aplus.rs
When you are adding PNG images to an iOS app, Xcode will optimize and compress them when compiling, using a tool called pngcrush. To revert this optimization back, copy the .png files from the .ipa bundle into some folder and run this in terminal
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/usr/bin/pngcrush -dir SOME_DIR -revert-iphone-optimizations -q *.png
SOME_DIR is a destination path, something like ~/temp.
Seriously, it is.
Go Couch to 5k 2.0 went live last week with much improved speed/distance tracking (way more accurate than before), full dailymile integration and improved integration with Twitter and Facebook. New version features a female coaching voice along with improved mail voice.
If you are thinking should you start running, go ahead and give this one a spin, it’s currently $2.99 on the App Store.
This is very useful if you use service like TestFlight (if you are not, you should) and in general gives you idea how much you worked and tested.
Hey look, I did 500+ builds for the new version.
:)
Anyway, first make sure your project’s Info.plist has Bundle version (raw key name is CFBuildVersion) set to integer value, 0 or 1 or whatever you want as starting value. In Xcode 4.3 this can be set in Summary tab, the Build field, like this:
Version is what you will market to end users, what you will respond when setting up an update in iTunes Connect. Build is mostly for developers and testers, as a reference for bug tracking/fixing.
Next, add Run Script phase in the Build Phases for the main target and paste this script:
buildNumber=$(/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Print CFBundleVersion" "${PROJECT_DIR}/${INFOPLIST_FILE}")
buildNumber=$(($buildNumber + 1))
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set :CFBundleVersion $buildNumber" "${PROJECT_DIR}/${INFOPLIST_FILE}"
It looks like this in Xcode 4.3
Most important thing here is that this Run Script phase must be before Copy bundle resources. If you forget that, your builds will always be one step behind.
In the end, if you want to show this in your app, this is one way to do it:
[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@ (%@)", [[NSBundle mainBundle] objectForInfoDictionaryKey:@"CFBundleShortVersionString"], [[NSBundle mainBundle] objectForInfoDictionaryKey:@"CFBundleVersion"] ]
I was recently investigating one very strange crash in an app I’m working on. The app is distributed ad-hoc (through wonderful TestFlightapp.com) and each release is archived in Xcode 4.2. I got the .crash file from beta tester and dragged it into Xcode’s Organizer, which did symbolicate everything in the stack except two lines from my code.
Incident Identifier: 8B369A29-8421-4686-B1F6-9D66524937B5 CrashReporter Key: 746834fde1cb2033d4103df311e8f3b6ee9e8817 Hardware Model: iPhone3,1 Process: myApp [74] Path: /var/mobile/Applications/78EC36CC-DAF5-4910-9D60-A03DDC8E24BC/myApp.app/myApp Identifier: myApp Version: ??? (???) Code Type: ARM (Native) Parent Process: launchd [1] Date/Time: 2011-10-27 11:37:55.841 +0100 OS Version: iPhone OS 4.3.3 (8J2) Report Version: 104 Exception Type: EXC_CRASH (SIGABRT) Exception Codes: 0x00000000, 0x00000000 Crashed Thread: 0 Thread 0 name: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread Thread 0 Crashed: 0 libsystem_kernel.dylib 0x3657aa1c 0x36569000 + 72220 1 libsystem_c.dylib 0x366513b4 pthread_kill + 52 2 libsystem_c.dylib 0x36649bf8 abort + 72 3 libstdc++.6.dylib 0x36613a64 __gnu_cxx::__verbose_terminate_handler() + 376 4 libobjc.A.dylib 0x3548806c _objc_terminate + 104 5 libstdc++.6.dylib 0x36611e36 __cxxabiv1::__terminate(void (*)()) + 46 6 libstdc++.6.dylib 0x36611e8a std::terminate() + 10 7 libstdc++.6.dylib 0x36611f5a __cxa_throw + 78 8 libobjc.A.dylib 0x35486c84 objc_exception_throw + 64 9 Foundation 0x3522d924 __NSThreadPerformPerform + 648 10 CoreFoundation 0x31942a72 __CFRUNLOOP_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_A_SOURCE0_PERFORM_FUNCTION__ + 6 11 CoreFoundation 0x31944758 __CFRunLoopDoSources0 + 376 12 CoreFoundation 0x319454e4 __CFRunLoopRun + 224 13 CoreFoundation 0x318d5ebc CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 224 14 CoreFoundation 0x318d5dc4 CFRunLoopRunInMode + 52 15 GraphicsServices 0x31254418 GSEventRunModal + 108 16 GraphicsServices 0x312544c4 GSEventRun + 56 17 UIKit 0x319fbd62 -[UIApplication _run] + 398 18 UIKit 0x319f9800 UIApplicationMain + 664 19 myApp 0x00003a4c main (main.m:14) 20 myApp 0x00003a04 0x1000 + 10756
...
Binary Images:
0x1000 - 0x67fff +myApp armv7 <a0b39fab741e34eb831048cc752d8e0c> /var/mobile/Applications/78EC36CC-DAF5-4910-9D60-A03DDC8E24BC/myApp.app/myApp
Great. The usual reason for this is that Xcode did not find .dSYM file. This is actually really strange since Xcode has the .xcarchive, saved in its default location. But no matter what I tried, it did not symbolicate properly. One possible reason that I’ve seen people mention is that Spotlight has not indexed the archives and you can force this with this Terminal command:
mdimport ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/Archives/
This did not help either. I tested Spotlight and strangely it could not find the app signature (from the bottom of the crash log excerpt above):
mdfind "com_apple_xcode_dsym_uuids == A06EC84E-53BF-3209-8B63-C0CAEBDB45B6"
At this point I tried to do it manually and in series of attemps encountered all kind of possible issues.
First, I had a custom symbolicatecrash script in /usr/local/bin/ from several months ago. This script often changes as Apple devs fix bugs in it. While they do that and ship the fixed version with next Xcode update, good souls on the internet have already resolved the given issue. Thus at some point I downloaded one of those custom versions and placed it there. Hence when I tried to run symbolicatecrash manually, it used that version. You can check this in Terminal, by typing which symbolicatecrash – if it finds the script anywhere in your default paths, it will show it. If not, then you are ok.
Second, in Xcode 4.2, the current version of this script is at this location: /Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/Library/PrivateFrameworks/DTDeviceKit.framework/Versions/A/Resources/symbolicatecrash. Files in this private framework are not accessible from any other folder, so in order to run it manually you need to either use this full path or copy it to the folder where you acquired .crash log files are and run it from there.
Third, I extracted the .app and .dSYM file from the archive and placed in the same folder. I then tried to run the script from there, with all of these line (one by one):
./symbolicatecrash -v *.crash . > s.crash
./symbolicatecrash -A -v myApp_2011-10-27-113755_Alex-iPhone.crash myApp.app.dSYM > s.crash
None did anything differently. Things began to look really crazy at this point and I started doubting is this a crash report really from this version. Double-checked with tester, also double checked the .app.dSYM file as described here on Stack Overflow. All was fine, this was the binary used.
Forth, I tried to directly look for the given hex address in the crash log:
dwarfdump --lookup 0x00003a04 --arch armv6 myApp.app.dSYM
And this finally gave me what I needed:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
File: myApp.app.dSYM/Contents/Resources/DWARF/myApp (armv6)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Looking up address: 0x0000000000003a04 in .debug_info... found!
0x0000012c: Compile Unit: length = 0x00005a18 version = 0x0002 abbr_offset = 0x00000000 addr_size = 0x04 (next CU at 0x00005b48)
0x00000137: TAG_compile_unit [1] *
AT_producer( "Apple clang version 3.0 (tags/Apple/clang-211.9) (based on LLVM 3.0svn)" )
AT_language( DW_LANG_ObjC )
AT_name( "/Users/aleck/dev/consulting/myApp/trunk/Classes/AppDelegate.m" )
AT_entry_pc( 0x0000323c )
AT_stmt_list( 0x00000112 )
AT_comp_dir( "/Users/aleck/dev/consulting/myApp/trunk" )
AT_APPLE_optimized( 0x01 )
AT_APPLE_major_runtime_vers( 0x02 )
0x00000dc3: TAG_subprogram [15] *
AT_sibling( {0x00000dfb} )
AT_name( "-[AppDelegate dealloc]" )
AT_decl_file( "/Users/aleck/dev/consulting/myApp/trunk/Classes/AppDelegate.m" )
AT_decl_line( 250 )
AT_prototyped( 0x01 )
AT_APPLE_isa( 0x01 )
AT_low_pc( 0x000039d4 )
AT_high_pc( 0x00003a6c )
AT_frame_base( r7 )
Line table dir : '/Users/aleck/dev/consulting/myApp/trunk/Classes'
Line table file: 'AppDelegate.m' line 254, column 5 with start address 0x0000000000003a02
Looking up address: 0x0000000000003a04 in .debug_frame... found!
0x00000100: FDE
length: 0x0000000c
CIE_pointer: 0x00000000
start_addr: 0x000039d4 -[AppDelegate dealloc]
range_size: 0x00000098 (end_addr = 0x00003a6c)
Instructions: 0x000039d4: CFA=4294967295+4294967295
Or so I thought. When I looked into my code at this line, this was in dealloc method, where NSPersistentStoreCoordinator was released. And that was really nutty place to have a bug. At this point I was completely stumped and had no idea what else to try.
Luckily in this case, tester was able to give login credentials so I could repeat the scenario using his data, while debugging the app on the device. And found that I had a badly formatted NSPredicate which worked in 99.9% of cases and this tester stumbled on 0.1% where it did not. Great find, it would be a serious head-scratcher if app went live with this.
But I still don’t understand why Xcode 4.2 won’t see the .dSYM file and while the script itself won’t symbolicate this .crash log. Honestly, I can’t help but think this is seriously more complicated than it needs be. But it is as it is. Here some other useful stuff I encountered while working on this.
Place where Xcode puts .crash logs picked from your testing devices: ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/MobileDevice/<your device name>.symbolicated
Various possibly helpful links:
· http://www.goosoftware.co.uk/blog/the-symbolicator-helps-those-who-help-themselves/
· https://devforums.apple.com/message/404524
· http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2697067/symbolicate-adhoc-iphone-app-crashes
If you have any ideas that could help, please write in comments.
In the last few days, there’s been quite a storm in the Twitter tea pot, regarding the new hit iOS client, Tweetbot. All Tapbots apps have completely custom UI, sounds and interaction but they always managed to make it so and still keep great performance. This is the main reason for their success – the fun part in using them did not come with a price (like UI lag).
However, Tweetbot faces quite a bit criticism that its custom UI hinders the UX of the app.
Many things have been said regarding this but I find Ben Brooks’ series of complaint posts particularly misplaced. He argues that Tweetbot’s custom UI over-compliates the things without bringing anything in. He’s wrong, especially this:
“Gestures in the case of Tweetbot aren’t adding anything to the all important UX — in fact I would think they are detracting from it by straying so far from conventional iOS norms.”
Tweetbot isn’t forcing you to learn anything new. You can use the entire app with one and only gesture every single iPhone user knows – simple short tap. Tap to reveal most-used actions over a tweet. Tap the view button to load the tweet in full-screen view and reveal additional options (conversation, related tweets, block/spam report etc).
What I would have liked is that Mark Jardine has not used an eye for this icon, but instead used the default disclosure indicator, like this:
A better view icon
That button moves the view hierarchy further along, so the default system icon should have been used. Apart from this small hickup, the UI/UX in Tweetbot great – lacks nothing, hinders nothing else.
Seriously, just try – you don’t have to know any of the gestures (swipes, multiple taps or long taps) to use the app. But when you do discover them, you find yourself using the app that much faster.
etc. I think it’s clear – the UI is easy to use, learning curve is almost straight line (apart from that eye icon). But the UX is greatly enhanced with gestures and it brings you that wonderful feeling of being proud that you are the power user.
You should also read this feature showdown which, in its second part, shows why Tweetbot is so good. It’s great for reading the timeline and answering here and there. I can’t imagine anyone (apart from the most egoistical jerks) writing more tweets than reading them, so this is the advantage to have. The feature where Tweetbot is able to properly load the part of the timeline you may have missed during the night is invaluable to me. Official Twitter client often loads this and then loses my place where I was so I have to scroll and find the last tweet I was on.