It's Raining Zombies To Be Released Soon

For the past year, I have been working on a mobile game for Android and iOS devices. This game was developed with Unity Engine and will be first released on the Android Play Store in about a month then  I will release on the App Store.

It's Raining Zombies is a pixel style top-down shooter with influences from games like Minigore and Minecraft and will debut on the Play Store for $0.99.

If you're interested in the development of this game or just want to find out more information, check out the blog setup here: itsrainingzombies.blogspot.com

Major Company Enters Jailbreak Community

Ever since the United States Library of Congress confirmed that jailbreaking was completely legal, many rejoiced at this ruling, calling it a new era of jailbreaking. But up until now, we have not seen any of the direct effects of this ruling on jailbreaking. Apple still refuses to allow users to jailbreak and patches any system vulnerabilities with OS updates.

Now, the first large corporation has entered the jailbreaking community.Toyota has released a theme under their Scion brand into Cydia under the ModMyi repository. The theme utilizes the full extent of the jailbreaking app Winterboard with custom icons, carrier logo, wallpapers, and sliders.

With an estimated number of 10-15 million users with a jailbroken iPod, iPhone, or iPad, other companies may submit themes into Cydia to advertise their product. This means that Apple may have to eventually recognize the significance of the open source iOS device. This also could mean that other companies that create products that are high in demand (like Adobe Flash) may come to Cydia to distribute their apps because Apple does not allow them into the App Store.

Either way, it seems like it is a win-win situation for the jailbreakers and the companies making themes. The future looks bright for all those who jailbreak.

Fake Code Signing for Xcode and sending App to Cydia

If you have downloaded and installed Xcode to your computer and you don't want to pay Apple the $100 to test your application on your device or to submit it to Cydia, you can create a certificate to fool Xcode into allowing you to fully build and test your application.

The following steps will describe how to create this certificate, deploy it into Xcode, and a few steps on how to submit your application to Cydia once you're done creating it.

These steps are the same on a Mac or a virtual machine to run OS X.

1. Watch this video and follow it's instructions:




2.Once you've finished creating your app, Ctrl+Click the application's name and click on Get Info.

3. Navigate to the Full Path of the application, this is the file you will be submitting.

4. Go to http://modmyi.com/devportal and fill out all the details. They will email you once your package is in Cydia.

AT&T and Verizon United by Apple Commercial

Since the release of the iPhone 4 for Verizon, and even before, the competition between AT&T and Verizon has been heating up with each throwing out new commericials saying that their service is better in one area or another.

Now Apple has released a new commercial joining both carriers through the iPhone saying that two is better than one.

Verizon iPhone Officially Announced

After months of speculation and hoping by many of AT&T's frustrated users, Verizon has officially announced the arrival of the CDMA-compatible iPhone.

The new iPhone, for the most part looks the same as the iPhone for AT&T but there are some subtle changes done to it. For example, the location of the antenna has been changed (this looks to fix the deathgrip issue).

Pre-orders for the phone for Verizon customers will begin February 3 and availability will start on February 10 for other customers. Costing $199 for the 16GB model and $299 for the 32 GB model with a two year contract.

The iPhone 4 for Verizon can be used like a Mi-Fi device. This means that the iPhone can share its 3G connection with up to 5 other Wi-Fi enabled devices. This trumps AT&T's tethering.

Installing iOS SDK and Xcode on Windows 7 [Updated]

Update 2: August 17, 2011 The TechExxpert guide has been updated to fully allow Xcode 4.1 to work. Sorry that the past fixes did not work. Thanks for the comments! Please let me know if this guide works/doesn't work.

Update: This guide has been modified to the latest updates as of August 2, 2011 including the latest Xcode 4.1 and OS X Lion 10.7.

Apple has been adamantly refusing to create an iPhone SDK support for Windows-based machines. Luckily, there is a work around to be able to fully run the iOS SDK and Xcode support for most all PC's.

The following steps involve installing a virtual machine on your PC, updating the virtual machine to 10.7 , then running the machine and downloading and installing the iOS SDK and Xcode on to the virtual machine.

There are other ways to install OS X on your machine but they involve creating a new partition and installing the Operating System directly to your hard drive. Those ways are much harder and have more confusing steps that could potentially damage your computer. This method is easier and safer to use.

The process will take 2-3 hours, but most of the time is consumed by large downloads. There's no software to buy or developer fees to pay.

Instructions

1. Follow the steps here to download and install a virtualized version of OS X Lion on your PC.

2. If you don't have a free Apple Dev Account, create one here. You'll need this to be able to download Xcode 4.1 for free. In OS X, open the App Store and download Xcode. You can view progress of the download under the Purchases tab.

3. Once the progress bar is finished, it will say it is installed but it really isn't. Open the Applications folder from Finder. Double-click on the Install Xcode icon.

4. Follow the on-screen directions then wait for the installation to finish.

6. Once it's done, it should open by itself. If it doesn't, you will NOT find the iPhone SDK in your dock. You will need to open your hard drive. Then Click on Developer, then on Applications.

7. You will now see an icon for Xcode, click it and you can start coding applications.

If the icons don't show up, you may not have enough virtual hard drive space to fit the program. Make sure you have at least 10 GB of free memory in the virtual machine. Restarting your machine may be another way to make the icon appear.

Now you can start coding an app for your personal use. The language you will be coding in is Objective-C. If you don't have any experience with Objective-C, TheNewBoston provides free tutorials on Xcode and Xcode iPhone development. I recommend following the Objective-C tutorials
first.

You will be able to test your app on the iPhone simulator in Xcode but you will not be able to add the app to your own device. To add an app that you've created to your device, see the two options below.

Option 1: If you want to submit your app to the App Store, you will need to pay Apple $100 for an official Developers Certificate. This will allow you to sell your app to a very large audience but Apple does place large restrictions on its approval of submissions.

Option 2: If you don't want to pay the $100, you can develop your application for Cydia (similar to the App Store). This option will also allow you to place your app on to your iPhone, not just only in the Xcode simulator.

Cydia is the unofficial App Store for users who have jailbroken and want to sell/share their apps. There are almost no restrictions as to what kind of apps that can be added to Cydia.

To develop for Cydia, you will need to have your device jailbroken (How do I jailbreak?) and before you start developing your app, you will need to follow these steps to create an alternate Certificate.

Pull to Refresh For Mail In Cydia

Pull to Refresh, an innovative feature found in the latest Facebook update, is now available to download for the Mail app. The best part is that this app is completely free to use. Pull to Refresh is compatible with 3.x and iOS 4 firmwares.

To use, just slide your finger down in Mail app and release, your inbox will then update. To notupdate, just slide your finger back up, a really intuitive feature that really should be part of the standard iPhone UI.
 How to Install

1. Make sure you are jailbroken. (How do I do that?) And that you are on or at an above firmware of 3.0. (How do I check?)
2. Open Cydia, tap on the Search tab, type in Pull to Refresh. Download and install it.
3. Press your home button and let your device respring.