Posted on July 23, 2014 by William Welbes
Earlier this month, my first Mac app, ParseToCSV was launched in the Mac App Store. If you’re thinking, “Hey this thing is called My UIViews, not My NSViews”, you’re right. Since 2008, I’ve been focused on UIKit and iOS development. On occasion, I’ve dabbled in Cocoa, and ParseToCSV is the first app that I’ve actually released to the store. Having a strong grasp on UIKit seems like a good foundation for venturing into Cocoa and Mac development. There certainly are differences in the design approaches and environments, but as I’ve become more experienced in UIKit, I’ve found it to be a natural progression. I sometimes wonder what it would have been to take the opposite path, having first started in Cocoa and then jumping into Cocoa Touch.
Read MorePosted on June 01, 2014 by William Welbes
This past weekend, I came across a blog posting by Tom Harrington of Atomic Bird that talked about how he created a Passbook business card in preparation for heading to WWDC this week. Inspired by his creativity, and missing out on not being at WWDC this year after having been there past three years, I set out to create my own Passbook business card. Here’s a step by step of how I did it. You can reference Apple’s Developer documentation on Passbook for more information as well.
Read MorePosted on March 27, 2014 by William Welbes
I’ve recently been updating one of my iPad apps with a new iOS 7 version that supports both landscape and portrait orientations. Using storyboards, I laid out the interface in portrait. I then setup a custom method to setup the views for portrait or landscape depending on the orientation of the device. Or so I thought. I struggled to get the app to properly setup the interface orientation after launching in landscape. Everything worked great when the app launched in portrait, but the rotation method was not getting called at app launch, so views were not properly setup when launched in landscape. Here’s how I solved it.
Read MorePosted on January 15, 2014 by William Welbes
Need to test your app on slow cellular connections? Bring on the iOS network link conditioner! As a best practice for mobile development, developers and testers should test network connected apps under lots of different network conditions on real mobile devices. The simulator can be great for some development activity, but a majority of your development and testing should be on a real device.
Read MorePosted on January 13, 2014 by William Welbes
Are you planning to submit a new app or app update after February 1st? Heads up developers, Apple will be requiring all apps to be built with the latest version of Xcode and the latest iOS 7 SDK.
Read MorePosted on January 09, 2014 by William Welbes
With the launch of iOS 7, Apple incorporated support for a new Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) protocol they defined as iBeacon. With all of the other visual changes in iOS 7, iBeacon fell a bit below the radar. Over the past several weeks, it seems that the tech press has picked up on the feature and iBeacon has been getting some more attention. So what’s it all about?
Read MorePosted on January 07, 2014 by William Welbes
Apple today published a press release detailing the App Store revenue for 2013. How much did iOS users spend on apps in 2013? Over $10 billion. That’s a lot.
Read MorePosted on December 31, 2013 by William Welbes
Apple and Samsung had two very different approaches to advertising over the Christmas holiday this year. Apple first launched an ad called “Misunderstood” that shows a family gathering at Christmas. The ad is very well done and comes off as very authentic. On our trip to Northern Michigan, I had my wife, Mandi, watch it. I mentioned seeing it play on TV but she hadn’t seen it. She was nearly in tears watching the ad. I’m sure being in the family van with our kids in the back headed home for Christmas probably set the right context for that, but needless to say - mission accomplished Apple.
Read MorePosted on July 22, 2013 by William Welbes
There’s a huge shift in computing under way. In 2013, statistical trends show that worldwide shipments of tablets will out pace that of PCs. That’s just tablets. In 2010, shipments of smart phones blew past PCs at record pace and never looked back. This adoption of mobile devices is the most rapid shift in computing the world has ever seen. Just over 6 years ago, Apple released the iPhone and set off the spark that ignited the mobile revolution. Ready or not, mobile is here in force.
Read MorePosted on June 12, 2013 by William Welbes
Apple’s unveiling of iOS 7 at WWDC this week has kicked off the countdown to a release date this fall. When iOS 7 launches, there will be some new opportunities for apps to set themselves apart. Apps that have not been updated to the new paradigms for iOS 7 will begin to show their age. A similar scenario presented itself when the iPhone 5 was released with a new screen form factor. Remember how it was with apps that weren’t updated to fully support the iPhone 5 screen size? Heck, there’s still apps out there that haven’t been updated. Well that was a much simpler change in the ecosystem and generally much easier to adopt than the overhaul that iOS 7 introduces.
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