Videos from youtube channel in iOS app (part 1)

1. Download Google Objective C Client. For developing any iOS application, that use some of Google APIs, we need to have Google libraries downloaded. In terminal run this command:

svn checkout http://google-api-objectivec-client.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ google-api-objectivec-client-read-only

2. Build library. From downloaded items in Source folder open GTL.xcodeproj and choose iOS simulator and GTLTouchStaticLib as target. Then build library again, this time for iOS device. From Organizer>Products go to derived data by clicking arrow:

From Build>Products>Debug-iphoneos copy to e.g Desktop libGTLTouchStaticLib.a and rename it to e.g. libGTLTouchStaticLib1.a. Do the same for the file from Build>Products>Debug-iphonesimulator and rename it to libGTLTouchStaticLib2. With this command in Terminal, build fat static library

lipo -create -output libGTLTouchStaticLib.a libGTLTouchStaticLib1.a libGTLTouchStaticLib2.a

3. Adding source files for the library. Find header files in Source>Services>Youtube>Generated and add them to project (select: copy items into destination group's folder and create groups for any added folders). However, you don't need GTLYouTube_Sources.m file, so you should deleted it. From Derived Data folder: Build>Products>Debug-iphoneos add Headers folder to the project.

4. Adding frameworks and libraries. Add Security.framework, SystemConfiguration.framework and libGTLTouchStaticLib.a to project.

Now you can run your application on both iOS device and simulator, and start using Google Youtube API for fetching videos.

Sounds and notifications

If you are developing iOS application, with service that requires notifying users at specific time (e.g. alarms or utility applications like Power Nap), there are lot of specific issues regarding sounds, that you should be aware of. Setting custom notification sound is straightforward via soundName property of UILocalNotification object:

UILocalNotification *notification = [[UILocalNotification alloc] init];
notification.soundName = @"melody.aiff";

1. The sound files must be in the main bundle of the client application. You can't use URLs e.g. from your iPod library to set custom sound. If your app still provide notifications with default sounds, you should check if the sound file is in the root directory of application project.

2. You can't set different system sound for notification. Either you don't specify sound, and notification sound will be default, or set sound from application bundle.

3. The sound must be aiff, wav, or caf file. You can't add .mp3 sounds for notification sound.

4. On iOS 7 it's possible that notification sound is off by default. 

One of the solutions mentions removing all code in your app that operates with applicationIconBadgeNumber. Now, your application should have notification sounds turned on by default, but you can test it only with new device, where you didn't previously install app.

5. If user switches phone to silent mode, notification sound will also be silent. In that case, there is no way to play sound when your app is in background.

6. Without explicit code, notification banner (with sound) will not show, when application is active (iOS 7). You can add code to display banner, or you could present custom view and play sound from application. This will work even if the phone is in silent mode.

Git Tips

This article is intended as a basic manual for iOS developers that are using git source control, but need more than built in options in xCode.

For that we will need to open Terminal application located in Applications/Utilities. Use 'ls' command to see content of the current folder, and 'cd FOLDER_NAME' to open specific subfolder. Command 'cd ..' will open parent folder.

If you want to simply clone repository from remote repository then run this command in your terminal:

git clone HTTPS_ORIGINAL_REMOTE_REPOSITORY.git

This will clone project to the current folder.

Second scenario is that you want to add existing project to remote repository. Go to the folder that contains your .xcodeproj project file.

To check current status:

git status

When your code is already tracked by Git, and you want to change the repository, you have two options.

1. Remove git tracking and start fresh:

rm -rf .git

2. Set new repository as your origin to push to.

git remote set-url origin HTTPS_NEW_REMOTE_REPOSITORY.git

To start git tracking, initialize empty git

git init

Next step is to add original remote repository, which you acquire at your git hosting service, e.g. Bitbucket

git remote add origin HTTPS_ORIGINAL_REMOTE_REPOSITORY.git

Add all files from your project directory

git add --all

Commit

git commit -m "Initial Commit"

Push

git push origin master

Your project is now pushed to remote repository.