LDS Hymns now available in Spanish!!!

That's right!  My number one request was to have a version of LDS Hymns in Spanish.  It's now available as Himnos SUD in the App Store.  It has an identical feature set - the same, easy-to-use application as LDS Hymns.  Please donate (link on the right) you find it useful!

Himnos SUD in the App Store

Version 1.1 Released

An update to the LDS Hymns application has just been released.  Version 1.1 has the following changes based on your suggestions:

- added option to turn off hiding the navigation bar in landscape mode while viewing the hymns (option is in the iPhone/iPod Settings application)
- added a new Categories section
- changed visual style to grouped table view
- fixed typo on Version page

Keep the suggestions coming!

Approved!!

The application was just approved by Apple and is now available in the App Store for download.  Please download and give feedback!  I would like to improve this application based on user feedback.  I don't have a lot of free time right now, but hope to make small improvements going forward.  Thanks for your interest!

LDS Hymns (App Store link)

Rejected!

I just got an email from Apple stating that the application has been rejected for now. Here's what Apple said:

"LDS Hymns cannot be posted to the App Store because the small bundle icon does not match your large icon. This might be confusing to users."

What?! I've seen plenty of icons that don't perfectly match. Anyway, I've "corrected" the problem and have resubmitted the application. Another week or two, I guess. It would have been nice to have had the application out before General Conference...

A Little More Information

Now that the application has been submitted, I thought I'd give you a little more information about this app. It's very basic in its current form, allowing the user to search the entire Hymnal by either title or hymn number. It also includes the hymns in groups of 50 by number if you prefer look through the Hymnal in that way.

I am open to suggestions on ways to improve the application, although at this point my time is very limited. My initial goal was to produce a functional application that fulfilled my basic needs. Some of my ideas for additional features include adding the full text of the hymns (and making the text searchable) for all hymns in case you don't want to see the music, as well as including an easier way to go from one hymn to the next without having to back out to the hymn list.

I would also like to point out that there were a few hymns or portions thereof that had to be excluded for copyright reasons. The list of those hymns includes:

Text-only included (music copyrighted): 12, 15, 54, 62, 82, 124, 143, 284

Music-only included (text copyrighted): 299, 323, 324

Hymn entirely omitted (music and text copyrighted): 86, 219, 296

With that out of the way, please enjoy a few additional screenshots!

Application Submitted to the App Store!!!

So the LDS Hymns application has finally been submitted to the App Store. I've heard horror stories about rejection after rejection, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. This application is a fairly simple one and I haven't had any crashes with my latest build. I'm hopeful that it will be approved within a week or so. In the meantime I'll continue to test it here!

My First iPhone Project

This summer I decided to teach myself how to program for the iPhone. I have no prior programming experience (aside from one semester of C++ 10 years ago as an undergrad at NCSU), but I love challanges. I purchased two books: Programming in Objective-C 2.0 by Stephen G. Kochan as well as the Beginning iPhone 3 Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK. From what I had read online, these two books would teach me what I needed to know, assuming I had no prior programming experience.

Over the course of two months I've been able to go from having zero iPhone programming experience to having a functional application - LDS Hymns. My goal with this application was to produce something that I would use and enjoy, and hopefully something that others would enjoy as well. LDS Hymns is a free iPhone/iPod touch application that gives you the words and music of your favorite LDS Hymns on your favorite devices. On this blog I hope to document some of the challenges in putting this application together as well as the progress of the application itself. Please let me know if you have any comments or suggestions!