The UDID number is a 40-digit sequence of letters and numbers, associated with every iPhone and iPod touch device, it is really easy to find if you know how to.

FOLLOW THESE EASY STEPS!

1. Connect your device with the USB cable. Start iTunes on Windows or Mac.

2. Select your iPhone/iPod under Devices menu, and open its Summary Tab.

Click for a larger version!

3. You will see the word ‘Serial Number’ there, click on it.

4. Upon clicking, the word serial number will change to ‘Identifier (UDID)’.

5. A 40-digit UDID appears, which you can copy to clipboard using command (Ctrl + C on Windows) and (Command + C on Mac).

TheMacUrl did a pretty good video demonstrating what is explained above.

This tutorial is written by Simon Thompson, creator of the new iOS developer resource www.iosdeveloperguide.com

Tweeting from within your app has become significantly easier to implement with the release of iOS5.  In the past you had the choice of writing your own Twitter integration library or using a third-party library, which could be time-consuming and confusing.  Now you can use Apple’s TWTweetComposeViewController class to handle your in-app tweeting.

In this tutorial we are going to tweet a message with a URL from within our app

Create the project

• Start by opening Xcode 4 and creating a single view application:

• Give your project a name
• Your company identifier should automatically be filled.
• Ensure that automatic reference counting and storyboards are ticked.  Automatic reference counting and storyboards are both new in iOS5.  ARC handles memory management for you so you no longer need to worry about retaining or releasing objects.  Storyboards allow you to see the entire interface layout of your app in one window and to manage transitions between view controllers – not particularly relevant in this tutorial but it’s a good thing to get into the habit of using them.

Add the Twitter framework

Before you can use the built in Twitter library you must add it to your project.

• In the project navigator window, click on the project icon.
• In the editor window, click on Build phases
• Click on the small triangle next to Link binary with libraries to view the currently linked libraries
• Click on the + symbol below the list of linked binaries
• In the dropdown box, click on Twitter.framework and then click add
• In the project navigator window click on ViewController.h and add  the following code to the top of the file to import the Twitter library header file into the class.

 Create the user interface

• In the project navigator window, select MainStoryboard.storyboard
• From the objects library, drag a round rect button onto the storyboard view

Connect the actions and outlets from the user interface to the ViewController class

• Enable the assistant editor view by clicking on the button indicated below.  This will allow you to see the header file for the ViewController class and the storyboard simultaneously.

• Control click on the round rect button and drag to the interface declaration of ViewController.h in the assistant editor view and release. In the popup box that appears make sure you change the connection type to an action and name the action “tweetTapped” before clicking connect.

Writing the code to send a tweet

Ok, that’s the fiddly stuff done.  Now we can write the code that will send our tweet.

• Switch back to standard editor mode by clicking on the square button immediately to the left of the assistant editor button.

• In the project explorer view, select ViewController.m
• Enter the following code

—————————————————————————————————————————————-

About the Author:

Simon Thompson is a freelance iOS developer and blogger who created the hit game Chase The Dot which has been downloaded over 2 million times. His blog www.iosdeveloperguide.com is a free information resource for iOS developers.

Here’s The Deal:

At the end of this post, you will be able to download the sample project that was used in the videos. Let’s get right to it.

Video 4: Adding Tap Gestures

In this video, I will add some tap gestures to the sub views at the bottom so when they are tapped, a new ViewController is pushed into the screen. You can change the way the ViewController is displayed using different animation styles. For this tutorial, we will use the standard slide-in animation.

Video 5 : Designing a Custom ViewController

In this video, you will learn how to design a custom UIViewController that shows a cover image for an article. The designs used are a subset of the Newsreader iPhone App Design Template.It will also have some metadata about the author, and the date the article was published. This new View will have a transparent navigation bar which you will see in the next video. Note: The video starts off resized and you may not be able to see much. Please wait until about 30 seconds into it and it will be correctly resized.

Video 6: Creating a Custom UIBarButtonItem and a Transparent UINavigationBar.

Talk about saving the best for last. If you have always wanted to spruce up your Navigation Bar, this is how to do it. This video will teach you how to create a transparent UINavigationBar and the custom back button. You can download the resources from this link.

Here is the link to download the sample project. If you have any questions, please let me know in the comments.

What would you like to learn?

Did this tutorial give you exactly what you were looking for? You can decide what comes up in new tutorials by letting us know what you would like to learn. All you have to do is take two minutes to answer these questions:

I will use some design resources from iPhone App Design Templates found on the Newsreader theme which you can find on App Design Vault.

At the end of this post, I will give you a link to download the final project but before then, let’s find out how to design stunning apps.
Let’s get started!.

Video 1 – iPhone Design Template – Introduction

In this video, I will walk you through the final outcome of this project and what we are trying to achieve.

Video 2 – How to Design the Cover Screen

In this video, you will learn how to add design elements to a UIViewController and how to layout the elements so they look good on the screen.

Video 3 – How to Design Custom Views in a UIViewController

In this video, you will learn how to design the three sub-views you see on the Home screen and how to add them to the main view while configuring them to have different parameters.

Watch out for Part 2

Thanks for watching the first part in this tutorial series. Part 2 will be coming up shortly so make sure you are subscribed to the Mobile Orchard feed.

If you want to download the sample project for this tutorial, you can do so here. If you have got any questions, meet me in the comment section

How to get Great Design for Your App Without Spending $2000+

Well, have no fear, there is a Vault located 5km under a bank in Switzerland packed full App templates. Tope, call him the Vault Overseer, has released a bundle of iOS App Design themes worth its weight in gold. All specially for the Mobile Orchard audience.

In this bundle, you will get four iPhone App themes. Each theme comes with:

• Over 20 design elements per theme. Sliced .PNG ready to go into you new app design.
• Sample Xcode project that will show you how to use the theme. You can be up and running in literally seconds.
• .PSD Photoshop files. Especially if you are up to the task of tweaking the theme

Here are some more details on what you get with the themes in the bundle:

Social Boo – Facebook, Twitter, Fourquare is within reach

You can use this to design your Facebook and Twitter apps and make it look amazing.

The theme has 4 screens. A list of social updates. Another screen for the user profile, a splash screen and an icon. Included in the theme are also design elements like Buttons, Progress bars etc.

PodRadio – Multimedia design on Steroids

PodRadio is a Multimedia App Theme. Do you need designs for an App that plays audio or video? PodRadio has you sorted. There is a screen with a list of Album titles, a detail screen with red glowing player controls. Fast forward, Rewind, Play, Pause, the works.

The app has a nice leather navigation bar that makes your app look classy. You can also use this navigation bar in any other apps you have.

Foody – Classy Recipe design

Recipe apps sell well on the App store. That is why Top Chefs like Jamie Oliver are coming out with their own apps too. Foody has a brown leather feel to it. It takes its inspiration from the the Find My Friends app from Apple.

This goes to prove that you can take these design concepts and use them for any kind of app.

Foody has a screen with a list of dishes, a detail screen with a list of ingredients and a framed image for the dishes.

PhotoPad – iPad PhotoBooks with a Twitter Interface.

Do you like the cool interface on the Twitter iPad App? Well, it so happens that you can use the interface for almost any kind of iPad app.

PhotoPad is the proof. It can be used to design a Photo-book app for weddings, baby photos and holidays. You get Photoshop files and the Xcode project included in the bundle.

Get the Special Deal Bundle – Only for a limited time

Each theme in the bundle is sold for $70 separately, which amounts to $280 in total. As a special discount for Mobile Orchard readers, you can get all themes in the bundle for $70.

The bundle is only available until the 5th of December, 2011 so if you think it is for you, go ahead and download it now.

Also, App Design Vault offers a lifetime money back guarantee on this deal. That’s right! If you buy it and don’t like it, you can come back to App Design Vault in 4 years and still get your money back.

The short and succinct video tutorials included in this course are perfect for getting you up to speed on the concepts necessary to build successful iOS apps. You don’t even need any programming knowledge to get started! Why hire someone else to build your apps for you when you can learn yourself on your lunch break?

With this limited-time offer, you can get the entire course for only $79! That’s more than 60% off the regular price of $199!

Check out this short intro video from the course:

What you’ll learn:

• 22 videos that walk you through iPhone and iPad development and the theory behind each. Videos cover topics like views and view controllers, memory management, and navigation controllers, among many others.
• 13 example apps with complete source code.
• Discussion boards to ask the instructor for help and discuss with other students.

About the instructor:

The class is taught by Sidwyn Koh, founder of Dive Into iOS. He’s an experienced trainer who teaches iOS development to individuals, professionals, and companies. His iOS apps have been featured on the App Store, and his portfolio includes Definition, Seesmic, FreshLook, and iTooch. Don’t you want to learn from an expert who’s created numerous successful apps? Of course you do!

The idea of changing alpha transparency is to replace the need to actually transition between various UIViews. For example, let’s say we have some text on a UIView: “James has a lot of food.” With the click of a button labeled “Eat the food,” the text will then be replaced with “James now has no more food.” Simple enough, eh?

Without alpha transparencies, this could be achieved with two UIViews, and hooking the UIButton up to an action to change between them. However, with alpha transparencies, the task becomes a lot easier, as all you have to do is change the transparencies of two UILablels. Follow along using the screenshots below!

Step One: Creating the Xcode Project

Start by creating a simple View based application. This is all you will need to do before adding code yourself.

Step Two: Editing the ViewController .m and .h Files

A common problem that’s come up when I look for tutorials on programming related subjects is that I get the instructions on HOW to do something, but never really a good explanation on what each line of code does and WHY they work together the way they do. I’ll be doing my best to fix this in all of my AppDev Weekly tutorials.

Anyways, let’s start by editing the ViewController.h file, the .h suffix meaning a header file. Once you’re in, we’re going to create two UILabels, which we will then hook up using Interface Builder. Basically, by defining two variables, “text1″ and “text2,” we are telling Xcode that there are going to be two labels, one identified as text1, the other as text2. Obviously, it does’t matter what names you use for the variables.

Creating the UILabels is extremely simple, just base your code off of the screenshot below:

Now, let’s synthesize the two variables we created in the header file in the main (.m) file. Navigate to ViewController.m and @synthesize these two variables. That’s it for now, check out the screenshot below:

Part 3: Going Into Interface Builder

Now let’s start getting into Interface Builder. Navigate to ViewController.xib (the .xib means that it is an IB file) and drag in two UILabels and one UIButton from the object library. Going back to the example above, let’s change the text in these accordingly:

But simply dragging in these interface elements is not enough. We must also hook up variables in the Connections inspector. Click on “File’s Owner” in the “Placeholders” left sidebar, the click and drag to connect the “text1″ variable to “James has a lot of food.” and the “text2″ variable to “James now has no more food.” Once you’re done, it should look something like this:

Part 4: Setting up the UIButton

Now all that’s left to do is to create an IBAction so that the UIButton “Eat the food” will change the transparencies of the text. To do this, create an IBAction in ViewController.h with the code:

-(IBAction) eat;

Next, hook up the IBAction to the UIButton in the ViewController.xib file, similar to the way you hooked up the two UILabel variables. The action “eat” will show up in the Connections inspector, just drag it to the “Eat the food” button and choose “Touch Up Inside.”

From there’ you’re all set to go to ViewController.m and make the magic happen.

In the viewDidLoad method (this code will be run the moment the app successfully loads) type:

text2.alpha = 0;

This will set the alpha of text2 (the text that will show up after we press the button) to zero (a.k.a. hide it.) Then create a new -(IBAction) called “eat,” which was what we defined as an IBAction in the ViewController.m file. In the -(IBAction), we need to change the transparency of “text1″ to 0 (hide it,) and the transparency of “text2″ to 1 (show it.) Here’s the code:

And that’s it! You’re all set!

Now let’s see it in action:

Here’s what the app looks like when we just run it:

Now let’s click the “Eat the food” button!

As you can see, text1 was hidden and text2 showed up when the button was clicked.

Need more help? Send me an email at itracki@itracki.com or download the source code for this project here.

As this is my first article that I’ll be contributing to MobileOrchard, I feel that this it’s fitting that I should discuss a few tips for the aspiring indie developers who want to create an app and make it explode on the App Store. Being an indie developer myself on the iOS platform, as well as having several years of experience in other programming languages, I’ve gathered a few things from my experience that I feel a lot of developers miss. Here they are, so you can avoid the mistakes that time and time again I have seen others make. This will be the first installment in a series of articles that I’ll be writing, focusing on how to get your potential customers to tap that beloved “Buy Now” button. Today, we’ll be covering the fact that FIRST IMPRESSIONS COUNT. Reader, read on to find out how to build a strong reputation for yourself on the App Store, and strike potential customers with a good first impression of your app.

Reputation is built from impressions, and we’ve all heard that first impressions are important. The first impression that the potential buyer of your app will consist of three things: The app name, your name (or your company’s name), and most importantly, the app icon. When they’re flipping through the scores of apps all showcased in rows on the App Store, how do you make your app stand out?

First thing, your (or your company’s) name. If you’ve already registered yourself as an app developer, then there’s really nothing more you can do here, as your name will stay the same for as long as you are using that developer account. Really, this isn’t all that important, and the truth is, if you have a solid app that has been marketed well then you could go by “StoopiidAppz” on the App Store and there would still be a swarm of people purchasing your app. But just keep in mind that your name is your reputation; it’s how people recognize you on the App Store. Pat of the reason why developers such as Gameloft and Electronic Arts have such high app sales is because they are known for the great gaming experience that their apps bring. Each app they release is featured by a multitude of app review websites and mobile gaming websites, because we know that they won’t let us down with a poor title. With steady 4-5 star ratings by hundreds, their reputation is really one crucial reason that their apps are as successful as they are.

Secondly, your app name. Finding a name that stands out from the general crowd is difficult. Your app name must be short, so it does not run off into the dot dot dots that Apple has replaced your lovely name with because it’s too long. It must also be insightful, providing the customer with a sense of what exactly your app will do. It must be interesting, creative, or even a bit mysterious. There are probably a few hundred apps that you can find if you search the word “flashlight,” but unless you place in the top couple of them, you’re not going to get found. Your app title must be all, or at least a majority of these things, so that you can entice people to raise their finger and tap into the app for more information. My suggestion is, develop your app first, then think of a name. The longer you give yourself to come up with a decent name for your app, the better the name will turn out to be.

Finally, the app icon. This is, without a doubt, the most crucial thing that customers when look at when considering to find out more about your app. Many indie devs out there who have issues with getting their app noticed most likely do not have an app icon that will attract people to their app. If you’re a developer and not a graphic designer, and are willing to invest some money into your app, I would actually suggest that you pay a professional to design the icon; it really makes a big difference. Besides that, here are some tips that you should keep in mind when designing an app icon:

• Don’t put too many words in your icon. If you’re designing a flashlight app, don’t make your icon a solid background with the words “Flashlight.” People look for the purpose that your app serves in the title of the app, not the app icon. Putting the words “lite” or “free” is okay if you’re releasing a lite version of your app, though.
• Don’t use the automatic emboss effects in your app icon. Truly, it’s done too much and gets in the way of the detail that you really need in your app icon (more on that in the next tip.)
• Put a lot of detail into your app icon. While it’s true that it’s only 57×57 or 114×114 pixels, you’ll find that a lot of the pro app developers have an incredible amount of detail in the app icon, putting in their efforts to maximize the effect of every pixel. Just because the icon looks small doesn’t mean that you can’t make it look amazing.
• Don’t throw something together. The LAST THING you want is a great app with a sloppy app icon. Truth is, people judge by looks. And you’re not going to get very many looks into your app if you have a messy app icon that was put together in ten minutes.

If you’re familiar with app development already, you’ll know that although the app icon is only 57×57 or 114×114 pixels (depending on if retina display is supported on your device or not) Apple actually requires you to provide them with a 512×512 pixel app icon as well. The way I usually approach the design of the icon is by sketching on a piece of computer paper, where it’s easier to see and control what exactly you’re doing. Do some thumbnail sketches of various possible designs for the icon, then pick one that you like and make some more detailed, larger drawings of it. Add color using colored pencils or something, then prepare to design it using Photoshop or Fireworks or your other preferred image editing software.

Even if you’re going to hire a pro to design your app icon, you should still make some sketches to give them an idea of what you’re looking for. App icon design is really a bigger deal that what some people make it. It should be a process that takes days or weeks, not just an hour or something like that.

Remember, first impressions count. The first impressions you’re app is going to get consists of your (or your company’s) name, your app name, and most importantly, the app icon. Time, creativity, and thought should go into all three of these things. The whole idea is to get potential customers to tap into your app, so they can get more information and (if you do things right) tap that “Buy Now” button. Next in the series, optimizing your app description and screenshots.

Dad to son: “Don’t spend it all in one place”

I remember as a child, although infrequently, receiving money from my parents for a number of reasons. Monetary reward would come from performing chores, good grades and birthday events. Receiving this fine coinage would always be accompanied with the phrase “Don’t spend it all in one place!”…. and while my father’s intentions really weren’t for me to spread my cash across multiple places, he did attempt to warn me against spending my money foolishly. Growing up my father was always delivering sound bites on money management regardless of how much they were ignored, but the point was eventually digested and I soon better understood how to spend my money. In the way that my father educated me, we as game developers need to educate our users on how to operate or “spend” money in the virtual game economies that we create.

Currency introduced through gameplay

The best way to teach is through action. Encourage your user to take action that requires spending virtual currency. Always reinforce the spending with a positive experience so that a user knows spending money is valuable. All successful simulation games on the mobile market today introduce currency as unique steps in their tutorial… or at least require it be used within the first few sessions of gameplay.

Quarters, Nickels and Dimes

Many games these days have multiple currency types know as premium (primary) currency and secondary currency. Primary currency typically is defined as being rare and tightly tied to real dollar value while secondary currency can be easy to earn and readily accessible. Depending on the game, you can choose to charge real dollars for both premium and secondary currencies or simply just premium. Make sure to introduce both currencies during game but do so separately. Be careful to introduce users to your currency all in one step or action. Spread out the introduction over a series of steps so that they can fully grasp how the decisions they make regarding their purchases affect gameplay.

Missions vs. Tutorial

Next week we will talk about the differences of missions vs. tutorials and the value each play in a mobile gaming environment.

Do you have a question about freemium gaming or a topic you’d like us to explore? Let us know in the comments or catch us on twitter @rechargestudios or @w3i.

Freemium Game Blogs are published in partnership with the series on W3i’s corporate blog.

Matt Tubergen heads Recharge Studios, a wholly owned subsidiary of W3i that invests in the development and marketing/distribution of freemium mobile games.  W3i is a market leader in distributing and monetizing apps with over 500 million apps distributed for W3i clients. Recharge Studios is actively seeking new investment opportunities, if you have a great idea for a game contact us.