Create a Simple App for Video Recording and Playback

April 30, 2013 By Leave a Comment

In the previous post we covered how to create a simple camera app. In this post, we’re going to create a similar application but for video recording and playback.

The iOS API for recording and playing videos can be a little bit confusing for the newcomer, as there are several options available. If you just want to play a video, you can use the MediaPlayer framework, which allows us to play a video stored locally in our device, or from a remote location. However, if you need advanced features such as media asset management, media editing, track management, and others, you have to use the AVFoundation framework. This post will only cover the MediaPlayer framework.

On top of that, the MediaPlayer framework brings us two main classes to display videos or movies. If you want to display a video immediately and inline (e.g. a subview smaller than the full screen), you should use the MPMoviePlayerController. By using MPMoviePlayerController, playback occurs in a view owned by the movie player. You can incorporate a movie player’s view into a view owned by your app. On the contrary, if you want to play a full screen video, for example by presenting the video modally, you should use the MPMoviePlayerViewController class. The MPMoviePlayerViewController class is designed to present a simple view controller for displaying full-screen movies.

In this tutorial, we will explain the MPMoviePlayerController but similar concept applies to the MPMoviePlayerViewController class.

Simple Video App Tutorial

Simple Video App Tutorial


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Build a Simple Camera App Using UIImagePickerController

April 22, 2013 By 1 Comment

Previously, we covered how to use the built-in APIs to read a RSS feed and build a simple RSS Reader app. In this tutorial, we are going to learn how to use the built-in camera of the iPhone (or the iPod or iPad, if they have one) to take a photo. Also, we’ll see how to access the internal photo library and allow user to pick a photo. The iOS library provides the class UIImagePickerController which is the user interface for managing the user interaction with the camera or with the photo library. As usual, the UIImagePickerController requires the use of a delegate to respond to interactions.

To help you understand the usage of UIImagePickerController, we’ll build a simple camera app. The example application is very simple: we will have a main window with a big UIImageView to show the selected photo, and two buttons: one to take a new photo, and the other one to select a photo from the photo library.

A simple camera app tutorial

A simple camera app tutorial


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How to Create a Simple RSS Reader App

April 13, 2013 By 5 Comments

Editor’s note: we received a number of requests for a tutorial about building a RSS reader app. This week, Rafael Garcia Leiva will show you how to create a simple iPhone app to consume a RSS feed. Rafael is a senior iPhone developer author of more than a dozen applications. Currently he works as freelancer developing iPhone applications and teaching introductory and advanced courses about iPhone programming. When away from a keyboard Rafael spends his time on the mountains with his wife and three children.

Enter the RSS Reader tutorial.

In this tutorial, we are going to learn how to create a simple RSS reader application. The app will be based on a master / detail design, where the master view will display the list of available feeds, and the detail view will show the corresponding web pages.

Simple RSS Reader Tutorial

Simple RSS Reader Tutorial


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Create Static Table View Using Storyboard

March 20, 2013 By 8 Comments

After we published the iCloud programming tutorial, the first question from our readers is not about iCloud but related to the static table view. If you’ve followed our tutorials, you should have a basic understanding about table view. However, the table views that we’ve covered are of dynamic content. The “Add Note” controller that we built in the previous tutorial, on the other hand, makes use of the static table view. If you have problem with static table view, this tutorial is for you. We’ll show you how to create static table view using Storyboard.

To illustrate how easy you can use Storyboard to implement static table view, we’ll build a simple Setting screen. Static table views are ideal in situations where a pre-defined number of data items to be displayed. A setting screen is an obvious use of static table view.

Static Table View Demo App
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iOS Programming with iCloud: An Introduction

March 11, 2013 By 10 Comments

Editor’s note: This week, we work with Ziad Tamim again to give you an introduction of iCloud programming. You’ll learn how to save and retrieve data from iCloud.

In this tutorial we are going to talk about iCloud, one of the new features introduced in iOS 5. From user’s perspective, iCloud is a simple feature that allows the access of personal information from all devices wirelessly and automatically via an Apple ID. As an developer, you can use the iCloud API in the iOS SDK to integrate iCloud service in your app.

What is iCloud

Basically, iCloud is a service that helps user synchronize the data across devices. The main purpose is to let users easily put their data, whether it’s a file or document, so that they can access the data on any of their iOS devices. While you can use other cloud services for saving file or data, the core idea behind iCloud is to eliminate explicit synchronization between devices. Apple do not want users to think of the cloud servers and the syncing. Everything simply works seamlessly.

The same design philosophy also applies to developers. When you adopt iCloud, you do not need to know how to interact with the cloud server or upload data to iCloud. The iOS handles all the heavy lifting. Your focus is on the content such as managing the change of data.

iCloud Intro

How iCloud works


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Handling Single and Multiple Selection in Collection View

February 18, 2013 By 8 Comments

In the past two tutorials, we covered the basics of UICollectionView and header/footer customization. You should already know how to display items using UICollectionView. However, we haven’t covered how to interact with the collection view cell.

As mentioned before, the Collection View works in a way pretty much like Table View. But to give you a better idea, we’ll show how to interact with the collection items such as the ways to handle single and multiple item selection. To provide you with a working example of how the item selection works, we’ll continue to improve the Recipe app. Here are what we’re going to implement:

  1. To demonstrate how you can handle single selection, we’ll improve the Recipe app. When user taps a recipe photo, the app will bring up a modal view and display the photo in larger size.
  2. We’ll also implement Facebook sharing in the app in order to show you multiple item selection. Users are allowed to select multiple photos and share them on Facebook.

Recipe App Multiple Selection

The interface of the app is very simple and will not win any design award. However, it’ll give you an idea of how to interact with collection view. To spare you from setting up the Xcode project, you can download this Xcode template. Please note that the Xcode project is created using Xcode 4.6 and tested on iOS 6. If you find any problem opening/compiling the project, please upgrade your Xcode to the latest version.
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How to Add Header and Footer View in UICollectionView

January 24, 2013 By 8 Comments

Previously, we covered the basics of UICollectionView and showed you how to present items in grid layout. It’ll be interesting to spilt recipes into different sections. Let’s say, the first section contains recipes for lunch/dinner, while the other section contains recipes for drinks and desserts.

As you’ve learnt, every collection view must have a data source object providing it with content to display. Its responsibility is to provide the collection views with the following:

  • The number of sections in the collection view
  • The number of items in each section
  • The cell view for a particular data item

Obviously, the simple Recipe app we developed in the previous tutorial contains one section only. In this tutorial, we’ll continue to explore collection view and show you how to group the items into different sections. You’ll also learn how to add header or footer view to the collection view.
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Create Grid Layout Using UICollectionView in iOS 6

January 12, 2013 By 25 Comments

Do you still remember the Recipe app that we have worked on several months ago? At that time, we showed you how to display a list of recipes using UITableView. Wouldn’t be great if it can display the recipe in a nice grid view?

The iOS 6 SDK introduces a new class called UICollectionView that allows developers to create grid-like layout out of the box.

If you have no idea about grid-like layout, just take a look at the built-in Photos app. The app presents your photos in grid format. In the pre-iOS 6 world, you have to write lots of code or make use of other libraries in order to build a similar layout. The UICollectionView, in my opinion, is the most spectacular API in iOS 6. Not only it simplifies the way to arrange visual elements in grid layout, it even lets developers customize the layout (e.g. circular, cover flow style layout) without changing the data.

Grid based Photo App

In this tutorial, we will build a simple app to display a collection of recipe photos in grid layout. Here are what you’re going to learn:

  1. Introduction to UICollectionView
  2. How to Use UICollectionView to build a simple Grid-based layout
  3. Customizing the Collection Cell Background

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Core Data Part 2: Update, Delete Managed Objects and View Raw SQL Statement

December 23, 2012 By 26 Comments

This is the second article for our Core Data series. Previously, we gave you a brief introduction of Core Data and created a simple app to store all your device information. However, we only showed you how to insert records into data store through Core Data API and left out the update & delete operations.

In this tutorial, we’ll continue to work on the app and focus on the following areas of Core Data:

  • Updating or deleting an object using Core Data API
  • Viewing the raw SQL statement for debugging purpose

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Introduction to Core Data: Your First Step to Persistent Data

December 15, 2012 By 12 Comments

Editor’s note: After we published the tutorial about saving data in plist file, some readers asked about Core Data and how we can use it to save persistent information. This week, we work with Ziad Tamim, an independent iOS developer, to give you an introduction of Core Data and work with you to build a sample app using Core Data.

This tutorial talks about persistence on iPhone (or other iOS devices). What I mean by persistence is to make data that’s in your apps stay around between application launches. Persistence lets users store persistent data and also retrieve it, so that users don’t have to reenter all their data each time they use their applications. There are multiple ways to store data in iOS devices but most of them aren’t good enough to store a complicated data. They are usually used to save settings or to preload some data such as “Property List” and “Archiving Objects”. So that’s why we’ll go through Core Data to see how you can utilize it to manage data in database.

The focus of the tutorial is to provide a practical introduction of Core Data framework. I expect you’ve already gone through our tutorials about Storyboard and UITableView. I will not give in-depth explanation about how to create view controller in Storyboard but you can always refer to the earlier tutorials to gain better understanding.
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