MxBlog

I am a huge fan of forums when it comes to discussing vast topics such as iPhone and iPod Touch development. I had looked around the web for a few well structured forums with something more than just a place to ask questions. After not really finding anything I started iDevKit.com. I’ve posted quite a few code samples and I’m really only there at the moment to help anyone who has been having trouble with Apple’s SDK or just development in general. If you’ve been looking for a nice iPhone and/or iPod Touch development forum go check it out! I check it daily and try to help others to the best of my ability.

Max

Tags: Uncategorized // 8 Comments »

I just got back from vacation to find a new firmware update and an update to pwnage tool that includes installer 4. I finally got around to checking out installer 4 and I found it to be laggy and almost unusable. It spawns a new task for anything it does including basic things like loading images, which is the cause of the lag. Cydia on the other hand is fast stable and contains a very powerful backend. I plan to get MxTube up on Installer 4, but I strongly suggest using Cydia whenever possible. The apt backend provides an amazing packaging system to devs which assures all packages are installed & removed exactly how they should be. Unless you require shiny graphics in your package manager, Cydia should be all anyone would ever need.

Max

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I’ve received numerous emails regarding MxTube 1.5. Here are some new features you can expect in the next update:

Proxy Settings
MxTube 1.5′s background downloader uses libcurl instead of Apple’s downloading APIs. Therefore all proxy settings like those for tzones are ignored. libcurl supports using a proxy and if I cannot set it to use the user proxy settings, I will add a small settings panel for custom proxy settings.

Localization
All iPhone apps have the ability to read from a dictionary of localized strings, making translation very easy. The next update will implement localized strings allowing anyone to translate MxTube into any language.

TV out (maybe)
Apple’s Movie Playing class in the SDK has no documented methods to enable TV out. I’m going to take a look at the YouTube app to see how it is enabling TV out and if possible incorporate it into the next MxTube update.

Max

Tags: Uncategorized // 44 Comments »

I felt I didn’t want to rush MxTube 2.0 and make it as buggy as MxTube 1.0. Therefore for 2.0 users I made MxTube 1.5a. MxTube 1.5a is MxTube 2.0 with anything new/undertested turned off. This will allow the same exact functionality as MxTube 1.0 but for firmware 2.0 users! It does have a few extras such as: Background Downloader, Video Descriptions and the ability to watch videos in MxTube before downloading them. It is now available for firmware 2.0 users via Cydia thanks to _BigBoss_ from sleepers.net.

A week ago during development I experienced a video that downloaded within a second. I expected it to be the premature download bug and it seemed to be solved by watching the video through the Stream option of MxTube. Today I found another video that finished in 1 second, but it appeared to play perfectly. I do not suspect the premature download bug exists, but if any users experience it, I suggest trying to stream the video before downloading.

Max

EDIT: YouTube Mobile is the video search feed Apple’s YouTube app uses. YouTube.com will contain videos that do not show on YouTube Mobile. This feature is currently disabled because YouTube.com search requires FLV to MP4 conversion which has not been implemented in 1.5a’s background downloader.

Tags: Uncategorized // 54 Comments »

MxTube’s Background Downloader seems to be freezing up with more than 3 downloads. I hate to say this but, MxTube 2.0 will not be available in the next week or so… I will be unable to work on the application for a week and I was hoping to finish it before then, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. I’m sorry to keep pushing the release date, but I do not want to release an unfinished application. I hope everyone understands.

Max

Tags: Uncategorized // 20 Comments »

In the last status update the background downloader was communicating with MxTube but I hadn’t implemented the actual downloading. Turns out due to some NSRunLoop problems that I didn’t figure out until it was too late, NSURLDownload and NSURLConnection were not working. After having a friend (banana) suggest implementing libcurl, I coded it in but it was reporting all files to be 0kbs big . Thanks to tnt the problem has been solved! I plan to have MxTube 2.0 out for pwnd 2.0 phones within 5 days. It will be available on Cydia for download.

Max

PS: Sorry if this post is not formatted so well, running on 1 hour of sleep isn’t a good thing.

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The Search function and background download manager are complete! I still need to clean up a few things then build the Videos page and Playlists page and its ready for release! Btw, the background download manager will allow video downloads to continue even when MxTube 2.0 is closed!

Max

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I finally got the MediaPlayer framework’s MPMoviePlayerController working with streaming video! Upon selecting a video from the search list, you may choose to Stream or just Download. Here’s a nice little screenshot

Max

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I was messing around with the different international keyboards on 2.0 and I found an awesome way to type many cool symbols using the Japanese Kana keyboard.

1. Go to Settings>General>International>Keyboards>Japanese and Turn the Kana keyboard on.

2. Open a new email, text message, anything and click the world symbol at the bottom of the keyboard. Once on the Kana keyboard press the ABC button twice:
  

3. Press and hold the 1 key and select the star. Wait about 2 seconds for a correction menu to appear. Once it does press the arrow.
  

6. Select your favorite symbol!

NOTE: Different buttons have different sets of symbols. By the way, these work on text messages!
  

Max

PS: Who would ever need a fresh bread symbol? Am I the only one who thinks that symbol at the bottom looks like steaming bread?

Tags: Uncategorized // 10 Comments »

NSXMLParser has solved all of my NSXMLDocument problems! XML parsing is now back up and running on MxTube 2.0! Though it wasn’t quite as efficient coding wise, it seems to be a solid replacement and has now put MxTube 2.0 back on track.

Max

Tags: Uncategorized // 3 Comments »