Since yesterday, iTrackBaby has been approved and can be downloaded through iTunes or the app store!

I’m quite proud of this release.  There’s a handful of new features that I’ve added into the app which I think are very useful and will be well received by the users:

Multi-Baby Support

When I was working on the first version, it was inspired by my own little baby so I was adding in features which would be beneficial for my own use.  However, after the app went live, I received many comments regarding support for twins.  Since I wrote the program without multiple babies in mind, this caused quite a bit of rework in the code.  Originally, all settings were stored within standardUserDefault which was fine for a single baby.  Now how does one convert this for multi-user support? The answer I came up with was to use an array of users.  Each user would then have their own directory in the documents area which will save their data (ie. birthday, growth info, milestones, photos).  All of the setting and getting of the information was done through a new class called UserModel.

In addition to this, I also had to make sure that for the users that are upgrading, their data had to be converted into the new format.  There was quite a bit of QA’ing done for a user upgrading because if this didn’t work, there’d be like a ton of support emails and nobody would be a happy camper.  Like they say and ounce of prevention is worth a pound of headache.. or something to that effect.

Photo Timeline

What is Photo Timeline?  It’s a catchy way of saying that iTrackBaby can store multiple photos and will store them chronologically so that you can see the progression of your baby’s growth.  In the main Photo view, you can see a 320×320 photo, to move to the next or previous, it’s done by the swipe of a finger!  If you have many pictures or would like to see many smaller photos, there’s also a browse view which is a UITableView and from there, you can scroll through and select a picture to view.

Custom Milestones

There were a few requests for having the ability to add/remove milestones and so I included it in v2.0 release.  In addition to being able to add your own milestones, each milestone can now have a photo and/or note associated with it.  Imagine that your baby just got her first tooth… well now you can add “first tooth” as a milestone, take a photo, set the date and add a note to capture the moment!

I hope you enjoy all the new features and everything else that this app has to offer!  I’ve poured my heart into making this app which was inspired by my baby for my baby!

Just wanted the readers to know that iTrackBaby v2.0 has been submitted to iTunes.

Some new features you will see with v2.0 include:

* Multi-user support!  There has been many enquiries regarding this feature and we’ve added it in!
* Photo Timeline!  Before version v2.0, you could only store one photo and then share through Facebook or email.  But now with the Photo Timeline, you can store all photos taken of your baby and browse through them chronologically to see how much your baby has grown.  I’m personally quite proud of this new added feature and hope that the users would enjoy it also.
* Custom Milestones!  A few users have requested this feature and now it’s made it in for v2.0.  No longer are you restricted to using the milestones that came with the app.  Oh and you can also add photos and notes to milestones!

Fingers crossed that it’ll be approved soon!

An updated version of iAmPregnant iPhone app has been submitted to iTunes for approval.  The update is getting a full major uprev as I’ve implemented a few new features for the app and did a major interface overhaul.  What new features can you expect for the app?

1.  Tweet your pregnancy status right from the app.  The implementation was done using Matt Gemmell’s MGTwitterEngine class and also by using Ben Gottlieb’s Twitter package.  MGTwitterEngine is sufficient to implement the twitter functionality, but if you want the tweets to say “from <Your App>”, then you’ll need OAuth and Ben’s put together a nice package to take care of that.

2. Update Facebook status with your pregnancy progress right from the app.  This was done using FBConnect code which can be found from Facebook.  This implementation was not difficult this time around since my v2.0 app already connects with Facebook for photo uploads

3.  Random Did You Know pregnancy facts.  To increase the re-use factor, I wanted to add this in so that the expectant mom and dad’s may find some additional interest to load the app.  The random generation of this function was done using arc4random() C function.  Of course, to bound the random number you mod the number (%) with your desired max+1.  The list of random facts was stored in a plist which gets read in as an NSArray.  I’m sure you get the idea on how to put these two items together.  Somewhere down the road, I’m planning to localize the app into other languages but I’m not sure how the plists would work out as I’ve never localized an app before.

4.  Updated GUI.  The new GUI is full of visual goodness which I hope will entice the pregnant mom’s to consider our app instead.  The new GUI includes new layout, new icon buttons and an updated colour (I’m canadian eh!) theme to homogenize the whole app experience.  Something I found handy in regards to specify color in objective-C: If you want to specify a certain colour with UIColor using hex, add the following:

#define UIColorFromRGB(rgbValue) [UIColor \
colorWithRed:((float)((rgbValue & 0xFF0000) >> 16))/255.0 \
green:((float)((rgbValue & 0xFF00) >> 8))/255.0 \
blue:((float)(rgbValue & 0xFF))/255.0 alpha:1.0]

Then, to specify a colour using hex, it’s UIColorFromRGB(0×00bff3) where 0×00bff3 is your hex value

I found this somewhere on the web (Sorry can’t find you again but there’s plenty of references.  Here’s just another!)

4.  Name changes from iAmPregnant to iPreggo.  I changed the app name to iPreggo… well simply because it sounds more catchy.  I’ve been changing the app name after every major update.  Hopefully iPreggo is here to stay.

Putting together v3.0 has been a great experience and I hope existing and future users see the value of the app.  If you’re pregnant and don’t have it yet.  Check it out here!

First post of 2010!  I haven’t been very good with keeping the blog up to date but hopefully I’ll start doing a better job of it.

What’s been going on at Jamella Creations Headquarters?  Well.. let me tell ya!

* iTrackBaby version 1.2 released –  I had a loyal customer point out a bug that was preventing him from using the appointments feature of the app.  Actually after closer inspection, it wouldn’t have worked for any babies which greater than 1 year old so this bug is fixed in this version.  I also updated the growth graphs by annotating the y-axis.  Oh, and also I threw in an “About” page to show version of the app installed and an easy way to contact us.

*iTrackBaby version 1.3 Submitted to the App Store –  Shortly after v1.2 release, I received feedback by 2 users on the same bug related to entries for the growth plots.  The bug seemed serious enough for an immediate update so I submitted that today and it should be in the App store shortly.  Fingers crossed on no more bugs!

*iAmPregnant Version 3.0:  Version 2.0 received a major overhaul with tons of new features added.  In version 3.0, I’m revamping the main tab so that the information is more organized.  Also, there’ll be a new “Pregnancy Facts” feature. AND… I’m adding some more social networking capabilities.  Being pregnant is a beautiful thing which should be shared with friends and family and that’s why I think integrating Twitter and Facebook updates will be beneficial and be well received.

There are many other items in the Jamella Creations Roadmap which I’ll share later on but for the moment, the focus now is getting iAmPregnant version 3.0 into the App Store!

Happy Valentine’s day and Happy Chinese New Year!  Make sure to treat your significant other extra nice today and to give out your hong-bao’s!

It’s been a while since I took a look at the reviews section for iAmPregnant.  To my dismay, there is a handful of low ratings and some harsh criticisms for the 1.x versions which obviously doesn’t really sit well with me.  Since Apple’s App Store has no way of letting me contact these users directly, my only option is to post on my blog in hopes of getting the attention of these reviewers:

Ms.Cha, nat8808, Billsbabygurl, Gjkngffnmlh, cminnig, Gibster3207, templelife

If there is any chance that you are one of the above viewers, please please contact me as I very much would like to work something out with you.  Reach me at “iampregnant @ jamellacreations.com” (Make sure to remove the space before and after the @ sign)

For all iAmPregnant users who haven’t done so already, you should update to version 2.0!  We’ve jammed a lot of extra features to the app.  It really is like a brand new app!  And if you like, please help rate our app in the App Store!

Our friends over at The iPhone Mom was generous enough to give a review of our iTrackBaby!  Overall, I’m pretty pleased with the review.  iPhoneMom had a lot of positive things to say and also suggested having the ability to add notes for the different milestones.  I think this is a great idea and wonder how I had missed this feature in the first place?!  In any case, expect this ability in the next update.  You can read the full review here.

I’ve got a lot more promo codes and would love to put it in the hands of reviewers, mommy/daddy bloggers or just recent-or-soon-to-be parents.  Interested?  Drop me a line at  ”iTrackBaby (at)  jamellacreations.com”

iTrackBaby is our newest iphone/ipod touch app and is available in the App Store as of Sept 27.  So here’s the history starting from submitting our app to iTunesConnect and the wait time before appearing in the App Store:

Aug 23: Submitted app to the App Store.

Aug 28 (5 days later): Detected that the app was tested.  (We have analytics code in our app).  The app was used for ~5-6 minutes.

Sep 20 (28 days later): I received an email indicating the app was rejected due to an icon I used which conflicted with Apple’s Human Interface guidelines.  No other testing activity detected for 23 days!  Why it took 23 days after testing to tell me that the app is rejected is a great mystery to me.  Kind of like how do they get the caramel inside the Caramilk bar.  Anyways, we did the fix right away and resubmitted the new binary on the same day

Sep 27 (35 days later): iTrackBaby is approved and ready for sale!

Understandably, the App Store is still in its infant stages so Apple is still working out its kinks.  I just hope they do it soon.  Something as simple as more detailed status’s to indicate where in the process the review is would be helpful.  Something like, “App in queue”, “App requires further review”, “App is approved but is in queue to upload to App Store”… or something like it.

In any case, our app is out and it feels good.  So for all the developers out there that have waited a long time already for their app to be approved (I know 35 days is nothing to brag about), there is a light at the end of the tunnel!

Now go and buy our app!

On my Mac, I have Exposé set up to show application windows when my mouse lands in the bottom right corner of the screen.  This all works fine and dandy for the most part when my hand is on the mouse… but what if you’re in the middle of coding something and want to flip back and forth between two windows?  Well, there is a more convenient way with a keyboard shortcut.

By the way, application windows are the windows that belong to one application.  For example, if you are using Xcode (which you should be if you’re programming for the iPhone), you’ll most likely also have the documentation open in a separate window which is also part of Xcode.

So let’s say you have the documentation window open to a class that you’re looking up as reference for your code in the main Xcode window.  How can you switch between the two windows?  Easy.

⌘ – ~

(hit “command” and “~” keys together)

This works out very nicely with the ⌘-tab key which switches between programs as the tab and tilde are right above/below each other.

In the next series of posts, we’ll build a simple iphone app from scratch which utilizes the tab bar and navigation bar together by using Interface Builder for the majority of the constructs.  I’m a big fan of the Interface Builder as it is more intuitive to build the interface visually as opposed to programmatically.  The demo app we’re building is a simple one where it greets the user by his name (if known).  There will be a settings button on the navigation bar to open up a settings view where we get the user’s name

Of course the program itself is not very interesting and is more complicated than it needs to be but we hope that  after you follow this series, you will be more familiar with the following concepts:

• Creating/using the Tab bar in Interface Builder
• Creating/using a navigation bar in Interface Builder with a tab bar and how to handle the views it controls
• Passing information between views

In part 1, we’ll cover the following:

1. Creating a new Tab Bar Application Project
2. Creating a NIB file (MainView.xib)
3. Creating a Class (MainViewController)
4. Linking MainView.xib and MainViewController Class
5. Adding MainViewController to the Navigation Controller and the Navigation Controller to the TabBarController

Admittedly, the first part may be straight forward for some readers until step 5.  If you already know how to do all of part 1 and still would like to follow, you can get the source code here

Read More >>

For the rest of summer, I’m Pregnant will be on sale for $1.99! We’ve got new features lined up for this app so it’s a good time to get them now at the reduced price!

All the tech-savvy future mommy and daddies can follow us on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/JamellaCC to get the inside scoop