Issue 3

19^th August 2011

Written by Dave Verwer

Comment

Not so many links this week but I think you would rather that than if I padded it out! If you have any links you would like to suggest for future issues then please tweet me with them or reply to this mail.

Dave Verwer

Tools

How do iOS programmers develop applications using Vim?

With Xcode stability hitting what seems like an unfortunate all time low, this is an interesting question on Quora on using vim for day to day editing of your Mac and iOS source.

Code

QuickDialog

Who has got themselves in a mess while writing a tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath: method for a settings or form entry style table view? You might want to check out QuickDialog.

All About OpenGL ES

Not published this week but I came across this excellent guide to beginning OpenGL ES on my travels this week. Well worth a read.

Online Session Code for Big Objects (Plus a Warning)

Jeff LaMarche on why you should always pay attention to documentation!

Using blocks for drawing to avoid subclassing in Objective-C

I am not sure whether I am a big fan of this but I thought the technique was interesting. David Hamrick on using blocks to create a generic custom drawn UIView.

Design

Pttrns

An excellent resource for checking out how other apps have coped with common UI challenges on iOS. This is not a new site but I noticed it had been updated significantly this week with several new patterns.

Business and Marketing

Where to begin

An interesting suggestion from Mike Lee to create your promo video as a way to really analyse your idea before starting to build it. I can’t sum it up any better than Mike himself “By the time your video is finished, you’ll know what you’re building, what it looks like, and how it works.”. Great Idea.

Where To? – Three exciting years

Another tap tap tap post, another beautiful infographic. The story of “Where To?” since it was acquired back in 2008, a remarkable success story with it having done over $500,000 in sales since the $70,000 acquisition.

Freemium Mobile Gamers Spend Most Money on Items They Don’t Keep

Following on from last weeks article, more analysis of in app purchases from Flurry.

Google Steps Up to Defend Android Developers From Patent Lawsuit

Not specifically an iOS story but the Lodsys story trundles along again this week with Google joining Apple in the line up of big guns attempting to prevent these in app purchase patent claims.