Objective-C…it’s not you…it’s Swift

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At the lastest Apple WWDC conference, Apple decided to suprise it’s developers with introducing a brand new language called Swift which will be used going forward in development all Mac and iOS applications. The good news for all Apple developers is that it is totally integratable with all existing Objective-C code. Another great positive for developers is that it also runs on the current version of iOS, iOS-7. Developers will still need to wait for Xcode-6 to come out of Beta before they can submit full Swift apps, but they will not require everyone to be running the latest iOS.

Understanding The iOS Main Thread

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If there’s one rule to remember in iOS native programming, it is this: UI components can only be properly manipulated on main thread. Keep this in mind and I’m sure it will spare you from headaches in the future.

Let’s dwell deeper.

4 Tips to Help You Choose a Software Development Partner

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As we all know, technology moves at lightning speed, as soon as you think you’re caught up, the next new i-something has launched. Unless you’re constantly keeping yourself privy of the latest and greatest web, mobile and design technologies, hiring a development firm could be a great alternative to help guide you and your project. Whether you’re working in a startup atmosphere or part of a seasoned corporation, these day’s it’s alway nice to know some software experts just in case. Which brings me to my 4 tips to help you find a great engineering partner.

Whobert Needs Your Help

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Here's Whobert!

Who Am I?It seems Whobert has a bit of a problem; he can’t remember a thing.

Okay, so he’s a wizard.  That much is clear: hat, beard, robe… we’ve got that part.  But there are so many questions!  Where did he come from?  How does he know magic?  Why is there an owl on his head?  Nobody knows. And Whobert can’t remember!

Is iOS Dying?

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ios7 logo

Apple and Steve Jobs started the smart phone revolution. Just 7 short years ago we had the first iPhone, a technical marvel in its day. The craftsmanship of not only the device but also the iOS operating system was a thing to behold. Apple continued with its excellence in both hardware and software design for years. Unfortunately, the wild ride has ended, at least for the moment. While the hardware has kept up relatively well (although there is not a heck of a lot of innovation), the iOS operating system has, sadly, regressed.

Upgrading Your iPhone App to iOS 7: The New Status Bar

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With the release of iOS 7, there are several changes in how you lay out and customize the appearance of your UI. In particular, the status bar is now transparent, and your views will show through it. Now this is a great opportunity to redesign your app and take advantage of this new look and feel, but what if you aren’t ready and you want to the old iOS 6 status bar back? Well, I’m excited to tell you that there is a way to do this!

Setting screen orientations in iOS

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Recently I started a project which required an iOS app to be locked in landscape orientation. The method mentioned below was always the standard for locking/setting the orientation, but iOS 6 deprecated this method. This post will show and explain some other options that I came across when investigating alternative options for locking the screen.
[code language=”javascript”]
[[UIDevice currentDevice] setOrientation:UIInterfaceOrientationLandscapeRight];
[/code]

The basics of Cocos2d

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Recently I started work on an iOS game. I decided not to use the Core Animations framework provided by Apple and instead experiment with some third party game engines. I chose Cocos2D as it is an all in one package. It gives you the ability to add and control sprites, add cool graphics and animations, access to a sound engine and also 2 physics libraries.

Loading an Image Asynchronously in iOS

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If you had read thru Apple’s iOS Human Interface Guidelines, I’m sure you’d notice that it mentioned about how your app should provide a responsive user experience. If the app is processing a lengthy operation, it ought to provide a feedback as suggested by Apple, “Subtle animation can give people meaningful feedback..” Consider this lengthy operation:  loading image from a URL. This is a very common task. The problem is, UIImageView doesn’t have a built-in method that lets you load an image and at the same time give you a chance to provide a meaningful UI feedback such as a “subtle animation”.

Introduction To Core Data

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Core Data is a framework provided by Apple that allows developers to design, build and interact with a database, without ever having any direct interaction with SQL.