SheffCam: My first venture into iPhone development

I said a while ago that this year would be the year to do some serious programming in the form of iPhone development and while this is still the case I’ve not got very far (Yeah Yeah I know).  What I have managed to do is dip my toe in the iPhone development pond ocean in the form of Dashcode, and while not technically coding (it uses existing web technologies to produce dynamic web apps), it has allowed me to start with an idea for an application which I hope to development into a full blown native iPhone app.

The idea for SheffCam came to me whilst viewing the Sheffield City Council traffic cams which cover 34 sites in and around the city.  Although really useful they arent much good if you are out and about and want to see what the traffic is like for your journey home. Viewing the councils website on the iPhone is possible but a pain as it requires lots of zooming in and out and downloading of superfluous data.  Hence the need for a streamlined iPhone compatible version of the site.

After approaching Sheffield City Council they were interested in an iPhone version of the site and I was given the go ahead to use the camera images in my development.

SheffCam is in early development (beta) and doesnt have all the features I’d like included but I’ve decided to release it to get feedback from potential users.  Please leave suggestions, bugs and feature requests in the comments below.  In the meantime please feel free to take a look at SheffCam on your iPhone or iPod touch.

Enjoy