Just got the good news from Apple that BindoGPS is now available for download. Get it here while it's still hot:

iTunes Link

BindoGPS is a GPS group tracker for the iPhone. It shows your location and the location of your friends that also use BindoGPS in real time.

You can find more information and screenshot over at the BindoGPS website.

If you got

• a Mac running Leopard,
• an iPhone (or iPod Touch)
• interest in programming
• lots of spare time (or insomnia)
  

you most likely want to write an App for the iPhone and quit your daytime job. But where to start learning?

Today I look at at book that helped me a great deal understanding how to write programs for the iPhone, the book is called  "Beginning iPhone Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK, by Dave Mark and Jeff LaMarche. They just released a new edition which was adapted to cover the changed in iPhone OS 3. So the new title is "Beginning iPhone 3 Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK"

Who is this book for?

The authors write that they assume that you know Objective C 2.0 to a certain extend. So if you don't know Objective C try to learn this first.

How is the book structured?

The book introduces the different parts of the SDK in a logical way, and by reading the book you get easiy familiar with them.

The different elements of the iPhone UI are introduced step by step with a small Application that shows how to use this UI element and how to connect it to the code etc. Also it seems that each line of code that is written in the book is explained, so you'll know why it's there and what it does.

The good thing about these small applications in the book, they can easily be adapted to your own application.

What's covered in the book?

The book covers the elements of the SDK that you most likely want to use in your first few Apps. More advanced features like Open GL ES are mentioned but only the basic concept is shown.

Also for most UI elements it does not explain all the functions the iPhone SDK is offering. The book shows you what you must know. But once you understand this it is quite easy to figure out the rest by yourself, just looking the iPhone SDK documentaion that is provided by Apple.

The book now also includes a chapter about Core Data, which has been added in iPhone OS 3.0.

What's missing?

Most functions of the SDK that were intrcduced in iPhone OS3.0 are missing, I missed a chapter about MapKit most. MapKit is actually quite easy to use and I think many programmers would like to include Maps in their Apps.

How much and where can I get it?

Here the data from their webite

Publisher: Apress
ISBN10: 1-4302-2459-2
ISBN13: 978-1-4302-2459-4
584 pp.
Published Jul 2009
Price: $39.99
eBook Price: $27.99

You can buy the eBook here: http://www.apress.com

FYI: The eBook comes as a password protected PDF

More

The website already mentions 2 more books by the same author which cover the new functions of the iPhone SDK, but they are not available yet. But if they follow the same principle as this book I bet they will be worth buying.

Today we finally submitted Bindo the GPS group tracker iPhone App to Apple for review. Check out the BindoGPS website for most updated informations: http://www.bindogps.com

What is Bindo?

Bindo is a GPS tracker that tracks your own location and transmits this to your friends who also run Bindo on their iPhone. So you can see where your friends are at this moment and also your friends can see where you are.

Of course only those friends who you authenticate can see your location.

Features:

• Several different Map Styles, depending on your need.
  • Hiking/Biking Map with contour lines
  • Street Maps
  • Map data is cached, so if you go to the same place again, no need to download the maps again from the internet. You can also use this to download the map data via WiFi (e.g. at home or your hotel). Just pan over the area where you plan to go. Once you are out you can use these maps even without any internet connection.
• Waypoints
  • You can add picture to your waypoint
  • Design the waypoint marker, to mark a camp site, bus stop, car etc.
  • Send the waypoint to your friends, who can import this incl. picture.
    Of course you don't need to quit Bindo for this.
• Trips
  • All your trips are recorded on the iPhone
  • You can send an entire trip to your friends, who might use it as reference for their own journey.
  • Colors and line strength of the trips can be indivodually adjusted.
• Messages
  • You can send instant messages to your friends without leaving the App.
• Website
  • On the corresponding Bindo website (soon to be launched) you can look at your trips, show them on Google Maps, export them to Google Earth (KML) or as GPX file.

Who needs Bindo?

Bindo can be used by many persons

• Hikers, Bikers can track their locations to make sure nobody gets lots
• Families who want to share their locations
• Companies who need to track the locations or their drivers, repair-crew etc.

Screenshots

When you looked at our App Store Database recently you probably have noticed that we made some changes:

• Support for US, German and French App Store.
  When you click on the flag of the corresponding country the App descriptions and the Price from that particular App Store will be displayed. But please note that only some Apps have descriptions in several languages.
  When you change the App Store the website won't reload completely only the descriptions will be updated.
• Hover with the mouse on a short description to display the full description.
  Usually we only display the first few lines of an App description. Now if you move your mouse over this short description, the full text will be loaded and displayed.
• Faster way to show screenshots
  If you click on "Load screenshot" the screenshot will be loaded and embedded into the website, also without re-loading the full webpage.

Coming up, support for more App stores, translation of some texts into several languages and some other small changes.

We added some new features and redesigned our database for the iTunes App Store over the last few days:

1. Most noticeable is the chart that displays the price of an App since the App was released. You can easily see if the current price is really a bargain or not. You can also see the age of an App on the horizontal axis. For new Apps this chart won't be displayed.
   Please note that these chart won't be displayed on the iPhone/iPod Touch, because the load time of the site would take too long.
   
2. You can now hide/show the search function.
3. The description of an App has now a similar layout as seen in the iTunes App Store.
4. You can now also access the App store database with this URL: http://apps.infoxenter.com.