What's New in Corona SDK 1.1

It's here! Corona SDK 1.1 is now available for pruchase at the Corona Developer Portal and we think you'll agree it was worth the wait. A 30-day trial version can be downloaded here

We've added a ton of features based on your feedback, like the ability to internationalize your app, overlay web pages over animated backgrounds, and access all native fonts on the iPhone (see WHAT'S NEW below).

We've also added professionally-designed sample projects to show you the kinds of visually-rich user experiences that are possible in Corona: the Compass sample is a beautiful and simple app that demonstrates integration with the magnetometer hardware in the iPhone 3GS; the Twitter sample shows you how to combine native textfields to login to your account and then use the Twitter web api to send a tweet; and the GPS sample connects location updates with the ability to open up a Google map of your current location.


WHAT'S NEW?


  • GPS support (see "Device/GPS" sample project)

  • Compass support (see "Device/Compass" sample project)

  • Access to all 58 device fonts on the iPhone, in both the standard Corona textfields and the new multiline and input textfields. See the "Graphics/Clock" sample project for an example.

  • A Twitter sample project ("Social/Twitter"), showing how to automatically update a user's status; this is useful for viral promotions, such as letting a user tweet their high scores in a game.

  • Support for text input via the native iPhone keyboard (device only). See the "Social/Twitter" sample project for an example.

  • Support for multiline, scrolling native textfields (device only)

  • A new "WebPopup" feature, for displaying any local or remote HTML content as an overlay on the Corona screen. This is useful for integrating with services that require a web login, such as Facebook. Also, this content can optionally have a transparent background, showing Corona animation underneath a scrollable HTML panel; see the "Graphics/WebOverlay" project for an example.

  • The ability to play remote streaming video from a URL, in addition to local video files.

  • A built-in "crypto" library to support various encryption and digital-signing applications, including md5/sha and hmac calculations; md5 support is also required for communicating with the Facebook server API.

  • Automatic localization from the iPhone user's locale and language settings (see GettingStarted/HelloWorldLocalized)

  • Corrected alpha-channel blending, which removes the notorious "halo effect" around certain bitmaps with alpha.


COMING SOON


Our next update will focus on graphics and visual engagement. Multitouch and game-development features like image tiling are on the top of our list, along with a few surprises...

Also stay tuned for a sample project demonstrating Facebook Connect and a screencast tutorial on device builds.

Finally, we'll be revamping our site with even more videos, tutorials, and sample code so you'll have all the resources at your disposal to create great iPhone apps.


THE REVIEWS ARE IN


Flash and Flex Developer's Magazine
Wanna Play Here? Get Corona!
http://ffdmag.com/magazine/991-flash-and-mobile-apps-iphone-and-ipod-touch (pg. 15 of the pdf)

The iPhone App Review
"I love games that use the accelerometer in unique and interesting ways... Core Damage [a Corona-powered app] is a really fun and addictive game. Well worth a look!"
http://www.theiphoneappreview.com/01/core-damage-iphone-game/

InformationWeek
"Corona allows for faster development and therefore allows for a reduced development cycle"
http://bit.ly/dgsyCM


 



 



What's New in Corona SDK 1.0?

The Early Adopter Program is ending, and Corona SDK Version 1.0 has just been released! Many thanks to all members of the Corona Early Adopter Program. Your testing and feedback have been a big help in improving the product, and will continue to help as we add new Corona features over the coming weeks.

Now that we've reached this milestone, we expect the rate of new updates to accelerate. Watch for more features, more quickly!

We've added lots of new functionality to this first public release, including:

  • New Corona project format, supporting external code libraries, including user-created libraries

  • New "UI" and "Sprite" framework libraries, for easy button and movieclip creation

  • "Movieclip" sample project to demonstrate movieclip functionality

  • Native iPhone UI alerts; more native UI features to follow shortly, including keyboard support

  • Full LuaSocket support for network access

  • New sample code demonstrating image loading over the Internet

Also, we've moved all content on the Corona Developer Portal from behind the login wall. The time for secrecy is over!




"I can say without exception that Corona is by far the quickest and easiest way to get an iPhone app to market. All of my future game development will take place exclusively on the Corona platform. It's so simple to use that it's almost shocking that it works at all.

"I'm really quite pleased that I found Corona, it's shaved weeks off of my development cycles."

      Nick Wright
      Creator of Flip’em Off and Cell Jumper
      Currently for sale on the App Store