The new version of TestFlight comes with an SDK that allows developers to make their beta testing process a lot more involved, and it provides improved tools for gathering feedback. Feedback and communication are key to a successful beta test (which is why I’m not a great tester myself), and the new features available to developers through TestFlight’s API are all about improving information flow between devs and testers.

Highlights of what developers can look forward to include:

• In-App Questions. Trigger questions at specific checkpoints to get feedback from users as they’re using the software exactly at points where you think there might be an issue.
• In-App Updates. Make sure your test group is on the same page with in-app update prompts, which also allow you to update to the latest version instantly over the air.
• Feedback. In-app forms and tester email responses all feed into the developer dashboard and allow for instant replies between tester and coder.

There’s more, too, so be sure to head over to the official TestFlight website and check it out if you’re interested. Developers and testers alike can still sign up for free, too, and all of these new features arrive as free updates for existing and new users alike. Inevitably, TestFlight will have to bring some tiered paid options or advertising to the table to keep things going, but judging by developer response and its adoption by big brands so far, it won’t have too much trouble getting people to pay for the product when it does.

As for general consumers, even if you never actually use or see TestFlight in action, you’ll probably feel its effects: A better beta process with more communication options built in should lead to better shipping products popping up in the App Store.

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I know, you’re saying “Why not just learn Objective-C? You’re so lazy.” I wanted to test the waters first before I spent a lot of time learning a new programming language. I’m sure there are many other options out there but these are the ones I have looked at.

PhoneGap

PhoneGap is a free open source development tool that allows you to build apps using JavaScript. There is support for iPhone, Android & Blackberry environments. This was the first tool I learned about and it really intrigued me. PhoneGap is designed for someone with HTML and JavaScript knowledge. It will provide a bridge into the iPhone development world.

The first thing you do in install PhoneGap’s library installer and template into Xcode. Now you can choose to create a “PhoneGap-based Application.” This will give you a starting point and it will create all the files that are needed to begin. The idea is that you can build your app like a website. You use HTML and JavaScript as you would if you were creating a web app. There are some native features you can use such as Accelerometer & GPS. It still may be a little tough since the documentation is a little sparse. It’s still young though and they are heading in the right direction.

RhoMobile

RhoMobile is similar to PhoneGap but much more polished. Commercial apps require a licensing fee and that’s why you get so much more. RhoMobile also has support for all current mobile OS’s, synchronized data plans, Ruby support and a web-based development service called RhoHub.

It’s a very nice package and definitely a step up from PhoneGap. They also use special HTML tags to access native features like GPS, contacts, camera, maps and push. Visual style is also very important and that’s why they integrated styling based off of iUI to keep everything feeling native.

The RhoHub editor looks very nice and their sync features are also inviting. The problem I have is the price. I’m already going to be $99 down just to become a developer and I don’t want to risk more money while I’m testing the waters. RhoMobile charges $500 per app and if you use their RhoSync server it starts at $5,000 for 100 users.

I love what they’re doing but I don’t want to commit that much yet. They understand this and even talk about it on their FAQ page.

“Some of our best customers have graduated from a simpler framework.”

Someday I may try them out but not this early in the game.

Titanium

Titanium is similar to RhoMobile, but it’s free. It makes money by offering professional plans that give you premium support, beta access and more in-depth analytics data. I don’t need those features yet so the free version works perfect for me.

The big push with Titanium is keeping things native. It uses JavaScript to talk to the iPhone OS and complete tasks using native elements whenever possible. This allows you to create an app that looks and feels like a truly native app.

Titanium is a developer application in itself so you don’t have to work in Xcode. Everything is run off of JavaScript and HTML files that you can edit in your editor of choice. It’s just like creating a website except for the special JavaScript calls that it has developed.

It is actually easier to use the native elements it provides than to try to create the iPhone look using HTML. It has a great example app called Kitchen Sink which shows you everything that can be done. If you like what you see, find the source file and see how their developers did it. I like learning this way and it allowed me to advance and get comfortable pretty quickly.

A lot of other steps have to be taken on the Apple Dev Center site to allow you to test apps on your devices and submit them to the store such as provisioning & distribution profiles. Once you take care of all your profile downloads and testing, Titanium can create a zip file that’s ready to be uploaded to Apple. I was very impressed by how easy this was. I used Titanium to test my apps in the iPhone simulator, on my iPhone and then created the file that was ready to submit.

Conclusion

To get into iPhone developing, I was willing to spend the $99 Apple wanted, but that was it. Until I could make that money back, I wasn’t interested in paying for anything else. Now that I see the backend and have actually made some money, the idea of paying for development is more appealing.

If you are ready to take the plunge, I would look at Titanium. You’ll get the native elements without having to learn Objective-C. If you have a some money to spend, and perhaps a more complicated app, RhoMobile may be the answer. If you have a lot of money to spend then why not hire a developer who could bang it out for you in a week? It all depends on what you want to get out of the experience.

Now that I have done a few apps using Titanium, I am interested in learning and using Apple’s SDK tools. I hope I can find the time and the willpower to learn a new programming language. It would be the logical final step in my iPhone journey. I started by making web apps and to finish by making native apps just makes sense. If you have a good idea for an app then go for it, the most you’ll be out is $99 and some time.

Since the iPad and iPhone SDKs are so very close in core functionality, SDK Miners have been trying to unearth something (anything!) we didn’t already know about the iPad. I suspect most people simply glance over these reports, shrug, and move on without comment. After all, we’re a bit tired of tablet rumors by now, right? But looking at some of the comments in the articles (linked below), there are some people who take it all very seriously indeed. And that’s probably a mistake, as I’ll explain shortly.

Before I do, here’s a quick rundown of what we think we know so far from the SDK Mining that has happened in the last five weeks.

January 29

Engadget confirmed that the OS SDK contained support for Video Calling, File Downloads, SMS and even Handwriting input;

We’re told that there are hooks to accept and decline a video conference, flip a video feed (which suggests a front-facing camera) and — most importantly — run the video call in either full screen mode or in just a portion of the screen. That means you’ll be able to chat and do other things at the same time, which could mean there’s at least some type of multitasking going on here.

Engadget’s Nilay Patel adds in an update;

…there’s a spell checker with multiple dictionaries and user-added entries (huzzah!), much richer text support for apps, the ability to selectively draw to external displays (using the VGA or component adapters, we’d imagine), location-aware ads in Maps and possibly other programs that use the Maps API, file upload ability in Safari, a modifiable cut / copy / paste menu, and, most interestingly, prototype support for a “handwriting keyboard.” Maybe we’ll see some stylus action on this thing after all.

In all, Patel lists no fewer than 18 new discoveries, though many of them are pretty dry and technical.

After that, things fell quiet for a while, until just this week.

February 20

9to5Mac reported discovering a set of icons in the 3.2 SDK it believes are “pretty definitive evidence” for video calling functionality in a future iPhone or iPad device.

Image by 9to5Mac

It also found strings of code that refer to iChat, too, but didn’t speculate further. It did say;

While it is possible that Apple brought code over from its Mac telephony products, it is unlikely that they also built icons and compressed them into the iPad SDK for such a product if it weren’t being built for future release.

February 23

MacRumor’s Arnold Kim added to the fresh wave of SDK Mining reports with this graphic of the icons used in the video chat functionality;

Image by MacRumors

Kim writes;

It seems Apple built in API support to test to see if your iPad had a Front Facing Camera, Zoom and a Camera Flash. The front facing camera would, of course, be used for video chat, while Zoom and Camera Flash are often requested features for the iPhone’s camera.

Given the size of these buttons, they were intended for use on the the iPad’s screen rather than the iPhone. We’re not sure why these features were dropped…

And finally, just today, MacNN brings us news of (wait for it) advanced wallpaper options.

Image by MacNN

Well. Be still my beating heart. From MacNN;

In the current iPad simulator, users can now set separate lock- and homescreen wallpapers, reflecting the iPad’s ability to keep wallpaper active while navigating icons. In case the difference doesn’t matter, another button applies the same wallpaper to both screens.

The Disappointment of SDK Mining

While it’s fun to poke-around in the code (in the absence of an actual iPad to play with, it’s the next best thing!), SDK Mining often leads to disappointment. An operating system — even a ‘small’ OS like the one found on the iPhone or iPad — is hugely complex. It’s the end-product of years of development. In that time, as hardware and software prototypes came-and-went, functionality was added and removed, supported and dropped, many times over. This is common to any OS development process.

We need to be careful when reading breathless reports of “hidden” functionality in the iPad (or iPhone) SDKs. In the reports above, the code references camera features, proving that, at some point, Apple’s developers seriously explored that functionality. That doesn’t mean a camera is guaranteed to appear on the iPad. (For instance, just because I once learned how to ride a bike, it doesn’t guarantee I’ll become an avid cyclist.)

So let’s enjoy the speculation — but not get too worked-up over what it might mean. After all, it might never happen.

Alongside the army of consumers and tech pundits waiting for a peek of the aptly named iPad, the over 25,000 strong development community have been patiently standing on the sidelines too.

Taking several leaps forward in terms of its processing power and onboard hardware, the device includes Apple’s own chip, said Jobs, “It’s called the A4, and it screams.” Most exciting for developers with iPhone apps already on sale is that Apple has made the transition up to iPad as smooth as possible.

Since the device’s Home Screen is essentially a facsimile of the iPhone Home Screen, developers won’t have to worry about creating new icons or other assets in order to port the app across. In fact, as stated by Apple themselves, the iPad can run all iPhone apps unmodified out of the box.

The big announcement for the dev community is that Apple are releasing the new SDK today. Just like the user experience is somewhat like a big iPhone, development will take place within the iPhone SDK and — thanks to the device’s app scaling feature — developers won’t even have to worry about creating content in the larger device’s resolution.

It’s unclear whether Apple will also take steps to update its Developer Connection site, that unusually clunky web-based tool-set and administration area for App Store developers.

Most interesting though will be seeing how developers leverage the additional processing power that the iPad includes. Developers can grab the new SDK from Apple.com today.

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ngmoco’s Plus+

The company who dazzled your iPhone with hits like Rolando, Rolando 2, Topple (my favorite) and others, recently introduced their service called Plus+. This service allows users to challenge your friends on the network (or via Twitter) and track awards and top scores on leaderboards.

For more information, check out Darrell’s review of the service. From what I have been able to find, the Plus+ service is not open to outside developers at this time.

OpenFeint

If you are a fan of Aurora Feint, you’ve likely heard of their social gaming service called OpenFeint. This service allows users to interact similarly to Plus+, but is based around a concept they call “social discovery.” Some unique features to OpenFeint-enabled games include chat rooms for more open social discussion, the ability to see what other OpenFeint-enabled games your friends might be playing (and buy them from within the app), and the largest user base of games supporting its service, with over 100 games based on OpenFeint.

For developers, if you’re interested in integrating OpenFeint into your next masterpiece, its SDK is free to try and is available here. The size of your user base, or if an app is paid vs. free, determines the cost per user for developers to integrate OpenFeint’s service into their applications.

Scoreloop

Another service to enter this market is Scoreloop, a company and service formed by previous Apple and NeXT employees. Scoreloop is based around the simple objectives of global high scores and player challenges. Much like the other services, it also features integration with social networks such as Facebook, and allows for custom avatars and personalized profiles for tracking records and high scores. Scoreloop’s “economy” is based around coins, which helps to provide a unified scoring system between games, allowing users to maintain their collection of coins and gain or lose more via challenging other players.

While perhaps not as fully featured as other services, like OpenFeint, Scoreloop is, however, the first to announce that it is working to release its service on other devices, such as the Android platform. With a larger target market and a cheaper cost of entry for developers, Scoreloop could easily become more popular than OpenFeint (not to mention it’s user interface is more customizable to fit your application). For developers interested in Scoreloop, check out their free SDK here. Bug Landing, by the Scoreloop developers, is also a free application that features integration with this service.

Will one rise above the rest?

As Twitter became popular, we saw a plethora of competitors enter the market, from Plurk to Jaiku to Pownce. At the moment, a similar effect is starting to happen among these social networking services. Where on the console platform, each manufacturer has produced their own service, Apple has yet to bring any sort of unified service to its users. Since we all have an Apple ID for iTunes, Apple could easily integrate a beautiful solution so you can keep one central list of your gaming friends, awards and achievements.

Will Apple continue to stand by and allow multiple social gaming network services to evolve on the iPhone platform, or will they step in to offer their own service?

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In the notification email from Apple, they also cover existing apps already available in the App Store. According to them, all apps should (theoretically) already be compatible with the new software. In my experience, this isn’t exactly true, with some very odd behavior coming from some apps, like eBay mobile not letting me successfully sign in. There are other quirks as well, but hopefully devs take this last month to test and correct both of those so that when iPhone 3.0 officially launches people don’t encounter the same annoying ticks that beta testers have experienced.

Bad user experience isn’t the only thing devs have to fear if they don’t make sure their existing apps play nice with the new software, though. Apple notes in the email that should any app prove incompatible with iPhone 3.0 once it goes live, they reserve the right to remove it from the App Store. Hopefully this isn’t just an empty threat, because it could help trim at least some of the vaporware fat from the store.

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The new iTunes pre-release is stealing the spotlight this time around, thanks to a mention in the “About iTunes” legalese of Blu-ray (screenshot above) among other formats mentioned in conjunction with Gracenote, the software used to gather track information when CDs or other media are played back in Apple’s media jukebox app. Many are speculating that this could foretell the coming of the sometimes maligned video disc format to the Mac platform.

Before you get too excited, though, realize (as Gizmodo points out) that the same legal content in iTunes 8.1.1 (the current version) didn’t list DVD, so the inclusion of Blu-ray doesn’t necessarily indicate anything. Unless, of course, it indicates an upcoming ability to play back (folding DVD Player into iTunes and getting rid of the separate app) and/or import from both sources, in addition to CDs. Now that’s tantalizing.

On the iPhone side, there are some nice new features that I actually am really happy to finally see included. The “Store” menu that showed up in previous builds, but that didn’t actually have any content, now lets you sign in and out of your iTunes account, and view and change your account payment details and credit card information. The less dependent on iTunes the iPhone becomes, the better, in my opinion, and this virtually cuts the cord. Now we just need wireless syncing.

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We know they don’t like it, since they recently took steps to try and make it illegal, but now Apple is letting developers know directly that they won’t stand for any jailbreaking funny business on their part, either.

The news from Ars Technica comes via changes to the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement, which is part of signing up for the iPhone Developer Program itself. Updates to the Agreement now prevent developers from jailbreaking their own phones, assisting in jailbreaking efforts, and developing apps for use with jailbroken devices. The exact wording of the new clauses are as follows:

(e)You will not, through use of the Apple Software, services or otherwise, create any Application or other program that would disable, hack or otherwise interfere with the Security Solution, or any security, digital signing, digital rights management, verification or authentication mechanisms implemented in or by the iPhone operating system software, iPod touch operating system software, this Apple Software, any services or other Apple software or technology, or enable others to do so; and

(f) Applications developed using the Apple Software may only be distributed if selected by Apple (in its sole discretion) for distribution via the App Store or for limited distribution on Registered Devices (ad hoc distribution) as contemplated in this Agreement.

Basically, Apple’s now gone and drawn a line in the sand. It’ll be interesting to see how high-profile developers like Ars Technica’s own Erica Sadun, who has a foot planted firmly in both the legit and the jailbroken community, react to this latest development. Apple has the advantage of commerce on their side, but can they really twist the arm of independent developers who are only developing free apps to begin with? It’s still not clear whether they can do much beyond booting people out of the Developer Program for any violation, which it seems to me will only serve to strengthen the ranks of the jailbreaking community.

Apple’s probably hoping that this will curtail insider knowledge of development builds and SDK updates, which would hopefully hamper the ability of the DevTeam and others to jailbreak new OS updates so quickly (the newest version of 3.0, for instance, can already be jailbroken on Windows). I seriously doubt the effectiveness of the new clauses, however, until Apple shows that they have some teeth by providing a real-life example of what the consequences of violating the new rules are.

Rather than trying to close their fist on this issue, Apple should really be looking to address the problems that drive developers to the jailbreaking community to begin with. That means making serious changes to the app submission/review process, and taking a look at the strict set of rules they impose on anyone who wants to develop legitimately for their devices.

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While the former only “improves QuickTime compatibility with iChat,” the iTunes update “improves stability and performance” and:

• addresses a quality issue creating MP3s on some computers
• fixes a connectivity issue with the iTunes Store when using some Internet proxies with Mac OS X
• improves accessibility with VoiceOver

The H.264 update will require a restart and I strongly suggest performing all iPhone/iPod Touch updates before upgrading iTunes (always reduce the number of potential things that can go wrong). Both installation packages are available via Software Update and should be available in the download section of Apple’s support site later today. The iTunes installation package is available at the usual download location.

The most impressive part of all these updates is how well the Apple file servers have held up under the load and how much their QA processes have improved. The iPhone update downloaded very quickly and the entire backup/update procedures went very smoothly. iTunes did not clobber my libraries and I had no issues with the Apple TV 2.3 update (yes, I was willing to give up Boxee for a peek at the new “official” features). The SDK download went faster than any other one I have attempted to grab and install, and it successfully compiled and installed one of my in-development apps without incident.

Let’s hope Apple manages to make this the “new normal” for all their updates.

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The SDK and the success of the App Store have combined to create an emerging professional category, that of iPhone application developer.

According to oDesk, a technology outsourcer billing itself as the “leading marketplace and global IT platform for outsourcing technology jobs to certified, freelance, Apple iPhone developers”, demand has risen for iPhone-related positions from 30 to upwards of 140 jobs per month over the past six months.

While the numbers are drawn from internal oDesk records only, such a steep increase is unlikely to be an isolated phenomenon. Nor is oDesk’s sample pool a limited one, since they have representation in over 100 countries worldwide, including major markets like the U.S. and China.

Though some of the growth followed immediately after the announcement of the iPhone SDK availability, the most significant growth came after last July, when the App Store officially opened for business. No doubt the impressive download numbers that continue to come out of Cupertino are beginning to catch the attention of the wait-and-see corporate crowd.

If the numbers are a good representation of a wider trend, then there are a few things to take away from this rapid growth.

First, it might indicate the specific nature of Apple’s recent educational initiatives. As the marketplace becomes more discerning, accreditation will be more important to potential employers. Considering Apple’s pick for the Apple U job, they are clearly getting serious about academic laurels, and a new field hungry for certification is a good reason to do so.

Second, expect to see a lot more movie and product tie-ins like the Dark Knight’s Jokering-app, and the recently released Bolt-related game from Disney. For companies, hiring freelancers to develop a quick iPhone application is a cheap way to heighten brand awareness.

Finally, expect more conflict over intellectual property. Stringers and freelancers always bring in issues of confidentiatility and proprietary information, and with so many in the fray, the iPint/iBeer situation is unlikely to be just a one-off.

The question now is whether the demand for developers continues to grow, or plateaus and shrinks once the App Store loses its novelty value or competitors like BlackBerry and Google gain ground.

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