GDC 2011

It commences after a long flight I finally made it.  GDC 2011 is here one of the largest gatherings for game makers on the planet.  I find myself back in San Francisco, in the middle of all the action.  I'm not really sure what to expect; but I hope  I get a good deal of information from it.  

Grandpa's Farm

Our new app release has been doing well, we are currently ranking around 40th in Educational games.  This game is geared towards the toddler, so if you have one check it out here.

If you want to take a look at a quick walkthrough of the app check out this video.

Also check out this video review, of a happy customer.

Later...

NTAVManager Class

I was working on a simple project where I needed to track a large number of AVPlayer resources. I decided to create a class Manager/Factory to keep track of the resources and avoid duplicates. The class implements the Factory and Singleton patterns.

Both of these patterns are pretty simple; the singleton guarantees only on instance of the manager class preventing duplicates of AVPlayer objects. The manager class uses the file name descriptor to reference the object. If the object does not exists the manager will create the object and store a copy. I recommend placing the filenames inside of constant definitions, this way the compiler can catch any type-o's.

In order to help with memory management I've included two function tidyUpMemory and flushMemory. Flush will remove all the objects in the store. TidyUpMemory will iterate through each object and check the last access time. If the last access time is greater than the defined interval it will remove the object, leaving behind objects that are being used. The access time on the objects are updated every time you use an object.

You can find the project with a simple demo here:iOS-AVManager-Class

Let me know what you think.

Releasing an App on iTunes

Its been so long since I posted anything, I've been so busy working on a new kids app, haven't had much time. If you're about to embark on building an app for the iPhone don't under estimate the marketing of your app. Many time us engineers focus on building the app and not how to really sell it. My app is currently around the top 200 in games->entertainment, trying to work on this by focusing on the PR for the app. At this stage of the game the store has so much competition it's difficult to have your app noticed. A good idea might be to focus on a niche, this might help with the marketing, focusing your resources on a small group of users.

MacWorld 2010

With all the turmoil surrounding MacWorld and the absence of Apple, I decided last minute to attend MacWorld this year.  Just in case this would be the last one.  While I'm not really sure if the show was a success; mainly because I've never been it seemed to me to be doing just fine.  I really enjoyed the presentations by David Pogue, Kevin Smith and Leo Laporte; which were part of the Exhibition Only pass, my favorite was Leo Laporte's show mainly because he is a geek icon.  So in order to improve my geek cred I took a picture with Leo.

While the shows were very good I saw many cool products.  I'm kind of a bag and case junkie, and the guys from Trexta has some nice products.  One of my favorite products which has not been released is this bag:

 This seemed to be the only laptop bag they had on their show floor; they weren't able to tell me when they would release it or price; so I guess we have to wait.  Some of their other products where available on Amazon, here is one of them:

The iHug a pendant style carrying case for the iPhone, I see this geared more to the ladies.  Especially the ones that are always leaving their phones behind.  This case sells for $24.99 at amazon you find the Trexta iHug Here.

The Kabuk is not available yet; but this case was good in a nerdy kind of way.  You ware it on your belt the case flips forward and it exposes your iPhone.  While the phone seem to be nice and snug in this case it was simple to take out to answer a call.  

This case is perfect for the doodler in your life, allow them to express themselves on their iPhones.  The construction of all their cases looked really good.  This one had the benefit of allowing you to draw on it to really personalize your iPhone.  Unfortunately this case is not available yet; keep an eye out for it on Amazon or on their website Trexta.com

Comeback later for more products I found interesting.