From the Forum — Issue #42

17 October 2014

From the Forum — Issue #42

Welcome to the latest installment of From the Forum. In this series, guest blogger Alex Jackson highlights outstanding threads from the Corona Forum. The goal is to bring attention to the most captivating, interesting, and thought-provoking discussions taking place in our very own backyard.

Please visit the forum to join these conversations or start your own!

1. Don’t stop that jam

Making sure that users have a positive experience with your app can be the difference between a five star review, and a swift uninstall. One bump in the road that is often hit is when an app’s audio interferes with whatever your user is listening to at the time. It can mean a grimace and an exit from your app if it cuts off or dramatically decreases the volume of the music being played.

One Corona developer wanted to make sure that his app didn’t interfere with the music that his potential user might be playing. What followed was an interesting snippet of code that tapped into the audio API and could check to see if there was already music playing, allowing you to disable the audio in your app.

Pretty nifty bit of logic-wrangling, and it’s not at all resource heavy. Check the original thread for the actual code, and if you have any additional suggestions, feel free to share!

Editor’s Note: The audio session APIs are part of an undocumented feature for iOS only.  As such Corona Labs does not officially support them.  Use at your own risk.

http://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/51812-stopping-external-music/#entry268978

2. Xcode changes and you

iOS 8 introduced a lot of changes. I don’t think I’m surprising anyone with this statement, as the forum has had a lot of threads pop up with questions about how to handle the new introductions. One small change that may have slipped under the radar is operating with the Xcode simulator.

It would appear that when building apps for a specific device in the Corona simulator, it is locked to that device when running through the Xcode simulator. This comes with a quick distinction regarding the version of Xcode that is being used by default on your machine.

Take a look over the info in the below post to see how to side-step this potential problem.

http://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/51497-switching-between-devices-in-ios-simulator/

3. iPhone 6/6+ optimizations

Full disclosure: This is the post that everyone should read. Helpful Corona developer Ingemar has contributed a great forum post to the community which discusses exactly what is necessary to publish an app to the iTunes App Store and ensure that it has the “Optimized for iPhone 6/iPhone 6+” tag.

This tag is important to have because many people search for apps based on whether they are proven to “work” correctly on their new iPhones, which their new sizes and aspect ratios. Confirming that your apps look good (and not stretched and distorted) on the new devices is the difference between app success, and your game collecting dust on the virtual shelf.

Check out the tips in the original thread. It’s worth the price of admission, and if you have any additional questions, feel free to throw them in.

http://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/51801-how-to-activate-optimized-for-iphone-6-iphone-6-plus/

About Alex

Alex Jackson is an indie developer and the founder of Panc Software, specializing in retro-style gaming. He has created several mobile applications, enjoys long walks on the beach, pixel art, and reading the Corona forums. Contact him by email or follow him on Twitter: @pancsoftware. Check out his new game Crosstown Smash on iOS, Android, and Amazon devices!