TapLynx

This article from OS X Daily discusses iPhone app development costs, and what to expect when hiring an iOS developer. A poll cited from TechCrunch points out that for a relatively small app the average development cost was $6,453. When you consider that the TapLynx framework costs $599, and additionally removes a great amount of developer work on your part, your potential iPhone app is a steal.

As was mentioned in this article posted a week ago from Nieman Journalism Lab, developing an app doesn’t have to be insurmountable because of high developer costs. Using TapLynx, Joshua Benton was able to produce a solid journalism app for only $624 (1/10th of the afformentioned cost!). Not only does the framework cut down on many hours of developer time, it is customizable to a level that if you did want to invest money in custom features, you can do so by building it into the framework instead of starting from scratch.

Based on high demand for iOS developers leading to high development costs, is building an iPhone app worth it? OS X Daily says it is, if you can avoid shelling out thousands of dollars for development time. This is why Nieman Journalism Lab so effectively used TapLynx: it provides a means to produce quality iPhone apps at a fraction of the cost.

OS X Daily: iPhone Development Costs http://bit.ly/dnTmJC
Nieman Journalism Lab: An iPhone app developer’s diary http://bit.ly/9qobhP

Download it here

Release notes:
-Significant performance enhancements
-Works with new Twitter authentication system. Refer to “Upgrading Twitter” included with the download, or read the documentation here.
-Programmer folks: the custom TapLynx app delegate now gets called with applicationDidReceiveMemoryWarning:, applicationWillTerminate:, applicationDidEnterBackground:, applicationDidBecomeActive:, and applicationWillResignActive:. The single parameter is a UIApplication object. These are all optional. (It was already calling applicationDidFinishLaunching:.)

Bug fixes:
-Multi-tasking support on iOS 4
-High-res thumbnail generation
-Prevent navbar image from displaying over top of buttons in the navbar
-Playing videos in iOS 4
-Display thumbnail shadows on the bottom
-Atom parser now handles inline xhtml
-Date parsing with particular date formats

The Big App Show is really taking off, and we couldn’t be more titillated. The app, built from the TapLynx framework, is as simple as it is effective: Adam Curry walks you through a featured app, describing to you what it’s about and how it works. It’s an excellent way to get a feel for an app before downloading it. Also, the new version of the app features push notifications, a recent addition to the TapLynx framework.

It was recently highlighted on USA Today: http://bit.ly/9JGsRC
And now MediaPost has picked it up: http://bit.ly/dzr2l3

Download the app here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/big-app-show/id368656200?mt=8
Submit your app to the Big App Show: adam@curry.com

Put quite simply, it is a free app about apps.

Download The Big App Show: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/big-app-show/id368656200?mt=8

It’s marvelously simple and informative: Adam Curry, “The Podfather”, walks you through the fundamentals of each featured app, and from there you can go directly to the app store to download it. It was built off of the TapLynx framework and it rocks: I love seeing what people come up with.

Want to see your app featured? You can submit a request to adam@curry.com
Follow Adam on Twitter: http://twitter.com/adamcurry
Big App Show site: http://bigappshow.com/

Brent Simmons, the brainchild behind TapLynx and NetNewsWire, has been named to the MachTech 25.  This is includes “the most influential Rock Stars, MVPs, Prophets, and Pundits in the Apple Technical Community.”  While we didn’t need anyone to tell us how visionary Brent has been in the space, it’s a huge achievement for him to be on this prestigious list.

About Brent they say he is “a tireless promoter of the Mac platform, but is perhaps best known as the author of NetNewsWire, the wildly popular RSS news aggregator for Mac OS X, and the founder of Ranchero Software, which was acquired by NewsGator Technologies.”

They add, he is also the brains behind TapLynx, which lets you create iPhone and iPad applications with your content.”

Congrats, Brent

You can see the whole list here.

Walker Fenton, GM of NewsGator’s Media and Data Services, the umbrella under which TapLynx resides, talks with Matt Solmon, a project manager at Stratfor, for this month’s webinar.  They talk about Stratfor, the iPhone app they built with TapLynx, in-app purchasing, and more!  If you’re currently using TapLynx to create apps, or interested in using TapLynx, I’m sure you’ll find this webinar quite useful.

TapLynx Webinar with Stratfor from TapLynx on Vimeo.

This week Brent Simmons and I were in San Jose, California for the 360iDev conference. Big thank you to John, Tom, and Nicole for organizing a great event and just being awesome in general. It was all very productive (partying), with a lot of networking (drinking beers with fellow Mac nerds), team building (playing Rock Band) and fostering of friendly competition (throwing each other to the ground in oversized sumo-suits). Overall it was a solid conference and we’re looking forward to seeing everyone at Voices that Matter next week!

Brent gave a great speech about behind the scenes stuff that drives content based apps. Here are the slides: http://ranchero.com/downloads/BrentSimmons-ContentApps-360iDev.key.zip

We got interviewed by TUAW: http://www.tuaw.com/2010/04/13/360idev-brent-simmons-on-netnewswire-for-ipad-and-iphone-os-4-0/

A couple of my favorite quotes from the whole event:

    ”Yeah, we’re going to sex this bitch up.” – Brad Ellis on incorporating sexy design ideas into NetNewsWire

    ”I would rather have spent those 6 years on a beach in Hawaii… or just being flogged.” – Brent Simmons, on all the time he spent writing syncing code

    ”Me-arrrrr!” – Me and Joe Pezzillo, thinking that pirate kitties was somehow a funny idea (hint: beers were involved)

    ”A perk of being one of a handful of female attendees at a male-dominated tech conference: no waiting line at the restroom!” – @hubflanger Amen, sister!!

In the interest of complete self-deprecation, here are embarrassing videos from the event (Brent don’t kill me for posting your rendition of “Under the Bridge”):

    Rock Band: Jenny sings Alive (hey I’m like a barotone, give me a break): http://vimeo.com/10877784

    Rock Band: Brent sings Under the Bridge, Jenny on the drums: http://vimeo.com/10877548

    Sumo fight for an iPad, Rana vs Jenny to the death: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG57p49SlS4 The funny thing about our match was a lot of people were all, “ZOMG two chicks are fighting!!” Really? you can tell that we’re women once the suits are on?

And lastly, it should be noted that the guys from 360iDev will be posting session videos at some point, which we’ll retweet. Thanks everyone for a great time!

Exciting news to report: NewsGator’s NetNewsWire app is now available on the iPad!  Our award-winning feed reader has been fully re-engineered by its creator, Brent Simmons, to take the advantage of the iPad’s bigger screen real estate and fast processing power.

NetNewsWire for iPad allows users to automatically capture blog posts, podcasts, and other syndicated content from across the web and includes a new split-screen view that shows subscriptions on one side, with articles and web pages on the other.

Brent explains that we could have simply repackaged our iPhone app, but we recognized the value in re-designing NetNewsWire from the ground up for the iPad.  The extra screen real estate means that users can do more things, and the faster CPU and additional memory means the code can do more too.

If you’ve got an iPad, download the brand new NetNewsWire app here!

Brent has been working hard on TapLynx for the iPad ever since the SDK became available. But let me back up a second here and point out that TapLynx apps should work on the iPad anyway: most iPhone apps will. However, we want to take full advantage of the iPad layout and so we will be happy to introduce TapLynx for the iPad in the near future. It won’t be ready by the 27th because we also wanted to include a lot of the features that our users have requested, so we’ll keep you posted.

As a TapLynx developer, here’s what you should keep in mind:

* Make sure you test your TapLynx app on an actual iPad. The simulator is one thing, but the behavior and look of your app could be different on the device itself.

* We’re focused on including features that you have requested. We want your apps to be rich, gorgeous, and flexible on both the iPhone and the iPad. TapLynx isn’t just another cookie-cutter app maker, it’s for developers wanting to pursue quality content-based apps.

* And finally, we’re just as excited as you about the iPad! W00t!! We’ve all been hit by love tasers!