The Power of a Cross platform SDK

Yesterday I finally go through my submission to become an iOS developer. It has been rather a struggle because i really wanted to use my company name. Yet I did not appear to have the required paperwork for Apple to see fit to approve me. After a couple of phone conversations with them (they were very nice) I finally got the correct documentation and emailed it off to them.

Only... That wasn't good enough. they replied asking me to Fax it to them, as this is the only way they can process my application. WTf I thought, .. This is APPLE a Tech company telling me erm.. Fax something I have already scanned into a PDF file. Well I sent it and then had to go another step as my documents did not have my address in them. GAH! what a pain, this time i had to write a letter (they asked for Letterhead paper, which I don't have). this letter was very particular and was actually fun to write. Then I had to FAX this off as well.

To cut out the rest of the story, yesterday I was invited to carry on with my application process. so I paid my 99 bucks and though I would get notification in a couple of days. However instead I got it last night. Now if i had not gone to the cinema to see 21 Jump street, then I would have been looking into putting Hot Chicks the Card Game onto my iPod. However it was real late when I got home, so no Dev for me, just bed time.

This morning
I was up bright and early and decided that even though i need to go to work. It wouldn't hurt to take just a quick peek at what I need to do, to get the iPod version created on my PC (Yes, I do not own a Mac).

I am using www.madewithmarmalade.com cross platform SDK for development and one of it's strong suits is supposed to be CROSS PLATFORM dev. So I was very hopefull this would be a simple enough matter to get an iPod version created, but I always have my doubts on such things. I am not quite as sharp as I once was, and nowadays I make a lot more stupid mistakes. Could this process survive my ineptitude?
Well I already had done some research into what I needed to do. I had discovered a nice LINK on the Marmalade site that was a full set of instructions on getting an iOS app created on ya PC. So I followed these instructions very carefully. In another window (turned into several) I had the Apple developer connect open. I was popping back and forth collecting Cert files and Provision file and erm, oh yeah, Key files. I placed them all dutifully on my PC hard drive and suddenly at about 45 minutes in, I had finished the instructions page. Now it was about 8:45am, and I considered just going to work. However things had gone very smoothly, so, why not just give it one go ?

This meant opening up the Marmalade Deploy Tool, a handy dandy utility that lets me put all my artwork and thumbnails and other important package data together for submission or simply development. As i already had a Release Arm build I figured I could use that for iOS as well, so no need for me to rebuild the code at all.

I added a thumbnail and was filling out fields like version number and copyright when i realised i was wasting time, Ahah! So i moved right along to the 'Package' button and pressed it. Then I think I may have held my breath. But soon enough it popped up a red line saying failed. This message though was not even cryptic, it TOLD me what was wrong. I needed to put my Developer Key into a particular directory (I Love informative error messages). Then i tried again. This time the Red line of text told me I needed to put my certificate in another directory, and I did. ThenWhammo, 3rd time was the charm, it built a deployable package file called an 'ipk'. Woah ... I was surprised.

Again I was torn between heading off to work or going just.. one.. step... further...

Guess which won ?

HAHA, yeah right, you knew all along.

So I put my provisioning file onto my iPod as I was told to (this is easy again) using another marmalade tool, very handy that. Then I tried to push the install and deploy button. This unfortunately was where something didn't work, for the first time this morning. Still, I figured I could just drop the package file into iTunes and maybe that would work. could it? well I can tell ya it sure did!

Once finished I could see my games icon on the desktop (is it called that on an iPod?). So i cautiously touched it and waited for something to happen. I did not have to wait long, cos whammo the splash screen turned up. Woohoo! Anything after this point I reckoned I could fix. Then several seconds later the whole game was simply running. WOW, and then I watched the leaderboard list propagate, followed by the Ad system starting up.

IT WAS ALL RUNNING....

I could see one bug, the Ad sizing is a bit off (no idea why atm, but i'll fix it). And that was it.

It was that simple. At about exactly the Hour mark I had an iPod version up and running, and running well. THIS is what Cross platform development is All about mateys!

I am really Loving Marmalade at the moment. Next up is to get the iOS version ready for release. Hopefully within a few days. I have borrowed an iPad to test on as well.

This is all so exciting, Now I am off to test Ad sizes.... Laters
Da Voodoochief