instancetype is a relative new keyword in Objective-C language. Besides its general usage scenarios, it can be leveraged for safe casting. The approach is simply a category to NSObject:

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@interface NSObject (OAUtils)
+ (instancetype)oa_cast:(id)any;
+ (instancetype)oa_cast:(id)any warnOnFailure:(BOOL)warnOnFailure;
@end

@implementation NSObject (OAUtils)
+ (instancetype)oa_cast:(id)any
{
    return [self oa_cast:any warnOnFailure:NO];
}

+ (instancetype)oa_cast:(id)any warnOnFailure:(BOOL)warnOnFailure
{
    if (any)
    {
        if ([any isKindOfClass:[self class]])
            return any;
        else if (warnOnFailure)
            NSLog(@"Can't cast %@ to type %@", any, NSStringFromClass([self class]));
    }

    return nil;
}

DISCLAIMER: the post contains my personal opinions on the subject. I would appreciate it if you could correct my mistakes.

Back to the time when I started OpenAphid-Engine, there were already several similar iOS/Android projects. These projects, either commercial or open source, expose their core features by JavaScript language. For instance, Titanium and PhoneGap allow developers to use JavaScript to build native iOS/Android apps; ngCore enables building cross platform games by pure JavaScript. JavaScript language has been chosen as a first-class citizen as it’s one of the most popular programming language. It eases the learning curve and easily attracts developers into a new product ecosystem.

OpenAphid-Engine was born as an exploration project at the first half year of 2012 when I quit my day job. Its mission was to figure out the most efficient way to integrate a full JavaScript engine within native iOS/Android games.

FlipView v0.9.7 is released with various performance improvements and bug fixes.

Happy New Year 2013!

FlipView v0.9.6 is released with various bug fixes and enhancements.

Release Notes

I’m happy to announce the first release of FlipView, an Android UI component which help add flipping animation in your application. Please download and install the pre-built demo APK file to check out it in action:

https://github.com/openaphid/android-flip/tree/master/FlipView/Demo/APK

I’m also glad to use some pictures captured during my trip to build one of the demos:

Updates at 2012-12-12: Please checkout FlipView for an improved solution.

This short post explains how to handle touch events for the flip animation introduced in our previous post.

The full source codes of the demo application are available at Github:

https://github.com/openaphid/android-flip/tree/master/Legacy/Demo-Touch/

A pre-built APK file is also present for your Android devices:

https://github.com/openaphid/android-flip/blob/master/Legacy/Demo-Touch/APK/Flip-Touch.apk

Updated at 2012-08-17: Fixed the broken links to the project and the APK file.

OpenAphid-Engine for Android v0.1.5 supports exposing Java methods as JavaScript functions, which is helpful for integrating 3rd-party services into games. The binding APIs are similar to its iOS version.

We’re pleased to release v0.1.5 of OpenAphid-Engine Android.

Highlights of this release includes:

• Support multitouch on Android

• Enhanced single touch handling when multiple fingers are on screen

• Public APIs for Java to JavaScript method binding

https://github.com/openaphid/Demos is also updated with two new demos: touch_test.js and binding_test.js

We’re excited to release the first version of OpenAphid-Engine which supports Android OS. OpenAphid-Engine is now a cross platform 2D game engine with both iOS and Android support.

Several github repositories have been updated, please check them out for more details: