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Does HMRC accept digital receipts? How does it effect mobileAgent?

This is a question I've wondered about a fair bit, especially as I like everything to be digital, and mobileAgent is a great way to get your receipts into FreeAgent, digitally. The fine

  • Nic Wise
    Nic Wise
1 min read

Coding passbook - BillGuard

The fine folks over at BillGuard have a long post all about their implementation of Passbook, and some of the pitfalls. For the sake of those of you that decided to join in

  • Nic Wise
    Nic Wise
1 min read

Passbook and NFC

Passbook is a new "app" from Apple, which comes with iOS6. Having just listened to the latest In Beta, and various other bits around the web, there appears to be a

  • Nic Wise
    Nic Wise
7 min read

iOS6 maps

Like all iPhone 5 users (and most developers) I've been using iOS6 for a while now. Overall, I find it great - it's fast, consistent, and generally a good upgrade. It's more like

  • Nic Wise
    Nic Wise
1 min read

Behind the scenes at LinkedIn mobile

Ryan Paul - the new Developer Evangelist at Xamarin) - has a great long-form piece up on his "old job", Ars Technica, about LinkedIn's mobile app, and how they have architected

  • Nic Wise
    Nic Wise
1 min read

NFC hacked (again); What UX isn't.

No wonder NFC isn't quite taking off as quickly as some people want it to. Imagine is this was your Credit Card. Subway riders in the New Jersey and San Francisco transit systems

  • Nic Wise
    Nic Wise
1 min read

CALayer shadows; Great animations make great apps; Mobile Content Strategy

D3signerd on CALayer shadows A while back I had done a lot of work with CALayer shadows in iOS. Now I know there is a lot of posts on how to add one.

  • Nic Wise
    Nic Wise
1 min read

Who needs NFC?

Clearly someone thinks they are a good idea. Embedded in the card is a tiny microchip. When it’s touched to a smartphone, the chip asks the phone to do something. Something you’

  • Nic Wise
    Nic Wise
1 min read

CoreAnimation seminar; Flat design; New icons and design resources

The good folks over at Xamarin have posted Frank Krueger's latest seminar, titled Delight Your Users with CoreAnimation. CoreAnimation is the foundation for creating high-performance and whimsical user interfaces, but is often overlooked

  • Nic Wise
    Nic Wise
2 min read

Berlin and iOS6 maps; Stylus isn't a fail; Mobile Mobile Mobile

Leonie and I went to Berlin this weekend. So far, this is my favourite European city, by a long way. Friendly people, I can still speak enough German to get into "trouble&

  • Nic Wise
    Nic Wise
1 min read

Could this be the end of 'Download our app' roadblocks?

One of the new browser features in iOS6 that I'd never noticed before is this litte gem - Smart App Banners: Website or native app? If we have both, now we can join

  • Nic Wise
    Nic Wise
1 min read

Xamarin announces MonoTouch 6 - same day as iOS6

From the "oh no, don't use something like MonoTouch, they take ages to update when Apple releases an update" files: Continuing our long history of delivering same-day updates for device platform

  • Nic Wise
    Nic Wise
1 min read

Divshot; Mobile design templates; Holo-themed rework of uTorrent

Divshot looks very interesting. Drag-and-drop, semantic, responsive, bootstrap based visual designer for those of us who are scared by CSS/HTML. Divshot combines the speed of a drag-and-drop mockup tool and the beauty

  • Nic Wise
    Nic Wise
1 min read

Earnest has a growth spurt: making MonoTouch apps work with the new iPhone

With the release of the iPhone 5 - aka iPhone Longcat Edition - a few people have been asking about how to make MonoTouch apps work with it, and with iOS6. This isn't

  • Nic Wise
    Nic Wise
1 min read

Zuckerberg on Native vrs HTML5

More comment on the HTML5 vrs Native "argument". Today, when someone decides to build a mobile app from HTML, it’s primarily a developer-focused decision and not a user-focused decision. What

  • Nic Wise
    Nic Wise
1 min read

Skeuomorphic design

I have no idea if this Fast Company Design article is true - because Apple isn't exactly the most chatty company outside their own walls - but I hope it's right, and I

  • Nic Wise
    Nic Wise
2 min read

Android design in action - vodcast

This looks interesting: Android Design in Action: Transit Apps Appears to be a video podcast type thing on Android design. From Google. Lovely. Also available in not-live flavour. (Hat Tip: Android UI Patterns)

  • Nic Wise
    Nic Wise
1 min read

Xamarin docs; Geofencing; TouchDraw code reuse

The Xamarin docs team have had a massive docs push, with lots of new content around Cross Platform development, Android and iOS, including recipes. September is now in full swing, and you’ve

  • Nic Wise
    Nic Wise
1 min read

mobileAgent 1.9 bank syncing issue

I'm sad to say that mobileAgent 1.9 has a bug in it, which may cause you to not be able to download your banking information. This results in a failed sync, and

  • Nic Wise
    Nic Wise
1 min read

Creating custom Android styles

Speaking of Android UI Patterns, they have a good article up on creating custom Android styles. At first I want to tell you that I am not a graphical designer and I don't

  • Nic Wise
    Nic Wise
1 min read

Android ActionBar basics

Mark Allison has a nice series of posts on using and customising the Android ActionBar, including ActionBarSherlock, which was ported (wrapped?) to Mono for Android recently. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part

  • Nic Wise
    Nic Wise
1 min read

iPhone Blueprints - Fundamentals of User Interface Design

Scott Jensen has released a beautiful iBook on the basics of iPhone UI design. This is not a pixel-pushing, put-the-gradient-here book, it's all about the fundamentals of design, getting the flow and the

  • Nic Wise
    Nic Wise
1 min read

Using fonts in a MonoTouch app

Inspired by Dave Addey's post on using font's in your iOS app - and having a general love of the Google Web Font library - I thought "so, how do I do

  • Nic Wise
    Nic Wise
1 min read

mobileAgent 1.9 released on the AppStore

Today, I'm happy to announce that mobileAgent 1.9 is available in the AppStore. It has taken me a lot longer to finish this version than I was hoping or expecting, but in

  • Nic Wise
    Nic Wise
2 min read

Apple opens up the Volume Purchase Plan and B2B apps outside the US

Apple announced today that they are opening up the Volume Purchase Plan and Custom B2B apps for companies outside of the US. Whether you’re providing apps to ten employees or ten thousand,

  • Nic Wise
    Nic Wise
2 min read
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