal of breaking the link between syncing content between your PC and your iPod, iPhone etc.

iCloud

Finally, iCloud has been unveiled, and includes some interesting capabilities. The first important announcement is that, unlike MobileMe, iCloud will be free! So, what is it? Basically, the idea is to store all your content on a server and then share it automatically with all your Apple devices. There is quite a lot more to it than that though, as you’ll see below.

iCloud apps

Apple have completely rewritten Calendar, Contacts and Mail for a start to integrate seamlessly with iCloud, so that your email, appointments and contacts are available from whichever device you happen to be using. For Calendar you can also create shared calendars so your friends and family can keep up with your appointments. App Store will allow you to view your purchases, and download them from the cloud. The neat feature with iCloud is that when you get a new device, all your apps and settings will be automatically transferred to the new device, and a daily backup is taken of your important data. Of course, Apple have also iCloudified the iWorks suite of apps, which gives these apps a big usability boost, as previously syncing documents from these apps on an iPad would require you to connect to iTunes, or use MobileMe.

Photo Stream

Apple have added a new feature called Photo Stream, which allows you to push your Photos to the cloud when you import them. There are some restrictions here though, so you can only keep 1000 photos, or 30 days worth of Photos in the cloud without putting them on a PC or Mac by moving them into an Album.

iTunes in the Cloud

Finally, perhaps Apple’s biggest announcement – iTunes in the cloud. iTunes will now allow you to view your purchases, and download them to any of your devices for no charge. The final ‘little’ announcement Apple revealed is iTunes Match – this feature will scan your iTunes library for music you’ve ripped and upgrade it to the iTunes equivalent of the song (256kbps DRM-free). iTunes Match, however is not free. It will cost $24.99 a year, but could well be worth it if you have a lot of ripped music. Any music which cannot be matched will be uploaded to the cloud.
iCloud includes 5Gb free storage for documents, backups etc, but that excludes your music, photos etc.

Conclusions

Apple have packed a huge amount of news into this presentation, and it will take a while to digest. Lion is due to be released in July, and for £20.99 via the Mac App Store – this update is now digital only.
iOS 5 gets a lot of new features, including some clearly designed to break the link with a main computer, with the ability to register and update over the air, and wi-fi iTunes sync, as well as a messaging client and new social features for Game Center. Apple have announced that iOS 5 will be supported for all the devices that currently run iOS 4, so it looks like some of the older devices such as the 3GS still have some life left in them yet.
Lastly, Apple have revealed to the world their vision of a network integrated future in the cloud, with users seamlessly moving between their laptop, iPhone and iPad without pausing for breath. It’ll be interesting to see how people respond to the iTunes Match service, and whether Apple’s investment in some huge data centres will allow them to scale their iCloud service to meet demand.

Today marks the release of an exciting new game for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Memneon is a challenging brain-teasing memory game, developed by Nfonix for Steve Turnbull of Alchemista.

Featuring stunning high resolution neon-style graphics, the game has been developed as a Universal app, providing native support for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, making use of the full screen size and resolution of each device.

Combining challenging gameplay with engaging visuals, sound effects and competitive scoring via Game Center, Memneon has already received some excellent reviews, even earning a mention by Stephen Fry on Twitter!

Take a look at our Memneon page for more information, or download the app from the App Store.

Dubstep is everywhere… it’s one of the fastest growing music genres out there, and now you can get your daily fix on your iPhone or iPod Touch for free!

Developed in partnership with Natural Shy, the Dubstep app allows you to keep in touch with all the news and releases as well as providing one touch access to the vast online community.

Featuring great editorial content, news, video, music, and direct links to streaming radio and the Dubstep scene, this app has everything a serious Dubstep fan needs.

To download the app for free, visit the App Store.

I used to. Then I discovered there is an equivalent tool for Mac OS.
Very simple to use, but not the most obvious thing in the world.

• Go to System Preferences, and select Keyboard
• Tick the box ‘Show Keyboard & Character Viewer in menu bar’

That’s it. Now whenever you need an accented character, click the box in the menu bar with the asterisk in it.
Select show Character Viewer, and you will be able to pick and choose the characters you need.
Job done.
One less reason to go back to Windows!