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Part I: Getting Started
Examining the possibilities
Just as the iPhone can extend the reach of the
user, the device possibilities and the develop-
ment environment can extend your reach as a
developer. Apple talks often about three different
application styles:
✓ Productivity applications use and manipu-
late information. The MobileTravel411
application is an example.
✓ Utility applications perform simple, highly
defined tasks. The Weather Application is
an example.
✓ Immersive applications are focused on
delivering — and having the user interact
with — content in a visually rich environ-
ment. A game is a typical example of an
immersive application.
Although these categories help you understand
how Apple thinks about iPhone applications (at
least publicly), don’t let them get in the way of
your creativity. You’ve probably heard ad nau-
seam about stepping outside the box. But hold
on to your lunch; the iPhone box isn’t even a
box yet. So here’s a more extreme metaphor:
Try diving into the abyss and coming up with
something really new.
The Sample Applications
When I started writing the first edition of this book (which seems like an eter-
nity but was really only 18 months ago), I decided that what I wasn’t going to
do was take the easy way out. By that I mean create a cookbook where you
discuss a feature and then show a little bit of code that implements it.
Instead, I wanted to use real-world applications to illustrate the concepts,
explain the technology, and give you the kind of background in the static and
runtime architecture that you need if you want to develop applications that
really exploit the iPhone’s feature set.
In Figure 1-2, you can see the first application that I show you how to develop —
the one I thought about after I lost my iPhone for the first time. I realized
that if anyone found it and wanted to return it, well, returning it wouldn’t be
easy. Sure, whoever found it could root around in my Contacts or Favorites
and maybe call a few of them and ask if any of their friends had lost an
iPhone. But to save them the work, I decided to create an application called
ReturnMeTo, whose icon sat on the upper-left corner of the home screen and
looked like something you would want to select if you had found this phone.
It would show a phone number to call and create a very happy person at the
receiving end of the call.
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