Hello folks,
as you may know I’ve graduated last year Technical University of Sofia in Computer Science department. For my graduation project I’ve had the option to chose what kind of project I would like to make. After a month of thinking and research what kind of topic will be enough interesting for me and my teachers, I’ve decided to make an application for iPhone. Back then(Feb 2009) this platform was not so popular, especially in Bulgarian University Sphere. The AppStore was just started to grow in geometrical progression and there was a plenty of new information that I could present to my teachers.
This was the perfect topic for me, I’ve always been passioned about Apple Hardware & Software + my expirience from old university and collegue projects about programing, there was one remaining point: To convince someone from University to monitor and guide me in my further work.
Fortunately I’ve found an assistant which was really interest in my ideas, however she did not have any experience with Objective C language. For the first time in my life I’ve started to work on project for which I was not able to share ideas or causes with my techy friends or university colleagues. Simply nobody of them was not aware of the structure and code ideas in Objective C. It was clear, that I’m at my own with this project.
Initially I’ve started to play with SDK, because as all OS X software the SDK was friendly enough, but at some point it was too hard to proceed with further development of the apps. Thank god that this year Stanford decided to put their lectures in iTunes U. It was quiet amazing, to take classes from university across the ocean about one of the most trending platforms at that time. I really enjoyed them, I also did send them a thankful email about all their lectures. This was my first tele-university-class.
After two weeks of listening and making homework, I’ve finally started to build my application, after thouse lectures it was real fun to develop. The feeling is like something like your 10th time at snowboard, you are now confident and able to start making crazy maneuvers and jumps. It took me around more two weeks to finalize it and write the documentation for it.
The application itself is not something revolutionary new or extravagant. It uses the CoreLocation functions of the iPhone to locate you and to checks for nearest objects around you. In my case I’ve chose to made up a database for ATM machines in Sofia, due their really handy in country like Bulgaria where you cannot swipe your CC everywhere. I was trying to keep it Simple and Stupid, as it should be aware that this is an application that everyone can keep in their pocket. You don’t need anything sophisticated, you just need some information and you need it quick and self explained.
Here is a demonstration of the application, recorded in iPhone Simulator + some animation for better understanding how it work. Excuse me for the Bulgarian language menus, but it was target for my Bulgarian teachers.
The application is nothing spectacular but If anyone is interested in whatever chit-chat-talk about iPhones, Mac OS X, Apple Hardware and Software I’m always glad to talk about such topics.
Till next time.