Just a quick post to highlight some upcoming events I'm getting excited about.

If you're reading this and attending WWDC or Swipe Conf then hit me up on Twitter and we'll coordinate beers.

First up is WWDC 2011 in San Francisco and it's going to be awesome - I didn't go last year and this year I'm flying up along side a handful of Melbourne iOS developers from the Melbourne Cocoaheads group and the Itty Bitty Apps guys, Sean Woodhouseand Oliver Jones. There's a Pre-WWDC catch up in Richmond/Cremorne in Melbourne on 1/6/11 being organised by the Intunity and I will be attending that too.

Later in the year is Swipe Conference (swipeconference.com.au, @swipeconf), September 5 - 7 in Melbourne is the next big thing for iOS Devs and looking at the line up it's going to be an awesome three days. I'm hoping it brings in the iOS developers from near and far that have yet to turn up at a Cocoaheads meet - there's a lot of devs out there.

I'm also attending TEDxSydney on the 28th of May, but since I missed out on a proper ticket I'll be hanging out out the front all day like I did last year.

The other week at my weekly co-working catchup in the city I was made aware of the very handy sips(1) command line tool. Sips is short for Scriptable Image Processing system and is more or less a command line front end to Apple's image processing abilities.

My problem that day was "How can I automatically resize my Icon.png artwork" and all of a sudden with the knowledge of sips' existence it was easy to write this small bash script to rename and resize my large 512x512 pixel artwork down to the various names and sizes required by iOS. (Thanks Mark!)

The script is simple; give it an input PNG image at least 512x512 pixels (multiple of 512 will work too) and it will create your iTunesArtwork, Icon.png, Icon@2x.png, Icon-Small.png, Icon-Small@2x.png, Icon-Small-50.png and Icon-72.png file nicely. These sizes are all outlined in the "Application Icons" section of the iOS Application Programming Guide, and adding more when necessary is obvious.

This script should save you at least a dollar on the similar GUI apps on the app store that do the same thing...

I've made a gist on github too.

Not long after iOS 4.0 was released I pushed a small update to Delhi City Metro to keep track of some basic (anonymous) user statistics. I'm keen to gauge the audience of any specific iOS 4 features I might consider adding and now that I've been able to visualise these, I thought I'd share them here.

To add a geographic angle to the iOS usage statistics you can see in the second graph that the majority of Delhi City Metro users are from India.

Several weeks after the launch of iOS4 the split between iOS 4 and iOS 3 is 4.x 64% and 3.1.x 31% with iOS 3.2 at 4%. (Delhi iOS Statistics 13-26/8/2010)

Overall Delhi Sale Statistics

It's been a week and two hours since I got hold of the iPhone 4 here in Australia. Just like every other Apple fan who wanted an outright iPhone 4, I lined up at the Chadstone Apple retail store; a 15 minute bike ride from my house at 5am. It was my first line up for an Apple product, not sure if it will be my last.

The iPhone 4 is that it's a great update, and the new display, camera and processor make the iOS experience just that much more awesome. I've spent this past week updating Seoul City Metro, and Delhi City Metro with new double resolution graphics -  Lots to come.

iPhone4 from the 3GS's perspective

What a night! Dragging myself up out of bed at 2:45 am (Seoul time) to check in to the MacTalk Australia live coverage; idle in ustream the IRC chat room; and refresh the live Gdgt.com text feed was totally worth it! Not only were the rumours true; but the price is reasonable and the versions arriving with 3G connectivity (using the strange Micro-Sim card ) will come unlocked. iPad runs on a new version of the iPhone OS; on custom Apple silicone; and touts an all glass 9.7 inch multi touch display. 60 and 90 day arrival times for the Wifi and 3G versions respectively.

My opinion: I want one.

Apple iPad hands on from Wired.com Gadget Lab

Demonstations of the device appearing all over the web show the iPad with a multi column layout, orientating to however you hold the device. I can't wait to see what developers make of the new UI elements and SDK APIs.

As far as my development goes - all my current work on Seoul City Metro 1.1 appears to be compatible and runs just fine in the iPad's simulator in it's 1x and 2x zoom mode. Anyway, just a few screenshots that I've already posted on twitter - time to get back to work.

iPad Simulator with Seoul City Metro 1.1 Installed

Seoul City Metro V1.1 running in the iPad Simulator

It's taken months for this moment! I have been frequenting the Frisbee store in Myeong-dong 명동 frustratingly circling the store since October looking for signs of new Apple gear....the iMacs and MacBooks arrived at some stage in November... but no Magic Mouse. The online Korean Apple store kept changing the delivery dates too - first November, then December. It wasn't looking good...

Magic Mouse (finally!)

Anyway - just a quick update that I'm happy to finally replace my 2nd scummy Mighty Mouse.

Next I need to replace my Bluetooth keyboard with the new 2 battery version (I'm currently missing 2 keys on my current keyboard), and get my MacBook Pro keyboard and trackpad fixed/replaced.

I think I might miss the middle click that the Mighty Mouse had, but I am getting my scrolling back!

Seoul City Metro

I'm excited to report that Seoul City Metro has gone live on the Apple App Store!

You can purchase a copy on the world wide store right here for $1.99 US.

Now that the iPhone Application development cycle has been completed - it's time to start some promotions to drum up some sales! I have @yargalot and myself working on a proper website, and I'm looking into promotions on Facebook, and around Seoul itself.!