Issue 187

Comment

So we have the date for the unveiling of the watch, March 9th and it will be streamed live. I'm looking forward to seeing how things have progressed since the last event. Here's hoping that the animated emoji's didn't make it into the final product...

In other news, it's possible that the iOS 8.3 beta will be a public release. Apple first tried this with some of the Yosemite betas last year and if they are planning the same with iOS, it must mean that they got what they wanted out of it. I do agree with Darren Jones that app reviews should be disabled on beta versions though.

Note: There are no solid sources on the rumour of iOS being made available as a public beta but it doesn't seem particularly far fetched so I thought it worth talking about.

News

Xcode 6.3 and iOS 8.3 beta 2 Playgrounds

Another week, another iOS/Xcode beta. The changes to playgrounds are fantastic and this feature was the first on my wish list when I saw the playgrounds being introduced at WWDC. We've already seen some fantastic interactive documentation with the old playgrounds, I can't wait to see what people do with this. This beta also includes support for Xcode/TestFlight symbolicated crash reports and finally, Analytics in iTunes Connect!

“Must Fix for Next Release”

Great idea from Craig Hockenberry. I suspect that many of us have suffered from the situation of trying to ship a bug fix and receiving a rejection for something completely unrelated (I know I have!). I guess it's very slightly open to abuse, but I'm not sure it would be a big issue as your app would need to take care of the problem for its next release. As usual, I won't be holding my breath though.

Tools

Origami Live

Origami has been around for a little while now but this week saw the release of a major update. The big news is that you can now preview your compositions on device, which is fantastic as there's no substitute for how something feels when it's in your hands. They've also put some great work into new tutorial videos.

Code

MustOverride

Really useful little project by Nick Lockwood, by specifying that a SUBCLASS_MUST_OVERRIDE in a method, the app will crash on startup which is much better than having to wait until the method is actually called.

Awesome Swift

Fantastic collection of Swift resources by Matteo Crippa. I hadn't come across this before but it turns out it's a standard format which has been around for a while. You might also be interested in Awesome iOS or the other two Swift repositories (1, 2). It'd be great to see all of the Swift ones consolidated into one.

Swift Collection Protocols

Nate Cook (who's doing a great job taking over from Mattt at NSHipster) on collection types in Swift. It's interesting to look at how quickly his SortedCollection class comes together by simply implementing the various collection protocols.

Design

Designing for the Apple Watch with Briefs

Looking for something to help you mock up WatchKit apps? The folks over at MartianCraft have you covered with their new beta version of Briefs.

Design Principles

Melissa Mandelbaum with an introduction to the principles of design. This will be a little basic if you're already designing but sometimes it's nice to have a recap on the fundamentals if you're not doing this every day.

Business and Marketing

Selling Your App? 10 Questions You’ll Need Answered

After his recent experience selling an app Stuart Hall has written up a list of things to think about if you're thinking of selling an app.

And finally...

The Apple Automobile

I'm embarrassed to say I dismissed this rumour so quickly, the Apple car is REAL!

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Issue 187 February 27th 2015