Progress Report - Success Finally!

I have finally finished coding up my application. It does not meet the grandiose desires I had at the beginning of the term but let's face it, that was a lot for one person to want to accomplish in 10 short weeks without knowing Objective-C. My application does have a nifty application icon and splash screen, don't blink as it goes by, that I am pleased with. Once the application gets started it displays a table with a list of choices for calendars to display. Users can click on the calendar they wish to view and it will open a mobile version of the specified calendar in the safari browser. This step is were I find my biggest disappointment in the app I have created. When I chose to scale down my ideas I had every intention of displaying everything in the app but after weeks of struggling I gave up and went this route. I do have some ideas of how I could possibly go back and get this working and think I will continue to pursue it at a later date.

Progress Update - Argh!

I feel like this project is a constant battle of one step forward and two back. I think a lot of my problems come from being tired and feeling the pressure of time lines. I was so thrilled with my progress last week that I began forging ahead into RSS programming only to find myself reworking code I had already written because I was too tired and somehow accidentally wiped out a couple of days worth of work that I could not get to work again even though I thought I was doing the same thing. After banging my head against the desk for three days I decided to leave the project alone for almost 24 hours and work on other neglected work. I believe this was very helpful, not only did I make headway on my project for my other class but when I returned to the coding I was thinking much clearer and was able to get my coding back to where I had been as of class time last week.

Working with the RSS feed has been another challenge. Although I have been able to successfully get an RSS feed running in an application on its own I have been unable to mesh it with the coding I have completed thus far. For me it is important to get the application running as I envision it so that it will function properly and easily for the end user. So I am still plugging away but feel like I am moving very slowly.

Steps in the Process: Interview with a Prospective End User

Now that I am starting to make some headway on my iPhone app coding (baby steps count) it is time to talk to a possible end user to see what his/her thoughts are about having an app for the college. It's always a good idea to conduct studies like this early on in the process to uncover what a user really wants or does not want before you begin coding and have to throw it away or start over again. I compiled a few questions and found a subject who was willing to participate. I felt that selecting someone who already had an iPhone or iPod touch would be helpful since they would already be comfortable with the device and understand its capabilities.

The Interview:
I have interjected my thoughts about the answers under each response.

Question 1.
If you could have an app on your iPhone or iPod touch about the university what would you like to have on it?

I would really like to have access to directory information (student, faculty/staff and departmental phone, email and address listings) as well as access to my email, PeopleSoft accounts, university stored file space. I would be nice to have one portal to access all of clarkson accounts in one spot.

My thoughts:
I had thought about adding an email link or functionality to the app at the beginning because George Mason's app had it on their when I did my initial review. I rejected the idea because I felt it unnecessary given that ability to pipe your email through the mail app itself. When questioned about this, my subject suggested that he would find it very functional to have all of his university interaction within one device.

Although this is now a consideration again I think it will be for a future version of the software and is currently beyond the capabilities that I have in the time I have to complete the project. I would have to do some serious exploration on security issues and interacting with the AD/ldap system that we use for authentication because I think just adding a link to access the email client with safari is pointless and less functional than just having be part of the mail app built into the device.

Question 2.
If you could download a university app that offered you access to the calendar on your mobile device would you like to see all the available options for calendars or would you like to be able to add and delete calendars based on your needs?

I would like to be able to add and delete based on my needs much like what I can currently do with the calendar version online.

My Thoughts:
I thought this might be a nice feature to have the other day when I discovered that there were functions that would allow such capabilities. I had not tied the functionality of this idea to the current capabilities of the online calendar though. It looks like I will have to continue to dig and figure out how to do this one.

Question 3.
Would you find a campus map of the university that offered additional information about buildings or landmarks useful?

It would be cool, specifically for incoming freshman.

I would really like it if it was interactive enough to help me find locations in building that are often hard to find. Some of the rooms in buildings on campus are numbered oddly and make it difficult to find my class. If I could click on buildings and view floor maps that would make it easier to find those hard to get to classrooms.

My Thoughts:
I had the same thoughts here. I think this would be the piest de resistance if I could pull it off. So far this has been much harder than I originally thought and I have been struggling through figuring out how to do it. I did find a ray of hope yesterday, The Pragmatic Bookshelf has some nice video tutorials that are only $5 a piece. I downloaded one on the mapkit and will see soon if it helps or not. I may end up tabling this until a future version as well.

Question 4.
Are you interested in news feeds from the university?

Not really. Some people would but they don't particularly interest me.

My Thoughts:
This didn't surprise me. I figured this will be a nice add to the app for content and some will like it and others won't care.

Question 5.
If an app had a few modules on it that did not meet your needs but one or two that did would you still use it?

Yes, I just wouldn't use the app portion that I didn't like.

It would be nice if I could move the modules around within the app to best suit my needs like I can do with the apps themselves. I would also like to be able to add links to some of my favorite university sites or others that I visit a lot.

My Thoughts:
I wanted to make sure having modules like the news or a campus map would not be a hindrance to users if the portion of the app didn't interest them. I'm glad to hear that it wouldn't matter. If it did I would have to consider making apps with a little more tailoring towards specific audiences. Moving modules around inside the app is a very interesting idea. I suppose it could be done since the main interface does it and I should be able to access any of the same functionality inside the app. The biggest hurdle to accomplishing this would be finding the functions to make it work. I think this is a bit beyond me at this moment but again would be something to consider later. If I could add the ability to delete a module this would also take care of the tailoring problem from question 5.

Question 6.
What are your favorite apps and why?

I use the mail and Safari most with the rest of my downloaded apps being games. I do have an app called RemotePad which is a touch pad for your desktop. It works as a mouse for your desktop. I like it because I got used to using the touch pad on my laptop and miss it on the desktop. With the wireless capability it allows me to use the controller anywhere without it taking up space on my desk.

My Thoughts:
I asked this just out of interest and to see if I could glean any information about how this user uses their mobile device. I figured through a better understanding of this I could tap into this need to make my app more useful.

In the interest of time and the difficulties that I have had getting started I am going to focus on creating the calendar module for now and if time permits I will move on to the map.

Pie in the Sky Ideas for an iPhone App

While I am making my way through my reading for ENGL5376 and ENGL5369 I am still taking a few minutes here and there to do some research from my final project for Online Publishing. After exploring a number of the university based apps I think I have a good idea of how I want to progress and what I want to do. I have decided to set a goal for a final ideal pie in the sky app with all the possible bells and whistles I might like to create but then start small working away on the components a piece at a time.

The pie in the sky project will be to create an app similar to iStanford. I was very impressed with the design and elegance of the app. It is packed with a lot of components that I like some of which I would like to integrate now and others that would be possible list items once I become more proficient. If all goes as planned my final app will include the following components:

1. News Feed - using an RSS feed we already have established on the Clarkson news site.
2. Events Calendar - using an RSS feed provided from the current off site product we subscribe to
3. Athletics Feed - I have to check and see if we have RSS feeds for our current news information. I'm not sure that we do since these pages are handled by the athletic department and site development and hosting is handled by a third party off site.
   
4. Maps - input the current map images and use localization coding to allow for GPS location while on campus.

I think these four items will provide a pretty good start for the app with the map being on of the most difficult. I have a couple of other items I would like to include in the app but am not sure how time consuming all of the above will be so I am prepared to add more at a later date if I find the ability. I plan to start with the RSS feed and figure I will work my way down the list from there. I found what looks like a nice tutorial on building a simple RSS reader but will have to wait until this evening to check it out since I didn't carry along the Mac today. We will see how the process goes from here but I better get back to reading since I still have a lot to get finished before class on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings.

Checking out the Landscape

I have started browsing around to explore what other colleges are currently doing with iPhone apps. I have always found exploring the landscape to be helpful in the process of getting started. It is always nice to learn from those who have gone before me and discover some of the best and worst practices out there so that when I am done my apps can hopefully live comfortably among some of the better practices.

What I have found so far (worth noting):

• iStanford - Cost: FREE
  This app offers a directory, athletics, maps, events and courses.
  
  My Thoughts:
  This is a pretty nice app with lots to offer given the price. It has a nice clean and professional design far above most that I have seen within the few minutes I have been searching.
  
  The individual components of the app have their pluses and minuses. The directory must only work on the Stanford network or I am missing the login screen for it. The athletics looks like it is feed from RSS feeds which is a bonus if ours are handled that way as well. Maps, events and courses also seem to be pretty basic and reasonable to implement. So far I think that this will be a model I can use to work from.
  
  
• Ohio State University Map - Cost: $1.99
  A map of the Ohio State campus that allows users to zoom in and out and use the GPS functionality to find there way around.
  
  My thoughts: I'm not sure I would pay $1.99 for a map of campus even if I was a visiting student. If I got seriously lost a lot and didn't want to continue to look like a fool when I had to call my friends to come find me, maybe but I clearly think this type of app should be free.
  
  I think this is a neat and possibly doable idea for my class project if I can get the localization coding down and mesh that with our current flash maps. If I want to go in this direction for my application I need spend speed up my iPhone App lessons and get to Chapter 17 on localization in the text.
  
  
• Penn State University - Cost: FREE
  Basically an application for providing Penn State news to your iPhone.
  
  My Thoughts: Seems very basic and hopefully easy. This should be easily handled by inserting the RSS feed from our news site into an iPhone App. THe text I currently have does not seem to cover this so I did some quick searching on the internet and came up with this auto conversion program, AppLoop. I should be able to figure out how to do this. With a little more research on the coding I came across these links which I will explore further later: How-to: building services into iPhone Applications, How to put twitter updates in your iPhone Apps (info on the NSXMLParser function)
  
  
• ACU MindWire - Cost: $ .99
  Abilene Christian University is using this app to offer education content.
  
  My Thoughts: I am intrigued by a universities use of an iPhone app to extend learning beyond the classroom. This is very forward thinking. I'm not sure that this is something I am ready to progress into for this class but it is something that I might consider working on as a value add for my students in my classes. I will have to think about this one further. It's disappointing that I can not download it and try it out to see under the hood and kick the tires.
  

I have also downloaded the Go Huskies App from Northeastern and IMason from George Mason University. Each of these are free and look interesting but I have not had time to review them yet. So more to come at a later time.

On a quest to learn programming for the iPhone

Well I have secured everything that I need to begin to learn how to code apps for the iPhone.

1. iPhone - Check, purchased one in April and am completely hooked now
2. Guiding Text - Check, ordered Beginning iPhone Development Exploring the iPhone SDK from Apress by Dave Mark and Jeff LaMarche
3. Mac Computer - Check, Thanks to JohnDan Johnson-Eiola I am borrowing a Macbook for the summer. Knowing me I will more than likely be hooked by the end of the summer and want one of my own so I will have to put in a lot of hours on a freelance job to be able to aford one.
4. iPhone SDK Software - Check, I downloaded the 2.2.1 version yesterday and have successfully run through my first interface lesson in the text.

I also have to sign up to become a registered iPhone developer if I hope to do anything with the apps I create. For now I just have to keep plugging my way through the text and make some headway. So far the process was pretty easy and I look forward to continuing. I forsee lots of late nights in my future. I will keep you posted on my progress.