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News
Apple's Software Quality Decline
I've deliberately not been linking to all of the blog posts on this topic because I'm not sure how much good they do. We can't change anything and we really know almost nothing about the the internal development process at Apple beyond the fact that the individuals really care about what they are doing. Are Apple moving too fast? Are they being hurt by the commitment to an annual release? Michael Tsai has a round up of all of the recent posts on this topic. Also, it didn't make it into Michael's round up but I thought this post by Brice Pollock was worth a read as well, especially the "Can Silo's Scale" section.
mjtsai.com
Swift for Beginners
I linked to Jason Brennan's post on learning Swift last week and made a comment about it being a slightly different situation for beginners. So this week he's posted again and talked about the issue in more depth. I agree completely this time Jason! 👍
nearthespeedoflight.com
Tools
KZBootstrap
Krzysztof Zabłocki has open sourced his bootstrap iOS project this week. However, before you jump in with both feet I'm not completely convinced that iOS projects actually need a bootstrap. There are some good recommendations here though so what I would recommend is to take a look at this, spend some time understanding it and then pick bits that work for you. Blindly using someone else's defaults is only going to lead to surprises down the line.
github.com
Code
AsyncDisplayKit
Finally! 😃 You've probably heard about this from one of the various articles or videos on it which have talked about it in depth but this week Facebook dropped the open source release of AsyncDisplayKit in our laps. There is some seriously impressive technology here and you should check out both the site linked above and also the introductory blog post.
asyncdisplaykit.org
Tailor Swift To Your Needs
I am definitely not linking to this because of the title of the post... I am definitely not linking to this because of the title of the post... Seriously though, this is a great post on operator overloading in Swift hiding behind possibly the best blog post title of the year.
codingexplorer.com
Seeking Continuity with iOS 8 & Yosemite
Michael DiStefano on iCloud Keychain Sharing as part of Continuity in iOS 8 and Yosemite. I've been running the GM of Yosemite recently and even just with the system apps it's a fantastic feature. I can't wait to see what other developers do with it.
medium.com
macOS Development
Mac App Store: The Subtle Exodus
With the announcement that BBEdit is leaving the Mac App Store at Çingleton last weekend and Panic making the same decision with Coda a few months ago it has to be time for another look at what could be improved. Milen Dzhumerov does the honours.
helftone.com
Design
iOS 8 GUI PSD
It's that time of year again, Teehan & Lax have released their iOS 8 iPhone PSD. Great stuff.
teehanlax.com
Business and Marketing
How “Complete My Bundle” Pricing Works
After the launch of App Store Bundles with iOS 8, some developers started seeing some unusual pricing popping up as users went to use the feature. After some investigation, Cabel Sasser has all the details on exactly how it works. You need to read this as there are ways for a bundle completion to actually cost a customer more money depending on their purchase history.
panic.com
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I'm not going to talk much about the keynote yesterday as I can't add much over what's already been said on the more mainstream blogs. However, I do wonder when we'll see the end of the A5 chip though as both the iPad and iPod touch are still shipping current models with it. It's the chip that never dies!
What I did find fascinating yesterday was this page on Swift which launched along with the announcements. Ever since the language was introduced centre stage during the keynote with the world watching, rather than the State of the Union where it might have been expected we've known how aggressive Apple were going to be about pushing adoption. If you were still in any doubt about how serious they are about this language, this consumer facing page should convince you.
Dave Verwer