iPhone App Development

Here’s some useful things to consider if you want to use AppFurnace for iPhone App Development.

The iPhone is one of Apple’s most successful products. It runs an operating system called iOS and this operating system is also used on the iPod Touch and the iPAD products.

When you develop an AppFurnace app it can run on all three devices as long as they have iOS version 5.2 or higher. However some of the features that you can use in AppFurnace are not possible on all of the devices because they don’t have the necessary features. For example the location triggers will only work if the device has GPS and the QR code scanner is only possible in devices that have a phone. So it is important to consider which devices your audience will mainly use and adapt your design accordingly. Often this will be by providing alternate interfaces for less capable devices.

The iPhone and iPod Touch have the same screen size which is 320 by 480 pixels. However the iPhone 4 upwards have retina displays with 640×960 resolution even though they are the same physical size. This means that you should design all of your images at double their size to look sharp on the retina displays. For more information look at the help for the image-widget.

The iPad screen size is 1024 × 768 pixels. An app that is designed for the iPhone can run unaltered at twice its size on the iPad. However Apple encourage designers to have different interfaces for iPad versions of an app that take advantage of the larger screen. A good example of how designs can differ can be seen from the Guardian iPhone and iPad apps.

Once you have made and tested your app you are ready to publish. The thing to remember about iPhone apps is that Apple reviews every submission and only if the app passes the review criteria will the app get published. In AppFurnace publication is the point at which we will ask you for money for use of the platform that has allowed you to create your app. Once you have paid you will get five credits for that app. You use up a credit each time the app gets submitted to Apple. So if your app gets rejected and you have to amend and re-submit it that will be another credit used. Hopefully your app will be accepted first time around which means you still have a few credits left for subsequent updates. It is worth reading this help article on how to make sure Apple don’t reject your app.