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Tom Lawrence

26th Oct 2010 at 02:58
Disqus
11 Notes
So I’m finally a registered iOS developer now and can officially debug code on my iPhone in preparation for my project in SEED, the in-house software company I currently work for. Comparing iOS provisioning and debugging to my only real mobile development with Windows Mobile 5/6, I’ve got to say that after all the bitching I did last year about how awful ActiveSync (or Windows Mobile Device Center or whatever it’s called these days) is, Microsoft really do make life as a developer such a breeze in comparison to the hoops you must jump through to do something as simple as debugging an iOS Xcode project on a physical device (and I haven’t even begun talking about distribution). To make matters worse, Apple certainly don’t make it easy when they haven’t updated their provisioning documentation since the release of iPhoneOS 2.0 back in 2008. Thankfully I managed to find a bunch of resources providing updated details on the various stages a developer must go through in order to begin real development of an iOS application. Hopefully I should find some free time tomorrow to write up an article with all the details an iOS developer, team member or team admin would need to get the ball rolling with the Apple provisioning portal should one happen to stumble across my web site. For now though, it’s time to hit the hay.

So I’m finally a registered iOS developer now and can officially debug code on my iPhone in preparation for my project in SEED, the in-house software company I currently work for.

Comparing iOS provisioning and debugging to my only real mobile development with Windows Mobile 5/6, I’ve got to say that after all the bitching I did last year about how awful ActiveSync (or Windows Mobile Device Center or whatever it’s called these days) is, Microsoft really do make life as a developer such a breeze in comparison to the hoops you must jump through to do something as simple as debugging an iOS Xcode project on a physical device (and I haven’t even begun talking about distribution). To make matters worse, Apple certainly don’t make it easy when they haven’t updated their provisioning documentation since the release of iPhoneOS 2.0 back in 2008.

Thankfully I managed to find a bunch of resources providing updated details on the various stages a developer must go through in order to begin real development of an iOS application. Hopefully I should find some free time tomorrow to write up an article with all the details an iOS developer, team member or team admin would need to get the ball rolling with the Apple provisioning portal should one happen to stumble across my web site.

For now though, it’s time to hit the hay.

13th Jul 2010 at 16:01
Disqus
966 Notes
staff: Developers: OAuth support For increased security and more resilient third-party apps, we’ve started early testing of OAuth support in the Tumblr API. We’ve modeled our implementation after Twitter’s in many ways, supporting OAuth 1.0a with optional xAuth, upon request, where it makes sense such as mobile and native applications. The existing authentication methods in the API are still supported for now, but we encourage developers to migrate to OAuth when possible. To get started with Tumblr’s OAuth, integrate an OAuth consumer library into your project and get a consumer key by registering your app. This is still in its early testing stages, so please report any issues. Thanks. I’ve not written any software that implements OAuth yet so I’ll definitely give this one a whirl with some of my own Tumblr apps soon. This sure beats the current method for an authenticated read using POST requests with custom headers on an insecure connection passing along fellow user’s login details in plain text (I was surprised that you guys never implemented TLS/SSL). It’s also great to see OAuth libraries available for so many platforms and APIs. Hell, there’s even an OAuth library for the .NET Compact Framework. Not that anyone actually cares about Windows Mobile but still, choice is indeed nice. Next thing on your list of things to sort out in the API is replies! Seriously, they’re one of the most used features on Tumblr and devs can’t even implement them. Second on your list is Message/Ask; another highly popular feature that even the iPhone optimised page doesn’t feature. Finally, for the complete package, allow direct video uploads to Tumblr as opposed to using embed or data (that just uploads to Vimeo anyway).

staff:

Developers: OAuth support

For increased security and more resilient third-party apps, we’ve started early testing of OAuth support in the Tumblr API.

We’ve modeled our implementation after Twitter’s in many ways, supporting OAuth 1.0a with optional xAuth, upon request, where it makes sense such as mobile and native applications.

The existing authentication methods in the API are still supported for now, but we encourage developers to migrate to OAuth when possible.

To get started with Tumblr’s OAuth, integrate an OAuth consumer library into your project and get a consumer key by registering your app.

This is still in its early testing stages, so please report any issues. Thanks.

I’ve not written any software that implements OAuth yet so I’ll definitely give this one a whirl with some of my own Tumblr apps soon. This sure beats the current method for an authenticated read using POST requests with custom headers on an insecure connection passing along fellow user’s login details in plain text (I was surprised that you guys never implemented TLS/SSL).

It’s also great to see OAuth libraries available for so many platforms and APIs. Hell, there’s even an OAuth library for the .NET Compact Framework. Not that anyone actually cares about Windows Mobile but still, choice is indeed nice.

Next thing on your list of things to sort out in the API is replies! Seriously, they’re one of the most used features on Tumblr and devs can’t even implement them. Second on your list is Message/Ask; another highly popular feature that even the iPhone optimised page doesn’t feature. Finally, for the complete package, allow direct video uploads to Tumblr as opposed to using embed or data (that just uploads to Vimeo anyway).

12th Apr 2010 at 03:19
Disqus
0 Notes
This is why I develop for Microsoft's platforms and not Apple's.