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> > Not that I'm aware of. The biggest issue I can think of is how to handle the
> > library. I think the best way would be to convert it to a binary format and
> > update the app every time a new parts update is released.
This is an issue I considered during my brief fling with a Java-based LDraw web
viewer:
http://anoved.net/2010/01/online-ldraw-viewer/
> I own a 4th-gen iPod Touch, and I even have an iPad at work, so I've considered
> it. I think it could be done for the iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch. In fact, I could
> see a pared-down LDView running there quite happily. The library could be a
> simple zip file (either unzipped during the first run or simply left in zip
> format depending on how that performed).
That would be really neat. Having a static library (e.g. pulling parts out of an
archive - perhaps even the LDraw.org zip download, for easy updates) seems like
the way to go.
On the building side of things, I think a touch-based editor (at least for
larger screen devices like the iPad or other tablets) could be very good, and
significantly flatten out the LDraw editor learning curve for newcomers. (That
said, I can also imagine many reasons why a touch-based editor would be
difficult to do or at least to do right.)
> However, publishing such an app would require somebody to spend $100 per year on
> an iOS developer account, and I'm not personally willing to do that.
Am I correct in understanding that the developer account fee is required to
publish apps but not necessarily to work on them personally? Although I haven't
done anything with it, I was able to download the iOS SDK for free (with the
free "entry level" developer connection account).
Jim
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In lugnet.cad, Jim DeVona wrote:
> Am I correct in understanding that the developer account fee is required to
> publish apps but not necessarily to work on them personally? Although I haven't
> done anything with it, I was able to download the iOS SDK for free (with the
> free "entry level" developer connection account).
It is true that you can download and install the iOS SDK with a free Apple
developer account, so you can in theory develop an app without paying any money.
However, in order to get the app onto a non-jailbroken iOS device, you have to
pay the fee to become an official iOS developer. Furthermore, the Simulator is
just that, a simulator. That means that it contains the iOS software stack, but
runs natively at the full speed of the Mac it's running on. So you really have
no idea how an app will perform until you run it on an actual device. (To make
matters worse, the OpenGL ES driver in the simulator claims to be an Apple
software driver; I suspect that their "software" driver is based on the
underlying system hardware-accelerated driver, although I could be wrong about
that. What I can say with some degree of confidence is that the performance you
get out of it won't match up with the device hardware performance.)
--Travis
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