Build a static library for iPhone development

This blog has a tutorial on compiling a static library:
http://blog.stormyprods.com/2008/11/using-static-libraries-with-iphone-sdk.html

Apple Releasing iPhone OS v3.0

Tuesday, Mar. 17, Apple is releasing their new OS, v3.0. No one knows what is next for the iPhone, but it undoubtedly will cause waves. With it will come a new SDK, of course. See Endadget for the announcement. They will be live blogging the Apple event.

iPhone App Store Secrets

Pinch Media made a presentation on
iPhone App Store Secrets

iPhone Fonts

The iPhone SDK documentation often leaves a lot to be desired in comprehensiveness. One area that Apple could add more information is in the font department. More thorough examples and documentation would make it easier to customize your interface with different fonts. This awesome blog post give as list of all fonts available, and here they are rendered.

Thoughts on the 3G

I am definitely late to the party getting my 3G, but boy was it worth it. I don't know how I suffered for so long with the Edge network. Every time I can get a speedy connection on the go, I marvel at how powerful the iPhone really is. The only bump in the road of getting my phone set up was transferring my settings and contacts to my new phone. While I can live with out just about everything on my old phone, my contacts are indispensable information I can't live with out. After digging through the iTunes settings I was able to determine my contacts weren't being synced all along!

I then started downloading the indispensable apps I need on my phone. At the top of that list: Facebook, NYTimes, Meebo (web), Solitaire, and Backgrounds

Load a file on the iPhone

If your application has settings or data stored in a file/database, you can't just load the file normally as you would in C/C++ in the current directory. First, to get a file on to the phone, it needs to be stored in the App bundle. This is accomplished by placing the file in the "Resources" directory of the XCode project. Files are stored on the phone in an application's bundle, so you need to query the iPhone for the path to your file. The following code will accomplish that for a file, "dictionary.db".

NSString *dbFilePath = [[NSBundle mainBundle]
                         pathForResource:@"dictionary"
                         ofType:@"db"];

New 3G Activation

My new (refurbished) iPhone 3G just arrived in the mail, and I started the activation process this morning. Unfortunately, the phone asked me to wait, and said that it could take a while...a long while. I find this a little puzzling, but hopefully it will finish in the next 8 hours.