Issue 58

Comment

I think this may be the longest issue of iOS Dev Weekly ever but I really struggled to slim it down this week as there was so much great content. Happy Friday everyone and on with the links.

News

Volume Purchase Program Expansion

Those of you in the US might not think this significant news as you have been lucky enough to have volume purchases for quite a while now. However this means companies in this new set of countries that are now eligible for the programme can now buy your app in bulk much more easily. What's not to like? I hope to see this programme continue to expand.

iTunes Content Dispute Contact Form

I meant to link this a couple of weeks ago and somehow it slipped through the net. If you are having copyright or trademark issues with your app Apple now have a dedicated App Store process for dealing with this. What I found interesting about the description of this is that it states that it will put you directly in contact with the provider of the disputed app. Surprising.

Tools

A Mind Map for iOS Testing

Great mind map from Nick Arnott for planning out the testing of your iOS app. Some great edge cases in here that have bitten me in the past like "No email configured" and "Pauses other audio".

SkyLab

Mattt Thompson with an A/B testing framework for iOS and Mac. I am fascinated with A/B testing and have implemented it in an iOS app before but just with some knocked together code and this would have been a much neater way to do it. Oh and I think Mattt Thompson must be topping the charts of "Most consecutive weeks linked from iOS Dev Weekly", thanks for all the great content Mattt.

Mocks

Todd Ditchendorf released a new tool this week for mocking up iOS screens. Looks like a good fit for when a pencil and paper sketch (still my favourite) is too rough but when you don't want to move straight into Photoshop.

Quick Look, Preview and PNG files

I am not sure if this is common knowledge but I certainly only came across it this week. I was inspecting the bundle of one of our apps and I assumed that the PNGs had not been crushed at first but instead it turned out that Quick Look and Preview now both support crushed PNGs on Mountain Lion.

App ID Sanity

This Safari extension from Simon Whitaker allows you to hide and rename App IDs in the developer portal. I know the first App ID that I created when I got access to my developer account and thought I had had the best idea in the world still haunts me every time I load that page.

Code

KVO does not notify when a weakly observed property goes to nil

Ouch. Michael Jurewitz with one to watch for if you are using weak properties and KVO.

The White House App released as Open Sorce

Another example of a full, open source iOS project this time from the White House. I haven't had a proper look through this and while some of the app seems to be implemented in HTML I am sure there is still some good stuff in there if you are getting started with iOS development.

Design

Grandma's iPad

Guy Dickinson on Storify with a fascinating account of the experience of setting up his 88 year old Grandmother's first computer and changing his mind a little on skeuomorphism along the way. Interesting that while the skeuomorphism made things easier to grasp for her that there were still some huge barriers placed in the way, for example the sudden switch from newspaper to "app".

Skeuomorphism is the easy way out

Wells Riley with the opposite side of the skeuomorphism coin. I think it's hard to make any sweeping statements about it really as good/bad design and skeuomorphism are not that closely linked really. Of course there is good skeuomorphic design and bad non-skeuomorphic design.

Embeddable fonts for iOS apps

Dave Addey on a great resource from Google of hundreds of embeddable fonts for your iOS apps. I was aware of Google Fonts before now but had no idea that the license agreement was so generous.

Designing for Retina

Christopher Downer with an interesting look at some of the subtleties of designing for Retina displays. This article is focused on the Mac but the techniques are relevant to any high DPI design.

Two Kinds of Gestures

Phillip Bowden with an article on discoverable and undiscoverable gestures. I think his point about graduated feedback is the most important one here. Can a swipe gesture feel natural without the content underneath it moving along with the gesture? I don't think so.

Business and Marketing

The App Store Long Tail Myth

Interesting debunking of a TechCrunch/Flurry Analytics post on the long tail of the App Store.