Developing a similar app

[jobi59uk]

Hi I'm looking into developing similar to the app I have posted a link to below. Please could I have some guidance on what are the key features that I will need to incorporate in the app I want to develop.

iTIP Football for iPhone and iPod touch on the iTunes App Store

Any help is much appreciated.

[Duncan C]

Originally Posted by jobi59uk

Hi I'm looking into developing similar to the app I have posted a link to below. Please could I have some guidance on what are the key features that I will need to incorporate in the app I want to develop.

iTIP Football for iPhone and iPod touch on the iTunes App Store

Any help is much appreciated.

You want to write an app similar to one that's for sale, and you want us to tell you what features it should have?

As the developer, deciding the features of an app is your job. Nobody can do that for you, unless you want to hire a development team and give them creative control over the app they develop.

[jobi59uk]

Originally Posted by Duncan C

You want to write an app similar to one that's for sale, and you want us to tell you what features it should have?

As the developer, deciding the features of an app is your job. Nobody can do that for you, unless you want to hire a development team and give them creative control over the app they develop.

Hi I'm sorry let me clarify myself. I was just wondering if someone could clarify what the underlying tools that were being used in this app. Because I had looked into something similar to this app and wanted my app to download information from a server and display it in a user friendly way on the app. My research showed me the use of php and mysql would do this, I just wondered is this correct?

[Kalimba]

Originally Posted by jobi59uk

I was just wondering if someone could clarify what the underlying tools that were being used in this app.

If you want to know "how do they do that", then only the developer can really tell you. Anyone else taking a stab at it would only be speculating.

Originally Posted by jobi59uk

Because I ... wanted my app to download information from a server and display it in a user friendly way on the app. My research showed me the use of php and mysql would do this, I just wondered is this correct?

Php and mysql are one way to skin that cat. If the app needs to download data from the cloud, theoretically you could have that data in a static html file, too.

[Duncan C]

Originally Posted by jobi59uk

Hi I'm sorry let me clarify myself. I was just wondering if someone could clarify what the underlying tools that were being used in this app. Because I had looked into something similar to this app and wanted my app to download information from a server and display it in a user friendly way on the app. My research showed me the use of php and mysql would do this, I just wondered is this correct?

The description of the app on the app store is pretty vague. Its hard to tell what it does, and I'm not going to spend 3 pounds just to see what it does.

PHP and mysql would be fine on the host side. You'll need to come up with a file format for delivering the data to your device. CSV files (comma separated values) are quite easy on both ends, or you could use XML or JSON, but both of those will require more work.

For a good user experience you will want to download content from your server asynchronously. Look into NSURLConnection. If you google it you can probably find sample code on the net that uses NSURLConnection to implement a download manager that handles a queue of files to download.

You'll probably also need to learn how to use navigation controllers (UINavigationController) UIViewController objects, and UITableView objects.

You'll also have to learn how to use various helper objects like NSString, NSURL, NSData, and probably NSDictionary and NSArray.

For most classes in iOS, if you search on the class name there's usually an article in the docs with the same name as the class. The article generally stares with an overview section that explains what the class is for and how you use it. The overview for NSString, for example, is pretty long and includes a breakdown of the different methods in the class broken down by the different functions they provide. It's worth reading and getting an understanding of the whole overview section of those fundamental classes, as you use them over and over and over, and they are very rich and powerful.

There are a ton of sample apps included in the XCode documentation, including some good ones on view controllers and table views. Do a search on "TableViewSuite" in XCode's help system, just as an example.

[jobi59uk]

Thanks for the detailed help. It is much appreciated i will take a look at both aspects you have given.