How to get device's current volume level and use that inside our application play sound? Also how to get notified about sound level changed by hardware button or software seekbar?
Xamarin.Forms doesn't have Audio API's yet, so you will need to implement the functionality for each platform on your own. However, there seems to be a library called Xamarin Audio Manager and it should do at least some of the things that you require, take a look at it here on GitHub.
You can then use the project as a good starting point for extending it to meet all your needs. Audio API's in both Android and iOS are relatively easy to understand.
I already have an home automation ios app. I can able to control devices that are configured in my home. I can able to access my device via local and remote network.
I just read apple's new ios8 HomeKit support. I want to integrate HomeKit compatibility into my app.I heard HAP(Home Accessory protocol) supported devices can only able to communicate with HomeKit Framework. Also apple said there is a bridge for third party devices to communicate with HomeKit. There is not much information about hardware protocols or procedures, how to use bridge between third party device and HomeKit ?
Is my HomeKit bridge is a real hardware?
Also i have doubts on communicating with configured accessories. Because apple HomeKit Framework have commands like "startExecutingActionSet" to perform one or multiple task , but how this commands works with our Existing commands protocols defined in ios app.
I am new to hardware engineering . So please give me a simple example of communication between apple's homekit via bridge with my Hardware device.
Thanks in advance...
A HomeKit bridge is a piece of hardware that receives HK style commands from an iDevice and translated them into the specific protocol for the target devices in your home. Phillips Hue have one of these. Apple have a protocol that the hardware manufacturers need to conform to and you need to be signed up to their MFi program to get that protocol. However someone seems to have reverse engineered the specs and you can use their code to write your own software bridge. That's what I'm doing.
In HomeKit you do not talk directly to the devices. That's pretty much the main point of HomeKit. So that each developer doesn't need to know each device's specific protocol you just trigger iOS to do the talking for a predefined action. I believe you can also add triggers and action sets by building up a group of actions that you want to happen and firing of the event. E.g. Turn off all accessories in the garage when I go inside. You don't need to know how to turn off each one, you just tell iOS to run the Off command on each device and it knows the rest. Or at least it does for the ones that have signed up to the MFi program and can listen to HomeKit commands.
We are trying to put our app in the apple app store and would like to add in app purchases but unfortunately our app is not created with Xcode. We use an implementation of common lisp called CCL which includes an objective C bridge to access the Cocoa API. This is all fine and good except after reading through the StoreKitGuide I see that we are supposed to link again the StoreKit.framework in order to add a store to my app.
This presents a problem because we are not using XCode to create our app. Is it possible to add in app purchase to your app if we are not using in app purchases? I realize that most people on here will not be using common lisp but I was wondering if they could offer any insight into how one could enable in app purchases without Xcode.
Does (OBJC:LOAD-FRAMEWORK "SKRequest" :storekit) succeed? Or perhaps (OBJC:LOAD-FRAMEWORK "StoreKit" :cocoa)?
If not, you might have to create the interfaces yourself: http://ccl.clozure.com/manual/chapter13.5.html#Creating-new-interface-directories
If you use an Objective C bridge, them this bridge will need to be modified or updated to support the frameworks you require and whose support is not currently included on the bridge. Recompiling the bridge code likely will require Xcode plus the bridge source code.
I am interested in developing an app for my new iPad purely for my own use. (well to start with at least)
Is there a way to develop an app without a mac?
Can I install the app only on my own iPad without having to sign up to the right to publish it when I might not even want to do that?
EDIT:
Could i use an old G3 powerbook for development? They can be picked up really cheap on ebay. Would something of that spec be up to running the xcode development environment?
I think the best option is to develop the application using HTML5 / Javascript and CSS, and use a service like appMobi or PhoneGap to compile it for IOS. They both have an online service that can make the build for you without needing you to own a Mac.
You have also the added advantage that you can compile your app not only for IOS, but for Windows Mobile, Android, Blackberry and even the good old web.
You have some Javascript libraries like JQTouch that allows you to easily implement the IPhone look and feel in your web app. Normally you can't access the native API from Javascript, but these solutions (appMobi and PhoneGap) offers a Javascript API that you can use to access Camera, GPS, Gyro, etc...
I think normally serious apps are coded for many platforms, and if you don't have the structure to pay to 4 different skill sets, it makes sense to code in HTML5, and from there you have a more future and device proof solution. Even if you "can" pay different developers to code in diffrent mobile platforms I would prefer to do it in HTML5.
Oh, and also take a look at applicationcraft.com, pretty cool online IDE (wysiwyg) connected to PhoneGap, really easy to develop prototypes. The generated HTML/Javascript is not very usefull to continue editing it outside their IDE (a bit complicated), but, again, for something very simple or a prototype it's something you must check out.
Good Luck
Is there a way to develop an app without a mac?
Officially, no. Realistically, unless you like wasting countless hours, no.
Can I install the app only on my own iPad without having to sign up to the right to publish it when I might not even want to do that?
No, you must be a paid developer in order to push to anything but the simulator.
xcode for windows.
http://ipodtoucher55.blogspot.com/2010/12/installing-ios-sdk-and-xcode-on-windows.html
Yes, you can develop without apple computer (using hackintosh).
And yes, you can install the developed app on your iPad without having to pay for developer program. There are a tons of guides over the internet about running (thus installing) apps on ios devices without developer program.
check this:
How can I deploy an iPhone application from Xcode to a real iPhone device?
You can develop for iOS without a Mac by using Adobe Flex. The Flex SDK is free and Open Source, and includes a compiler + packager. If you want an IDE, you can get Adobe FlashBuilder (not free, but with a free 90-day trial), which makes your development time much more productive.
You would not develop in C, C++, or Objective C, but in a combination of ActionScript (a dialect of Javascript) and MXML (markup language, mainly for rich GUI layout).
On the minus side: you have less control over what you can do (you can still do a lot) and you cannot use the iOS SDK directly.
On the plus side: it is very easy to develop great looking apps, and with very little changes, you can recompile them for Android, Blackberry Playbook, Windows, and Mac OS X.
You do not technically need a Mac to develop an app, unless you are serious about it. There are couple of solutions available to you for developing mac-less.
First, there are some services that port your HTML5 web apps into an iOS app, so you only need to write your code HTML5.
Second, if you dont want to buy a Mac, you can instead buy Snow Leopard or Lion, and build your own "hackintosh" (a windows computer hacked to run off the mac operating system).
Finally, you cannot make your app available for purchase in the App Store unless you are a paid developer. However, you could publish online as an HTML5 web application, or you could publish your app in a third-party app developer market (however you could only intall that app if you jailbreak your iPad).
Not sure how new this is, but Dragon Fire SDK is 100% Windows based (you do submit your code to them for compilation), but at no time are you required to own a Mac.
I'm creating an iTunes clone in Cocoa (don't ask why, it's not evil) and I want to be able to sync my iPod with it. This means: music, photos, videos and podcasts. I couldn't really find anything, since Google only shows articles about iPod touch and iPhone programming, but I'm actually creating a desktop application for Mac OS X, and I also want to be able to sync click-wheel iPods.
Is there an API or should I read and write directly to the USB port?
Can anyone help me? Thanks
Apple jealously guards sync capability and doesn't provide an API. As far as I know you can't even use iTunes automation to make it do the syncing for you.
Ever-resourceful, the open source community has reverse-engineered the protocols and the libimobiledevice project exists to provide a sync library for Linux-based systems. I don't believe the library will build on OSX -- it relies on the Linux USB architecture -- but if you need to write your own sync library, it will provide you with a good starting point to understand the protocol and device workings.