Just received an email from Apple stating that bodyCal2 for the iPad had been rejected. Why?

What I call a ‘Doh!’ moment. A piece of code I had deactivated during testing was still deactivated and it was needed for part of the App to function correctly…. Doh! The code has been reactivated and the App recompiled, and resubmitted to Apple.

Date: Saturday March 27, 2010 – 5:39:40 AM

On Saturday 20 March, 2010 I started a 7 day, 1 iPad App challenge (see the start). This wasn’t planned, and wasn’t going to happen until the summer, but an email from Apple to developers changed my mind…

Day 1 – Saturday 20 March, 2010

Installed the SDK and started work on the App, bodyCal for the iPad.

bodyCal for the iPad was based on our bodyCal for the iPhone (Home Page – Download. The idea was to take the functionality of bodyCal for the iPhone, and move it over to the iPad and add data tracking and recording in the space available on the larger screen.

At the end of day 1 the App was shaping up nicely. The calculators worked, and some progress had been made on the graphing and data recording section (big question mark in the image below).

The state of bodyCal for the iPad at the end of day 1 of development

Day 2 – Sunday 21 March, 2010

Day 2 was when the real coding started…. The work on day 1 was mainly setting up the user interface and porting over the code from the existing iPhone App (bodyCal for the iPhone – Download). Now the code for ‘graphics’ and data-storage was added.

At the end of day 2 things were shaping up nicely. The interface was pretty much complete, the body mass index (BMI) calculator and basal metabolic rate (BMR) calculators were working, help pages were finished, and data storage was shaping up.

The state of bodyCal for the iPad at the end of day 2 of development

Day 3 – Monday 22 March, 2010

The day was disrupted with meetings, but some progress was made.

Basically, the day (when not in meetings) was spent working on data capture and data display. By the end of the day this was pretty much complete, however, there was still a problem with dates in the App database.

Day 4 – Tuesday 23 March, 2010

At the start of day 4 I had a ‘clear idea’ of how to fix the problem with dates in the database, and also how to make sure only one entry for BMI and BMR could be recorded per day (the value could be changed, but only one entry per day could be recorded).

By the end of day 4 the code base was almost complete, and one final change to the interface had been made, which was the inclusion of a small yellow sticky note for showing messages.

The state of bodyCal for the iPad at the end of day 4 of development

Day 5 – Wednesday 24 March, 2010

Day 5 was spent coding, testing, and designing an icon.

I am not great at icon design, and in the end I came up with two possibles:

Two possible icons for bodyCal – A and B

By the end of the day I felt I was pretty much finished. I had even managed to include a feature, data deleting, which earlier in the week had been bumped to version 1.1 when I was having ‘database issues’ (see days 3 and 4 above).

bodyCal also has a function that allows data to be deleted

All that was left now was to complete testing and submit the App….

Day 6 – Thursday 25 March, 2010

Day 6 was a day of testing, bug hunting, and submitting the App to Apple.

First, it was decided to go with icon A (see above) for the App.

As the App was being written sections of the code were tested as they were completed, with a ‘full’ test of ‘work to date’ at the end of each day. Day 6 was the first time all the functions could be tested together. A number of bug/problems were found and ‘squashed‘.

By early-afternoon ‘bug hunting’ and testing were complete and the App was ready to submit to Apple. There were a number of problems along the way… the first of which was discovering that the App could not be called bodyCal as the name bodyCal was already used for our iPhone App – the App is now called bodyCal2 – generally the whole process of submitting the iPad App to Apple was relatively painless.

Submission of the App to Apple happened one Thursday March 25, 2010 at 1:41:29 PM.

Conclusion

Developing for the iPad was easier than I expected. If you can use Xcode (Apple’s developer environment) and write Apps for the iPhone, then you should have no problem in writing Apps for the iPad.

There is, however, one crucial difference… to write an App for the iPad requires a change of ‘mind-set’.

I have been writing programs for the Mac since the mid-90s, and MMISoftware has been around since 2001. When I started writing for the iPhone I initially found it difficult to switch from the Mac ‘big-screen menu-driven’ programming approach, to writing the more ‘stacked’ Apps you find on the iPhone. (The reason iPhone Apps are ‘stacked’ is because of the smaller screen space, the lack of menus, and the touch screen nature of the device.) It is a very different way of thinking about development.

The iPad is a different beast again. It seems to fall between a Mac and an iPhone. It is not Mac ‘big-screen menu-driven’, or iPhone ‘stacked’, it is in between. There are no menus on the iPad as you would find on a Mac, but there is more screen space than on an iPhone. For the iPad you seem to need to ‘flatten’ the ‘stack’ of pages you have for the iPhone. As I said, a different mind set….

OK, now to start the submission of the App to Apple for approval…

First, compile the App for distribution – done

The compile process appears to have changed a little bit, and I haven’t been able to see if ‘code-signing’ went OK.

First problem:

It appears you cannot have an iPhone App, and an iPad App with the same name (I already have bodyCal for the iPhone – iTunes Link). So the App has been renamed to bodyCal2 (I did try bodyCalPad… bodyCalGraph… but all yuck…) (Of course, there is a chance that some other iPad developer has submitted and App called bodyCal.)

Second problem:

I made the icon too big. I am sure I read 78 x 78 px. But it appears it has to be 72 x 72 px…. and I forgot to do the 512 x 512 px…

Third problem:

Upload of build rejected: “The binary you uploaded was invalid. When supporting iPad only, the MinimumOSVersion must be 3.2.”

Hmmmmm… I thought I had set that…. Dig around in the settings, double check, recompile, submit again….

Now getting: “The binary you uploaded was invalid. A pre-release beta version of the SDK was used to build the application.”

Odd. I am using the latest version of the SDK, in fact I only downloaded it and installed at the weekend – see earlier post.

I have had what I call a ‘Doh!’ moment (thanks Homer)… I had forgotten to set the Device/Distribution correctly. A quick trip to ‘Project menu -> Set active SDK -> iPhone Device 3.2′ fixed the problem. App upload accepted.

Time: Thursday March 25, 2010 – 1:41:29 PM

I thought this might be a bit of fun… bug hunting and testing… a diary.

The App has been tested as features were added (compile often…), and was also tested at the start of most days (or end) to see if the current feature set worked together. These tests are a final series of work throughs to see if the final App, and all the components, work together.

Started testing 10:01:16

Thursday March 25, 2010

Bug 1: 10:19:21 AM – years not being picked up by the BMR calculator from the database if starting bodyCal in BMI

Fixed at: 10:27:32 AM – turned out to be a problem with how the view was being loaded.

Bug 2: 10:29:37 AM – BMI message not being displayed on restart

Fixed at: 10:32:32 AM – turned out to be a problem as in 1…..

Bug 3: 10:33:46 AM – it is possible to record data when there is no data present… opps…

Fixed at: 10:41:37 AM – added a catch that means that if BMI is zero then data can’t be recoded.

Bug 4: 10:42:47 AM – if BMR is recorded as zero, and other BMR values are available, no BMR data is shown on the graph

Fixed at: 11:03:28 AM – added code to graph drawing to catch ’0′ values of BMR

Bug 5: 11:07:57 AM – spotted a typo on one of the buttons

Fixed at: 11:09:43 AM

Item 6: 11:13:57 AM – checking for memory leaks…

Caught a few… (there always are a few…) – 11:34:30 AM

Bug 7: 11:36:03 AM – bug – odd report of a database error… checking

Fixed at: 11:42:35 AM – sqlite3_finalize statement missing

OK, time is now 12:05:48 PM – I think I have tested bodyCal with data present, and adding data. Now to remove the database and test ‘first run’…

Bug 8: 12:07:02 PM – first problem – reset the iPad emulator, but forgot to ‘clean’ the build… so the old data showed up.

Well, it is now 12:52:01 PM… I think testing is complete. Time to start the submission process…

The code base is complete (I hope – well, there are no new features to add), and the user-interface is finished So, today…

Testing, testing, 1.. 2.. 3.. testing

As bodyCal for the iPad has been developed the code has been tested as new features were added, and every so often (usually at the start of a day) the App has been put through its paces to test all the current functions together.

As the App has gone through these rounds of testing bugs have been caught and squashed (hopefully), and improvements have been made. However, the full, complete App has not been tested – until today… so the task this morning is to put the App through a full test and see how it holds up.

One problem with all of this is the testing is being performed on the software development kit (SDK) emulator and not on a real iPad. This makes things tricky… I have had situations in the past where Apps have worked great on the SDK iPhone emulator, only to have problems on the test iPhones and iPod Touches.

Submitting to Apple

Hopefully, if testing goes well the submission process should start this afternoon. As ever, there is a check list:

1. Screen shot, must be 1024 x 768, 768 x 1024, 1004 x 768 or 748 x 1024 – check – have that at 748 x 1024
2. ‘Blurb’ – the App description – not done
3. Icon – check

Yesterday I wrote a post about designing and picking an icon. I have decided to go with ‘A’ (which ironically is B).

bodyCal for the iPad from MMISoftware – which icon is the best? A or B? I am going with ‘A’, which is B…

1. List of keywords – not done
2. Compiled App for the store – opppsss.. the biggie, not done

Well, I think I am done… I think I have finished coding bodyCal for the iPad – all that remains to do now is run check after check after check, get the ‘blurb’ for submission written and get the App submitted to Apple (that I will do tomorrow – Thursday 25 March, 2010)…

Today has been a great day of coding – last night the check list stood at:

1. Develop the interface – DONE
2. Add the body mass index (BMI) calculator code – DONE
3. Add the basal metabolic rate (BMR) calculator code – DONE
4. Add help pages – DONE
5. Add add a data summary to the interface – DONE
6. Add a graph to track BMI and BMR changes – DONE
7. Remember user settings between restarts – DONE
8. Add code to plot stored daily/weekly BMI and BMR to the graph
9. Produce an icon for the App
10. Submit to the App Store

With 8 broken down to:

a. Sending data from the calculator to the graph – DONE
b. Storing the data – DONE
c. Editing the stored data (i.e. removing errors, deleting data) – rolled to 1.1
d. Displaying data from extended periods – rolled to 1.1

I can now say the list is:

1. Develop the interface – DONE
2. Add the body mass index (BMI) calculator code – DONE
3. Add the basal metabolic rate (BMR) calculator code – DONE
4. Add help pages – DONE
5. Add add a data summary to the interface – DONE
6. Add a graph to track BMI and BMR changes – DONE
7. Remember user settings between restarts – DONE
8. Add code to plot stored daily/weekly BMI and BMR to the graph – DONE DONE
9. Produce an icon for the App – DONE
10. Submit to the App Store

And 8 is in fact:

a. Sending data from the calculator to the graph – DONE
b. Storing the data – DONE
c. Editing the stored data (i.e. removing errors, deleting data) – DONE
d. Displaying data from extended periods – rolled to 1.1

Yep, the data editing that had been rolled over in to 1.1 has made it in to the 1.0 version.

Even the icon has been completed (well, sort of – earlier post) – I am having a decision problem, and I might go with something completely different!

The ‘data editing’ was a lot easier than I first thought it would be. My concern was with displaying the data as a table, and then editing it, and getting the changes recorded correctly on the graph and in the App database).

Editing data on bodyCal for the iPad (yes, I know I only started the challenge on the 20th March – the above shows test data…)

No major changes were made to the interface, and the besides the new ‘edit’ code the only other changes were some minor tweaks to the help system, and the removal of some test code.

Conclusion: Great day of coding, very happy with progress, and I can’t believe I am only on day 5…. Tomorrow it is final testing, and then, if all goes well, submission of the App to Apple…

OK, art (and design) were never my thing at school. In fact I can barely draw…. and so, when it comes to icon design I struggle…

Now, for bodyCal for the iPad I have come up with two designs… Let’s call them A and B…

Which one do you like?

bodyCal for the iPad from MMISoftware – which icon is the best? A or B?

Post your comments, or send your emails to nick@mmisoftware.co.uk

P.S. And no, I don’t really want an avalanche of emails from icon designers… thanks!

A quick post this morning as I need to push on with development of bodyCal for the iPad….

The App is pretty much finished for a 1.0 release, the only feature missing is the ‘edit’ function for stored data. However, that is not really a critical feature at this stage.

The Basal Metabolic Calculator (BMR) works – Tick, done

The Body Mass Index Calculator (BMI) works – Tick, done

Input to the calculators is ‘shared’ – you input the data to the BMR calculator and it is shared with the BMI calculator (and vice-versa) – Tick, done

Data can be input as kilograms (kilos; kg), pounds (lb), stone (st) and pounds (lb), feet (ft) and inches (in), and meters (m) and interconverted – Tick, done

A summary of all the data and calculations is displayed – Tick, done

Data (results) can be stored and shown on the graph so your BMI and BMR can be monitored over time – Tick, done

bodyCal for the iPad from MMISoftware

So, today. More testing, design the icon and get it submitted (submission is more likely to be tomorrow – Thursday 25 March, 2010 than today… as I need to do screen shots and get all the ‘blurb’ written for the Apple iTunes Store – plus do the website.)

End of day 4 of the 7 day iPad Challenge – so, how are things going?

Good day of coding today. The ‘record’ (data capture) system is finished (apart from the editing part, but that may get rolled to version 1.1)… Testing of the ‘record’ system is pretty much complete.

The interface has been finalised, and the space in the bottom left hand corner put to good use.. (see below).

That space in the bottom left-hand corner now contains a little sticky note. When the App is first run it gives some helpful pointers to get going, and then after that, on subsequent runs it displays links to support and the MMISoftware home page

Well, no big surprise on what to do with the bottom left hand corner, add a sticky note to display relevant information.

Now, the check list…

The goals list did look like this:

1. Develop the interface – DONE
2. Add the body mass index (BMI) calculator code – DONE
3. Add the basal metabolic rate (BMR) calculator code – DONE
4. Add help pages – DONE
5. Add add a data summary to the interface – DONE
6. Add a graph to track BMI and BMR changes – DONE
7. Remember user settings between restarts – DONE
8. Add code to plot stored daily/weekly BMI and BMR to the graph
9. Produce an icon for the App
10. Submit to the App Store

And I had broken down 8 into:

a. Sending data from the calculator to the graph
b. Storing the data
c. Editing the data (i.e. removing errors, deleting data)
d. Displaying data from extended periods

Looking at 8 it now stands at:

a. Sending data from the calculator to the graph – DONE
b. Storing the data – DONE
c. Editing the stored data (i.e. removing errors, deleting data) – rolled to 1.1
d. Displaying data from extended periods – rolled to 1.1

So, although not complete, goal 8 is certainly at the 1.0 stage….

Tomorrow will be spent on looking at ideas for solving 8c (Editing the stored data), and designing the icon.

The plan is now to submit by Thursday 25 March, 2010, or Friday 26 March, 2010 – assuming no last minute problems in testing.

Start of day 4 of coding bodyCal for the iPad.

Yesterday was a slow day due to meetings and also having a ‘bad day’ with sqlite (see earlier post).

Now that I have the sqlite problem fixed (at least I do in my head) it is now just a question of cracking on, getting the code written, and tested.

That space in the bottom left-hand corner is calling out to be used – but for what?

I also feel I need something for the bottom left-hand corner. I am sure something will come to me….

Oh, and the look and feel of the App? One of those weird timing things….

Last week mobiQuiz for the iPhone and iPod Touch was released by MMISoftware. mobiQuiz (download from iTunes) uses the quiz and test sets at Quizlet for quizzing fun on your iPhone. When it came to putting up a site for mobiQuiz it was decided to go with a school desk sort of theme…

The mobiQuiz website…

Anyway, this sort of style and idea seemed to fit the thinking for bodyCal for the iPad, and as time was tight on the 7 day challenge, it was decided to use it…