Apple has just approved something small I coded for the App Store. And when I mean small, I really mean it: I’ve unleashed upon this world the burden of yet another tip calculator. I have unleashed… TipAgent.
Presenting a simple tip calculator. To be honest, TipAgent has nothing special about it — it has no extra features, no eye candy, and nothing else but the ability to calculate tips and split the bill. So if you’re looking for a plain tip calculator, give TipAgent a try… it’s free!
So what’s the story? I was new to Objective-C when I started work on TipAgent. I had read about it, but never actually worked with it. One afternoon, I decided to give it a try and downloaded the free iPhone SDK. To start experimenting with the SDK, I decided to go with the cliché of making a tip calculator since it’s a project simple enough to play with. And with some documentation guiding me through the SDK (especially the Interface Builder), I was able to finish what is the core of TipAgent in that same afternoon. As far as for the interface, it took me a couple of more days since I don’t work much with graphic design. What was the real productivity killer was adding that nice little dot over the numeric keypad — Apple, in all of its infinite wisdom, decided to omit the dot for decimals. Following this guide, I was able to achieve this task.
So is this the end of it? I’d like to think that I’ll slowly be improving TipAgent with free updates as time goes by — so no, it’s not the end of it. Also, I already have plans to release some other iPhone apps. When? I do not know. It could be in a month or a year, just like that. Either way, trying the iPhone SDK was a great experience.
by Galley
03 Apr 2009 at 07:02
The only problem I see is that it uses a telephone-style keypad, and not a calculator-style one. This may be a limitation of the SDK as other apps have the same problem.
by Frank
03 Apr 2009 at 10:07
Yes, the SDK has a limited selection of keyboards for the apps to use. This one was the best choice for inputting numbers, even when it lacked a key to input the dot for decimals (I had to manually add it through a complicated process as mentioned above). But now that you mention it, a possible feature to be added in a future update is a custom keyboard.