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News
Does Core Data Sync Quack?
Back we go to the topic of Core Data and iCloud this week and while I promised I would link to less on this topic Drew McCormack's post this week was worth a read. I think it's clear by now that attempting completely automated Core Data sync was an ambitious step too far and the article lists a series of fundamental problems with it. Problem is, now that it has been out in the wild with iOS 6, can the fundamental changes that might be needed be made without completely breaking the API?
tumblr.com
OmniPresence
On (almost) the same subject this week sees a new entrant to the document syncing world in the form of OmniPresence from the Omni Group. Read all about it in the post but the basics are a client app for Mac OS which is always syncing in the background and an iOS SDK to integrate into your app. It avoids the really tough problem of conflicts by just keeping both documents when one happens but as Drew said in the previous article that's probably for the best.
omnigroup.com
Tools
Overview of iOS Crash Reporting Tools
Cesare Rocchi has written up this overview of crash reporting tools from Crashlytics, Crittercism, Bugsense, TestFlight and HockeyApp. I use HockeyApp for our crash reporting and it does a great job at it but reading this article I particularly liked the sound of the Crittercism feature of integrating analytics with crash reporting so that alongside the crash report you can see a breadcrumb trail of analytics information collected along the way. Useful.
raywenderlich.com
Concurrent Debug, Beta and App Store Builds
Simon Wolf with a detailed write up of configuring your project to produce alpha, beta and App Store binaries which can all be installed alongside each other on device. Like Simon, the first I heard of this technique was from Evan Doll at NSConference this year but if you had been delaying implementing it Simon's write up might get you headed in the right direction.
swwritings.com
Code
State Preservation and Restoration
Keith Harrison on implementing the state restoration features that were introduced with iOS 6. I (like most people, I think) am guilty of largely ignoring this problem but with these APIs there really is much less of an excuse for that. Keith has also followed this article up with an additional piece covering the restoration side of things and also working with web views and restoration which you also might want to check out.
useyourloaf.com
FlatUIKit
How flat is flat enough? This is an attractive set of UIKit subclasses from Jack Flintermann and Alex Medearis which are certainly heading in a flatter direction but still have a little play in them, I particularly like the visuals on their UIButton subclass.
github.com
UIImageViewModeScaleAspect
Wouldn't it be useful to be able to animate between content modes in an image view? Seems like Vivien Cormier thought the same as he has implemented just that ability in this UIImageView subclass. Neat.
github.com
Design
Starters Guide to iOS Design
This outstanding guide to iOS design from Ben Taylor may start with the basics but has a wealth of knowledge contained within as well as a whole load of other resources linked from each section. A superb resource both for designers new to the platform and developers looking to understand a little more.
taybenlor.com
And finally...
Drawing Dynamic Visualizations
The first two minutes of this video should have you hooked in for the next half hour. I am always blown away by what Bret Victor does and this is no exception and while it is not directly related to iOS development it is still fascinating.
vimeo.com