Pass Type IDs in iOS 6

As apple announces their iOS 6 OS they have launch new option called "Pass Type IDs". Same day it has been listed in my apple developer account pane. I am trying to know what it is but cant get more on it.
The only information shared by apple is :

Passes are a digital representation of information that let users take an action in the physical world, in the same way as boarding passes, membership cards, and coupons. Pass Type IDs define a class or category of passes you wish to offer.

You must register your Pass Type identifiers in order to generate Pass Certificates which are used to digitally sign and send updates to your passes. 

I have updated our iPhone to ios6 beta and one more app is new there called "Passbook" where you can save your passes and coupons, etc.

I found some good article where you come to know about passbook programming :

http://www.futurechips.org/thoughts-on-latest-happenings/generating-passes-ios6s-passbook.html

Following is the repository where you can found a PHP code to create passes on the fly.

https://github.com/tschoffelen/PHP-PKPass

How to make your iOS app UI appealing? Part 1

Now a days apple is releasing their iOS version after every 6 month with having lots of drastic changes. Apple is also concentrating more on UI along with the functionality of iOS so that user can get feel of retina display device.

In other case app like Foursquare, Path, Google places , Quora, pintrest and many others are also presenting Neat and clean UI. The reason behind this is user will get attracted more toward UI not toward functionality. Functionality is the part which is important from developer point of view but user want something different everytime.

In my iOS career i have also developed some good UI appealing app and now want to share some key element which need to taken care of while designing app like this.

1) While starting for any app first clear its requirement, and try to draw that requirement in terms of wireframe by using software like Balsamiq and other. which will give you more clear app development idea and also your client knows that what he will be getting after few months.

2) Try to use .xib rather than using Programmatic way to add controls on view.

3) Check with your graphics designer that he is designing images for you in Retina display size. and also confirms what dpi he is using for rendering this images.

For iPhone and iPod touch launch images, include the status bar region. Create launch images of these sizes:

• 320 x 480 pixels
• 640 x 960 pixels (Retina Display) - 180 ppi

For iPad launch images, do not include the status bar region. Create launch images of these sizes:

• For portrait:
  
  • 768 x 1004 pixels
  • 1536 x 2008 pixels (Retina Display) -252ppi
• For landscape:
  
  • 1024 x 748 pixels
  • 2048 x 1496 pixels (Retina Display) - 252 ppi

 You can get more details on this from developer.apple.com by using your developer account.

4) Before starting designing exact view controllers first decide the button size that you want to use in your application. keep the button or other control ratio same on every view of your application so that user will get feel of navigating in same app.

5) Try to use default controls provided by apple if you don't have graphics for application.

6) Try to use custom controls if you have really clean and neat graphics available.

7) Try to concentrate on one factor where all developer will get confuse i.e. Auto resizing views, which will help you to place controls at some specific location.

8) Whenever you are trying to deal with large number of sequential data coming from server try to use UITableview to represent it. UITableview is having lot of customization methods which will help you to design good UI.

9) Avoid excessive use of UIScrollview in your application which will increase user confusion.

10) Try to reduce number of activity indicator in your application which will lead bad user experience.
 
In next post i will try to explain on particular custom controls which will used by all popular apps along with these tips.

Keep Coding..