How can I display a splash screen for longer on an iPhone?

Question

How can I display a splash screen for a longer period of time than the default time on an iPhone?

Answer 1

The simplest way to do this is to create a UIImageView who's image is your Default.png. In your applicationDidFinishLaunching: method, add that image view to your window, and hide it when you'd like your splash screen to go away.

Answer 2

Read the Apple iPhone Human Interface Guidelines (HIG). The "splash screen" isn't supposed to be for branding or displaying a logo, it's supposed to look like the default condition of the app so it appears to start up quickly.

Making it stay there for longer would be a violation of the HIG.

Answer 3

Make your app take longer to load.

In all seriousness, Paul Tomblin is correct that this usually isn't a good idea. Default.png is a mechanism intended to make your app appear to load faster by holding an "empty" screenshot. Using it for a splash screen is a minor abuse, but intentionally making that splash screen appear for longer than it needs to is almost sick. (It will also degrade your user experience. Remember, every second the splash screen is visible is a second that the user is impatiently staring at your logo, swearing they'll switch to the first decent competitor they can find.)

If you're trying to cover for some sort of secondary loading--for example, if the interface has loaded and you're just waiting to get some data from the network--then it's probably okay, and Ben Gottlieb's approach is fine. I'd suggest adding a progress bar or spinner to make it clear to the user that something really is going on.

Answer 4

Write an actual splash screen class.

Here's a freely usable splash screen that I recently posted in my iPhone in Action blog: http://iphoneinaction.manning.com/iphone_in_action/2009/03/creating-a-splash-screen-part-one.html

Answer 5

I needed to do this to block showing a table view until the data was loaded over the network. I used a variation of one I found here:

http://michael.burford.net/2008/11/fading-defaultpng-when-iphone-app.html

In the interface of your App Delegate:

@interface AppDelegate : NSObject 
{
  UIImageView *splashView;
}

In the implementation:

@implementation AppDelegate
- (void)applicationDidFinishLaunching:(UIApplication *)application {


  // After this line: [window addSubview:tabBarController.view];

  splashView = [[UIImageView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 320, 480)];
  splashView.image = [UIImage imageNamed:@"Default.png"];
  [window addSubview:splashView];
  [window bringSubviewToFront:splashView];

  // Do your time consuming setup

  [splashView removeFromSuperview];
  [splashView release];
}

Make sure you have a Default.png in the resources

Answer 6

For stylish splash screen tutorial check out this http://adeem.me/blog/2009/06/22/creating-splash-screen-tutorial-for-iphone/

Answer 7

Here is my simple splash screen code. 'splashView' is an outlet for a view that contains an image logo, UIActivityIndicator, and a "Load.." label (added to my 'MainWIndow.xib' in IB). The activity indicator is set to 'animating' in IB, I then spawn a separate thread to load the data. When done, I remove the splashView and add my normal application view:

-(void)applicationDidFinishLaunching:(UIApplication *)application {
    [window addSubview:splashView];
    [NSThread detachNewThreadSelector:@selector(getInitialData:) 
                                 toTarget:self withObject:nil];
}

-(void)getInitialData:(id)obj {
    [NSThread sleepForTimeInterval:3.0]; // simulate waiting for server response
    [splashView removeFromSuperview];
    [window addSubview:tabBarController.view];
}

Answer 8

simply use sleep(time in seconds); in your applicationDidFinishedLaunching method

Answer 9

I did it pretty simply, by having my rootViewController push a modalViewController, loading from "Splash.nib" in a subclass of UIViewController I called "SplashViewController". The exact call was:

- (void) viewDidLoad {
SplashViewController *splashScreen = [[[SplashViewController alloc]    
        initWithNibName:@"SplashViewController" bundle:nil] autorelease];
[self presentModalViewController:splashScreen animated:NO];
//continue loading while MVC is over top...

When you launch the app, it pops right up, like a splash screen should. Then, the SplashViewController nib is just a full-screen UIImageView with a splash png, 320x480. After a 1-second NSTimer (anything more did seem to get in the way), it fires timerFireMethod, a custom method that just calls

[self dismissModalViewControllerAnimated:YES];

Then the modal VC just slides down and away, leaving my top tableView. The nice thing is, while the MVC is up, the underlying table can continue to load due to the independent nature of modal view controllers. So, I don't think this violates the HIGs, and actually does allow for faster launching. What would you rather look at, a cute picture, or an empty default view (snore)?

Answer 10

I agree it can make sense to have a splash screen when an app starts - especially if it needs to get some data from a web site first.

As far as following Apple HIG - take a look at the (MobileMe) iDisk app; until you register your member details the app shows a typical uitableview Default.png before very quickly showing a fullscreen view.

Answer 11

To jleedev Your code is what I have been looking for, of course I want the pages to load wile the splash screen is showned. Sorry to say Im new to iPhone programing and have a hard time getting it to work.

Could you please explane a little more on how to get your code to work. What do I have to do?

Im using phonegap to build with.