• Italiano

A new Professional Guitar Tuner  at only 1,99 usd.

Natural Guitar Tuner.
The device listen the strings of your guitar helping your finger to tune the 6 guitar strings.

The App , like the analog devices, Listen the sound of single Guitar or Bass string:
E. A, D, G, B. You can chioce several tipe of Chords.

Tuner with selection of Natural Scientific A at 432hz and Regular at 440hz. Pitch for 0.5 hertz and several different tuning preset-

A very sofisticaded algorithm is in the core of this usefull tool.

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I3Factory World LLc published a new app with owr i3F Editorial System. The most simple and usefull system of owr developing department.

Disponibile su App Store

http://itunes.apple.com/app/id455225634

• Italiano

Introduction

One of the most appreciated features by iPad users is the possibility to read books, magazines and newspapers. Practically all major publishers are in the App Store with apps dedicated to their products but there also many other minor publishers, in every country, that entered in the iOS world with one or more apps.

Today a publisher that wants to enter in the App Store with his own magazine has several decisions he needs to make. Some of these are:

• is it better to publish a specific app for the magazine or use a newsstand app as Zinio?
• in case we decide to use our own app, should we contact an iOS dev to have a tailored product or use a web-based service that provides us in short time with a standard app?
• should the magazine service be hosted by a third party or by the publisher itself?
• is it better to re-use existing PDF or make a completely new digital magazine (e.g. if you use the Adobe Digital Publishing suite)?

Of course all these decisions will have impact on development costs, web services hosting and maintenance and finally the magazine design flow.

The author of this post has gained some experience by developing and releasing on the App Store several magazines.This series of articles is based on the experience acquired by developing some custom magazine apps and will try to depict what is the architecture of an iPad magazine app starting from the building blocks and entering into the coding challenges occurring on these blocks. We hope that any developer that should have the chance to build an iPad app can take some benefit reading these articles.

Part 1 – Architecture

The scheme below shows the three main screens of a typical magazine app.

note:Even if we’ll mainly refer the iPad device, all considerations can be applied to the iPhone too.



Main screens of a magazine app

The first screen is the Store screen. This is typically the first view presented to the user (with the exception of the splash screen if required by the publisher) and provides the user the list of all issues that are currently available for purchase (with the term “purchase” we also mean “free” issues, which obviously are zero-priced).

note:In a typical magazine app we have only one kind of magazine, so the choice will be restricted to the last available issue and a set of older issues.

Of course for a more complex app, e.g. a book seller or multi-magazine app, this screen could be more complex as in such case products are organized by categories and then we could have a hierarchical representation of the same screen. Typically issues are represented with their cover and these covers are shown as a grid, or as a scrolling stand or using the well-know “coverflow” effect.

Together with the cover each issue is classified by its name, its release date and of course the price represented in the user currency. Besides a set of actions are associated to each issue, typically: purchase, download, preview.
Once an issue has been purchased, it should be automatically transferred to the Library view. This screen (which is usually accessible using the tab bar at the bottom) will show the list of issues that have been purchased. From this view the user can, for each issue, decide to read, delete, archive or download it.

Finally the Reader is the part of the app that allows the user to view the magazine: it can be a general purpose PDF or e-pub reader, or use (but this is not recommended as the capabilities are quite limited) the system Preview feature or finally be a custom reader: this depends on the format the issues are downloaded by the app.

Some publishers may ask to merge the Store and Library sections: this is a natural choice for those magazines which have a monthly (or lower) periodicity: in such case – due to the low number of issues available – it could be easier to show all covers in the same screen providing to the user different actions according to the fact that the magazine has been purchased or not.

A magazine app with the right architecture should be able to decouple the visual structure from the functional blocks. The reason for this is that both the publisher and the UI designer could come out with completely new ideas on how to represent the store on the screen, and it would be a nightmare for the developer to integrate each time his own back-end code with the specific needs of the new user interface. So to guarantee the maximum re-usability of the Store Manager and modeling structure it is good idea to architect the app following the MVC (Model View Controller) pattern as recommended by Apple for Cocoa apps.

Below you can see a high level functional blocks diagram.

Block diagram

The Publisher Server cloud symbol in the diagram represents all internet services, which are not part of the app. Normally this includes the server infrastructure used as storage for the magazines and the set of web services that will provide the magazine information to be seen on the store. This back-end can be hosted on the customer owned servers, or on specific sites such as Amazon S3 or finally on the developer server (but in such case be careful to provide a sufficient bandwidth and minimum downtime).

The Store Manager block is the central functional piece of the app. Its role is to communicate with the back-end server(s) and dispatch acquired data to the other parts of the app.

Initially the Store Manager needs to fetch from the back-end service the list of all available issues. How this can be done is specific of the implementation. We can use a simple XML or JSON file in case the list of issues is not huge, or we can establish a more complex protocol in case the publisher catalog is too large to be downloaded each time. E.g. we may provide access to several magazines which are organized by category or implement a search feature.

noteThe communication between the server and the app is one-way as data is transferred from the server to the app while the opposite flow could be limited to a minimum data exchange consisting of purchase transactions, simple http queries or analytics on the app usage.

From the point of view of the developer it makes sense to insert an intermediate communication layer (not shown in the diagram) between the server and the Store Manager: the advantage for this is that the Store Manager will expose a set of simple and general purpose APIs and at the same time the communication layer will take care of the specific implementation of back-end APIs.

Each time a new bunch of data is sent from the server to the Store Manager a set of Issue Models is created.

An Issue Model is the logical representation of each issue, and it consists of a unique identifier, the title, a cover image and the release date. Other information can be provided according to the application characteristics: e.g. a set of image previews, a short description of the issue, a table of contents, etc.

note:It is important to note that the Issue Model is characterized by a set of fields and only a subset of these is assigned by the store. Other information can be acquired from other sources: e.g. the price can be retrieved from the In App Purchase system, or the information that the product has been already purchased and downloaded from a local repository in the application data area. That’s why in the diagram below we decided to attach the Issue Models representation to a Local Storage block.

As soon as a new Issue Model is created by the Store Manager, it is annotated with few extra info collected from the Local Storage. The natural choice for the Local Storage would be to use the Core Data framework but of course a more simple approach based on plists or a serialized version of the data model.

The Store View is a view controller dedicated to provide the Store UI.

note:While the Store Manager is a highly reusable component, the Store View is customized according to publisher requests: we can have a shelf view (as in iBooks) or a sliding covers view, or a cover flow effect. In order to decouple the model data from the view the Store View can talk with the Store Manager using a delegate protocol.

Besides the Store View needs to listen to some Store Manager changes using a central notification mechanism or key-value observing (KVO). Why this requirement? because even if in most cases the Store View gets its data by querying the Store Manager block, using its delegate protocol (e.g. number of categories, name of categories, number of issues per category, name of issues, cover image and so on), it may happen that some events occur asynchronously with respect to the typical UI interaction (e.g.: a user is reading an issue but at the same the app finish to download another issue): in such case the Store View controller must be informed of this particular event in order to update the UI appropriately. Once the Store View knows, through notification or by KVO observation, that something changed in the Store Manager, it can start the delegate protocol based query cycle to update the UI.

The Library View is also a View Controller which is similar to the Store View but customized for the purpose of displaying only issues that have been purchased. It still needs to communicate with the Store Manager using the same protocol used by Store View and it still needs to listen to Store Manager changes, but the set of actions available to the user is completely different. As soon as a purchase is done, that is the transaction has been recorded, there are a set of operations that could be deferred or could simply fail due to temporary networking issues: they are the download phase (which could take several minutes especially if the issue a several hundred megabytes package) and the installation phase (typically unarchiving the package, generating thumbnails and so on). So the Library Manager needs to expose to the user the next required action: download, if the issue has been purchased but not downloaded, stop/cancel download if issue download is in progress, install if the package has been downloaded but not installed and finally read to start reading the magazine.

In the diagram we kept the Store and Library views separated to emphasize the different requirements and to be coherent with the 3-screens based app organization. But as stated before it may happen that the Store View and the Library View are merged in a unique view controller; this approach is common to many well-known magazine apps in the App Store.

note:The Store Manager maintains an interaction with two internet-based Apple services: In App Purchase (via Store Kit framework) and Newsstand (currently in beta, will be available with iOS5).

Due to App Store rules, In App Purchase is practically the only way to purchase magazines from the store. As there is no way at the moment to let the publisher own back-end server to communicate directly with the In App Purchase system, the Store Manager block must be able to annotate the Issue Model with the extra pricing info coming from the In App Purchase server.

The recommendation in such case is to insert an intermediate layer between the Store Manager and the Store Kit framework, whose purpose is to manage the communication with the highly asynchronous Store Kit protocol thus giving at the same time a simple interface to the Store Manager (e.g.: is this issue available in the store? what is the current price in this country? did the user already purchased the issue?) One example of well-known and excellent layer is the MKStoreKit open-source library available from GitHub.

Newsstand is a new feature coming with iOS5. As we are constrained by the NDA with Apple, we cannot disclose too many details and just refer to the marketing info available in the Apple web site. Essentially Newsstand will be a central hub for all subscription-based magazine apps: it is a special Springboard folder that will collect all information from the magazine apps and show and download all the latest issues. The Store Manager must provide the minimum required interface to provide the app the compatibility with this new feature.

In the next articles I will provide some more detail about the construction of the different blocks. We’ll see the details of the Store Manager delegate protocols, we’ll discuss the model behind each issue and we’ll see how to efficiently retrieve information from the network.

• Italiano

Introduction

One of the most appreciated features by iPad users is the possibility to read books, magazines and newspapers. Practically all major publishers are in the App Store with apps dedicated to their products but there also many other minor publishers, in every country, that entered in the iOS world with one or more apps.

Today a publisher that wants to enter in the App Store with his own magazine has several decisions he needs to make. Some of these are:

• is it better to publish a specific app for the magazine or use a newsstand app as Zinio?
• in case we decide to use our own app, should we contact an iOS dev to have a tailored product or use a web-based service that provides us in short time with a standard app?
• should the magazine service be hosted by a third party or by the publisher itself?
• is it better to re-use existing PDF or make a completely new digital magazine (e.g. if you use the Adobe Digital Publishing suite)?

Of course all these decisions will have impact on development costs, web services hosting and maintenance and finally the magazine design flow.

The author of this post has gained some experience by developing and releasing on the App Store several magazines.This series of articles is based on the experience acquired by developing some custom magazine apps and will try to depict what is the architecture of an iPad magazine app starting from the building blocks and entering into the coding challenges occurring on these blocks. We hope that any developer that should have the chance to build an iPad app can take some benefit reading these articles.

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I3Factory World LLc published two new tuner applications:

Guitar Tuner I3F World Professional : 1,59 € , iPhone e iPad
Description
Tune your guitar using the Pro version of the i3F World Guitar Tuner!
This app is based on the FFT algorithm to detect your guitar strings sound pitch.
How to tune a guitar using Guitar Tuner I3F World Professional:

1. select the tuning from the exhaustive list of 6-string tunings available in the app
2. select the note/string you want to play
3. play the note
4. check the instrument: it will show with a needle the tuning status (tuned, sharp, flat)
5. use the string tuning peg to adjust and play again

Other than the needle information, the app provides you the target frequency, the detected frequency and the distance in cents.

Note that the needle will start moving after 1 second in order to have an initial good accuracy.

Use the sensitivity knob to change the instrument sensitivity. We recommend to start with a -70 dB setting and then play with it according to the loudness of the environment. In a quiet environment we recommend using low sensitivity values.

Finally for some frequencies it is recommended to plug an external microphone in order to improve the signal detection.

Guitar Tuner I3F World : 0,79 €, iPhone

Guitar Tuner i3Factory World, is a cool interactive App for tuning a guitar by the i3F algorithm .

This app use the Fourier algorithm to calculate the fundamental frequency of a captured audio sound. Also, we apply the algorithm to analyze live sound to build this guitar tuner.

The App use the internal microphone and you’re playing a guitar or bass guitar, like most analog tuners come equipped with a small, inbuilt microphone, but obviously it will pick up any additional noise that’s going on around you, so you need to find a quiet spot to tune up using the microphone.

How it helps you get in tune

Basically, you play a string, the i3Factory World guitar tuner recognises its pitch and then using light indicators (small red and green lights) and usually a reference needle, the tuner will tell you if that string is sharp or flat

• Italiano

Dear Editors,

finally we made a system that allows you to publish magazines, books, newspapers,catalogs or any publication at no cost to each new issue or for every new player.

We cater to small publisher as the major publishing house, after having tested our prototypes, and after more than one year of development, i3Factory® is pleased to introduce a software system that allows you to publish your own issues without expensive investments on the App Store .

Through Apple’s App Store, Android Market or Amazon App Store,  your audience market will become the world’s online market, then the possibility of reaching readers around the world.

The costs of printing paper are more and more high and not allow the publisher of large print runs, and then plan to reach a geographically more wide.

With our publishing system, the costs of printing are canceled; readers browse your publication on the iPad tablet (and iPhone) and the cost for new publications will be always null.

We note that the experience of reading a magazine on the iPad and far more satisfactory experience of reading the same publication on paper.

SOME FEATURES

1. Your Own Universal Application will be published on Apple® App Store;
   
2. Unlimited publications from PDF files;
3. No infrastructures costs: Host the publications on your own Internet or Intranet servers. Have 100% control and autonomy on your content;
4. Offer your readers & audience the best mobile/tablet browsing experience with high definition texts and images, Videos and so much more;
5. Wide audience: you pubblications will be ready Wold Wide;

Magazine using i3Factory editorial

ADVANTAGES

• Economy of Scale: Buy one time license and create as many mobile publications as you wish in a just few clicks!
• Earnings:Editors can offer prublication for free or not free.

• Easy-to-use: Easily publish your magazione or publications from your  PDFs. i3Factory Editorial® technology automatically exports your links and your bookmarks from your PDF to your iPad & iPhone App.

• Mobility: Consult your  publications offline , once downloaded the publication will be avaiable for  read it without you need any tipe of online connections.

• Fast Download: all operation works on wifi or 3G data connections, Give your audience a great experience; with an internet connection the pages are immediately available as you flip through the document.

• Sustainable Development: Go green. With i3Factory Editorial® all your publications have a positive carbon balance sheet. Help preserve our environment, save paper, reduce printing, save the trees and help decrease green house gases!

• Personalization: Create your “Own Graphic interface” for your readers and a table of content for quick navigation.

• Security: Host your publications on your own Internet or Intranet servers. Stay in full control of your interactive publications and your content (archives, subscription, sales campaign …).

• Multimedia Content: Add clickable zones (go to page or links to websites) inside your interactive publication and/or PDF , HTML5. Engage readers withInteractivity & Videos from inside the pages of your publication.

• Performance: You can find what you want in the blink of an eye.

• Technology: i3Factory is a certified Application Factory. We are up to date with the latest technological developments, hence allowing us to provide you with the most high-performing tool on the market today.
  
  Be on the cutting edge of technology!

COSTS

Obviously prices will vary with respect to the need of the publisher, which normally requires some “customization”.

The starting price for our solution starts from 900 euros for small publishers, a solution that contains all the features necessary for most small-medium-sized publishers that starts from 1500 euros up to a maximum of € 5000 for medium and big publishers.

More Information on packages you can find on this editorial on this page:

New editorial system for iPad, iPhone & Android

or  direct on  i3F Editorial web site (http://i3factory.com/editorial)

• Italiano

i3Factory Promec accompanying App Store;
Promec, the company of the Chamber of Commerce of Modena for internationalization, is going to land on the Apple App Store with a universal application that will allow you to search the excellence of Made in Italy, but more ‘precisely the “Made in Modena “by iPad and iPhone devices.

The Application ITALY EMPOWERING AGENCY developed by i3Factory, is available for free at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/italy-empowering-agency-leccellenza/id423966358?mt=8

ITALY EMPOWERING AGENCY: the excellence of made in italy of Modena’s products

MODENA EMILIA ROMAGNA: ITALY EMPOWERING AGENCY is the Special agency of the Modena Chamber of Commerce charged with creating new opportunities for companies and for our district.

Thanks to new technologies, our Agency is now able to boost the exposure of all the services available on its websites www.modenaemliaromagna.it and www.expomo.com, by means of an IPHONE and IPAD application.

We present our traditional products and produce to the world and promote the many fine products of a region rich in enterprises, industrial districts and features of major social and cultural importance.

Thanks to this application, the business information of those companies which have best exploited the distinctive traits of the area – through the promotion of excellence in the economic, technological and cultural spheres – will be readily available worldwide.

This easy-to-use application will prove useful to both Italian and foreign operators.  To foreign companies wanting to expand their markets by finding new suppliers.
To Italian companies, by making them more easy to identify by anyone wishing to do business with Modena and Emilia Romagna,  in various languages: English, Russian, Spanish, to which will shortly be added French, Portuguese, German and Chinese.

With one click you can easily view more than 2400 companies by product sector, categories and products, with the ability to search with various business insights

The application also allows best identifying companies by means of a descriptive map and an overview of the tourist and cultural centers in our beautiful district.

We are, furthermore, at disposal at all times to help professional operators from all sectors to expand their companies in Emilia Romagna and the world thanks to an extensive worldwide network of offices and contacts, and a profound knowledge of global markets.

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i3Factory ha Pubblicato su App Store la rivista Varese Focus edita dall’Unione Industriali di Varese:

App Name: Varese Focus

App Version Number: 1.0

App SKU: 777010777010777010

App Apple ID:415378997

i3Factory presenta la sua nuova piattaforma per editori dedicata sia ai grandi gruppi che ai piccoli imprenditori.

Proponiamo anche soluzioni per piccolissimi editori con la possibilità di pubblicare infiniti numeri di una rivista, libro o di un qualsiSI periodico ad un costo incredibilmente concorrenziale date le economie di scala che il nostro modello di sviluppo “crowd” ci permette.

Il codice dell’app e’ sviluppato in OBJ-C , ovvero con linguaggio nativo per iPhone/iPad iOs, dato che i3Factory preferisce evitare il piu’ possibile la produzione di semplici Web App che riteniamo “poco professionali”.

L’Applicazione Varese Focus pe iPad è realizzata in partnership con Idini Consulting.

Per contattare un agente i3Factory e’ possibile scrivere al seguente indirizzo:

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Benvenuti nel sistema documentale ISNART:
http://itunes.apple.com/it/app/isnart-documents-italian-touristic/id410548734?mt=8#
Con questa app sarà possibile accedere al sistema documentale ISNART e leggere i rapporti tecnici e leggere anche le Guide Turistiche Provinciali.

Informazioni e condizioni di utilizzo

Con questa Applicazione per Apple iPad è possibile consultare al sistema documentale dell’Istituto Nazionale di Riceca sul Turismo (ISNART).

E’ possibile accedere gratuitamente alle pubblicazioni, alle guide turistiche provinciali e agli abstract dei report dell’Osservatorio nazionale sul turismo italiano e i Dossier sul turismo.

Le guide turistiche provinciali contengono utili informazioni su cosa visitare, cosa acquistare, e cosa non perdersi nella provincia, grazie ad un calendario ricco di eventi. Nella guida sono anche elencate le strutture ricettive e ristorative che hanno ottenuto il marchio Ospitalità Italiana, come segno distintivo della qualità dei servizi offerti.

Per quanto riguarda i report è disponibile un abstract contenente le informazioni di base scaricabile gratuitamente con questa applicazione.
Tutti i documenti presenti in questa applicazione hanno i diritti riservati e copyright ISNART, pertanto non e’ permessa la distribuzione o la pubblicazioe senza espressa autorizzazione scritta di ISNART. Ogni abuso ai diritti di autori sarà perseguito a norma di legge.

Per le sole Guide Turistiche Provinciali, è possibile leggere con il lettore proprietario Pd_ i3Factory interno oppure aprirle con l’app iBook e tutte le vostre applicazioni preferite per la lettura dei documenti in formato Pdf (c) Adobe.

ISNART scpa, Società Consortile per Azioni “in house” al sistema camerale, realizza studi e pubblicazioni sul turismo, indagini, rilevazioni e progetti di fattibilità, elaborazione dati, costituzione e forniture di banche dati ed Osservatori, svolgimento di attività editoriali e di promozione e diffusione con ogni mezzo dei propri servizi, organizzazione di convegni, seminari e dibattiti in ambito turistico.

L’ISNART, Istituto Nazionale Ricerche Turistiche, Società Consortile per Azioni “in house” al sistema camerale, realizza studi e pubblicazioni sul turismo, indagini, rilevazioni e progetti di fattibilità, elaborazione dati, costituzione e forniture di banche dati ed Osservatori, svolgimento di attività editoriali e di promozione ediffusione con ogni mezzo dei propri servizi, organizzazione di convegni, seminari e dibattiti in ambito turistico.
L’ISNART si adopera, attraverso studi e ricerche, a indagare le problematiche e le tematiche del settore turismo, tenendo presente una serie di obiettivi strategici assunti come finalità prioritarie:
Per il sistema privato
Innalzare la qualità dell’offerta ospitale
Per il sistema pubblico-privato
Lavorare affinché siano garantiti spazi crescenti di integrazione e comunicazione reciproca
Per il sistema globale “Italia”
Cercare di ridurre la disomogeneità, le differenze che tutt’oggi caratterizzano l’offerta turistica italiana, favorendo un crescente processo di integrazione super ed interregionale dei singoli prodotti turistici
Per il sistema camerale
creare una rete di collegamento tra le Camere di Commercio per coordinare le azioni e le iniziative relative al turismo
supportare con informazioni, documentazioni e consulenze specifiche le azioni che una Camera di Commercio vuole intraprendere nel settore del turismo
Per il mercato europeo
Sin dal 2006, Isnart partecipa attivamente alle iniziative del turismo sostenibile a livello europeo, aderendo alla Rete europea del turismo sostenibile e competitivo – Necstour, come partner ufficiale a progetti europei (ad es il Cast ) e frequentando i Forum annuali del turismo europeo, spesso con la Commissione europea-DG Imprese – Unità turismo

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