23 Developers & 50 Apps
March 29th, 2011 | Connor Turner

The past couple of months have been incredibly interesting for the Calgary iPhone app development community. We’ve seen a few apps make great inroads on the iTunes charts with hits like Minecraft: World Explorer and Broken King’s Dirt. We’ve also seen an amazing influx of new developers and new apps being released from the community.

For the yycApps site itself, we’ve seen a massive growth in readership and also exposure on the local media scene, with features on Techvibes, Global Television and CBC radio. The site has also started to expand from just talking about apps to featuring how to tutorials from our new writer Gavin Miller to starting up a new Linkedin group for all Calgary iPhone app developers. And now our list of Calgary developed apps has grown to over 50 apps and 23 local developers. read more

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Making the iPhone Responsive to a User’s Touch
March 14th, 2011 | Gavin Miller

Gavin Miller is a local Calgary iPhone app developer who will be gracing yycapps with a series of tutorials on app development. This is his second in what we hope will be a series of great articles, so enjoy.

One of the finer points of iPhone development that can escape developers is the aspect of touch. No, not the obvious stuff like touch the screen and make something happen, but the subtler details like someone is using their finger when they interact with your app, not a mouse.

Touch is such a tactile action, and your app needs to respond as if it were a real tactile material, not just a piece of software. When you’re providing good feedback to someone using your app you’re setting your app up for success.
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Global Game Jam 2011: The Aftermath
February 3rd, 2011 | Connor Turner

I’ve never attended a global game jam before, but from the activity on Twitter and Facebook this weekend, it appears that Calgary’s rendition was a smashing success. In particular, Twitter was alive with three of Calgary’s local app developers updating and chronicling the chaos of trying to develop a game in less than 72 hours. read more

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Minecraft World Explorer Digs it’s Way To The Top
January 28th, 2011 | Connor Turner

An interesting success story is brewing in the local Calgary iPhone development community. Prolific app developers, Robots & Pencils, seams to have dug-up a major success with their latest release of Minecraft: World Explorer for the iPhone and iPad.

Minecraft World Explorer - iPhone/iPad read more

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How to Build a 2×2 UITableView Grid
January 28th, 2011 | Gavin Miller

Gavin Miller is a local Calgary iPhone app developer who will be gracing yycapps with a series of tutorials on app development. This is first in what we hope will be a series of great articles, so enjoy.

Today you and I are going to work through some code to create a nifty looking 2×2 grid for a UITableView.

2x2 iPhone Grid View

One thing that you’ll be quick to notice is that this code is going to be tailored for Table View that has the UITableViewStyleGrouped applied to it. Let’s assume that you know how to build a UITableView, and skip into the meat of this article. If you want to follow along at home, go ahead and download the 2×2 Grid View. read more

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Broken King’s Skwerl Code Give-a-Way
January 14th, 2011 | Connor Turner

I mentioned this in a tweet earlier this week, but if you are at all intrested in iPhone development in Calgary you really should be following Broken King’s Facebook fan page.

Last weekend, Broken King set about the daunting task of churning out a new game within a weekend. Locked up in their apartment office, the busy bodies at Broken Kings spent the weekend coding and designing a new game called Skwerl. Throughout the process, El Presidente Stephen has posted a variety of YouTube clips detailing the trials and tribulations during the process. Check out one of the clip below to see one of the interesting clips of the progress. read more

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