I Will Take A Shot Of Obj-C With My Cocoa, Please.

Posted on January 31, 2010
Filed Under Daily Grind Day Job, Dizmang Properties, Personal, Real Estate & Property Management, Web 2.0 Stuff | 2 Comments

You have been warned that this blog is a melting pot of weird things that I have going on in my life. And if you’ve been a long time reader/subscriber (of which I thank you for), then you already know that you get the most random things out of these posts. Today is no exception, you’re gonna hear the geeky side of me come out a little bit. Just remember that not all geeks are dorks. And not all dorks are geeks. In my case…it could go either way.

I’ve been learning to code in Objective-C in order to get the Dizmang Properties GetPaul iPhone app launched. It will be a very minimal app but will have the ability to pull our available rentals if you’re in the market for one. However it’s more of a project goal for me as I love to learn new things.  It’s been a pretty interesting ride thus far.  I started this in late December and really thought that I could have it done by February 1st.  But considering that February 1st is tomorrow, I don’t think I’m going to hit my anticipated deadline.  I guess I didn’t take into account all the other stuff I have to do for work, such as 2009 year end reports for all of our Investors, closing out the year, taxes, and a whole load of other stuff.  I sorely misjudged my time commitment.  Oh well, it will be finished when it is finished.

Our app will be a free app.  The goal of it (besides my self satisfaction of accomplishing and completing a new project) will be to keep our available rental properties rented.  Three months ago we had 40 vacant rental properties (out of the 200+ that we manage) and that hurt us big time. Today we are down to only 9 vacancies, which puts us and our Investors in a much better position.  It feels good to finally get property rented.

Things you need to know about programming an iPhone app:

1)  You have to use the Apple SDK (software development kit) that uses Cocoa frameworks and the programming language is called Objective-C.

2) You must use a Mac to develop the iPhone application.  And yes, it looks pretty sweet on my new 27″ 1TB iMac.

3) It takes approximately two months to develop a good app.  Unless you are pressed for time because of other commitments (see mine above), then you just need to take your time and it’s done when it’s done.

4) The Apple SDK download is free, but you must pay $99 to Apple to submit your app to the App Store when it is ready. I’ll let you know once I get to this point.

5) There is a weird feeling of accomplishment when you finally see the app coming together in the simulator (see pic below).

Of course there is way more to it than what I’ve described here, but I felt that I needed to share with you what I was working on.  I’ll keep you posted along the way.  Maybe I should focus on just updating the Dizmang Properties web site.  That thing sucks.  I’m just saying.  (Yes, I am also the developer of that outdated piece).

Comments

2 Responses to “I Will Take A Shot Of Obj-C With My Cocoa, Please.”

  1. Jay Thompson on January 31st, 2010 5:04 pm

    I bow to your geekness!

  2. Spicer Matthews on January 31st, 2010 7:17 pm

    Hey Jessica,

    I am a developer by day, and a landlord by night (or it might be the other way around depending on how annoying my tenants are that week). So I think we walk in similar shoes. Just wanted to point out a development framework that I have used instead of writing in objective-C. http://www.appcelerator.com/ It allows you to build native iphone/android applications in javascript and html instead of objective-c.

    I know you are learning objective-C and are having fun. Just thought I would share this framework with you and your readers.

    Good luck on the app!

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