1. Notifications
   Pull down from the top of the screen from any portion of the OS and down comes the Notification Center. Here, up to 15 notifications will be shown from different apps, including your missed calls/voicemails/email. Increased productivity and no more interrupted games of Tiny Wings. Also of note are two “widgets” that Apple has provided, a quick way to view the latest stock and weather info. Slide up at the bottom with the drawer grabber and away goes the Notification Center. A quick overview of your notifications is also visible from your lock screen, swipe the notification from the app icon and you are brought directly to the application. Everything feels more seamless and integrated. Hopefully as the gold master/public release nears, Apple will allow for third party “widgets” to be added to the lock screen.







2. Integrated Hourly Weather Updates
   The integrated weather app now has hourly updates! Not like information you could have received from a third party application, but the fact that is all integrated is definitely a nice touch. Apple has also included Local Weather updates.



3. Polished Messaging
   Apple has upgraded their messaging app. Nice touches include iChat style message bubbles and green button. Contrast this with the iOS 4 messaging bubbles.



4. Twitter Integration
   Twitter integration throughout the operating system. From photos to maps, everything is very closely integrated from Twitter. This is starting to look like Microsoft-Facebook vs. Apple-Twitter.

Exciting Coming Features

iTunes Sync

Apple has included an iTunes Sync settings page, but no functionality was usable in testing. When this is implemented, you will be able to sync your iPhone. Wirelessly.

iTunes Match

Apple will automatically scan your library, up to 20,000 songs (not including purchased songs) and make them all available from all your devices on the go. Who needs a 32GB iPhone anymore?

Make sure you get the name attributes of all values you are trying to POST to your web service. In this particular web service, Blotify, we accept an image along with several values pertaining to the particular image. The file attribute is named media.

First, you want to translate your raw image data from the camera into a UIImage, and then into a NSData object. Secondly, set the URL to POST to.

NSData *imageData = UIImageJPEGRepresentation(image, 70);
NSString *urlString = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"http://api.blotify.com/upload/"];

Next, create your ASIFormDataRequest object and add the values you want to post to the server, making sure the keys align with the name attributes on the form of your web service, and send the request by sending the object a startSynchronous message. In this particular web service, we are accepting form values: details, rating, lat, lng, and media for the actual file.

ASIFormDataRequest *asiRequest = [ASIFormDataRequest requestWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:urlString]];
[asiRequest addPostValue:@"in the lab" forKey:@"details"];
[asiRequest addPostValue:@"3" forKey:@"rating"];
[asiRequest addPostValue:@"35.296574" forKey:@"lat"];
[asiRequest addPostValue:@"-120.668886" forKey:@"lng"];
[asiRequest addData:imageData withFileName:@"image.jpg" andContentType:@"image/jpeg" forKey:@"media"];
[asiRequest startSynchronous];

To make debugging easier, you may want to log any messages the server responds with as such:

NSError *error = [asiRequest error];
if (!error) {
NSString *response = [asiRequest responseString];
NSLog(@"upload response: %@", response);
}

Here is a sample form this code coule be POSTing to, this may not be necessary, in the case that you are writing the back end to your own web service.

<form action="http://api.blotify.com/upload/" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data">
Details: <input type="text" name="details" /><br>
Rating: <input type="text" name="rating" /><br>
Latitude: <input type="text" name="lat" /><br>
Longitude: <input type="text" name="lng" /><br>
<input type="file" name="media" /></br>
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Upload" />
</form></code>

There you have it, with very minimal amount of code, you can start posting files and values to your favorite web services from iOS using the ASIHTTPRequest library! There is much more you can do with the library, I have just touched the surface with this post. If you would like to read more about the capabilities of this library, check out their wonderful documentation!

Blotify is my first startup and latest project which aims to allow other to share media with their social circles and enable communities to view hyper-local trends. A media journal, if you will.

From the original inception of the idea, there have been many tweaks and changes to the functionality and feel through many cycles of iteration. Learning by doing is the best advice I have to offer those who are wishing to form startups of their own. In the eyes of development, early design decisions were added to, tweaked, and even discarded.

Several technologies were reviewed and selected such as the iOS SDK, Android SDK, and PHP as well as some promising technologies such as the Kohana framework which utilizes a Hierarchical Model View Controller software architecture style.

Stay tuned for the latest news, tips, and tricks, and my personal experiences as a developer and entrepreneur.