Issue 9

Comment

Quick note from me this week before we get started with the links. It feels like we have been quite light on code articles the last couple weeks so if you come across any decent coding focused blog posts over the next week please do send them to me. Oh and you get bonus points if you suggest something you didn't write yourself! ;)

News

Mobile Usability Update

Jakob Nielsen with updated stats on mobile usability. Far from native apps being dead, the headline on this should be that not only are native apps significantly more usable than mobile web apps but that the gap is growing between them, not shrinking. Nice to have it confirmed by science!

Can’t Catch Me

Daniel Jalkut with more commentary on the web apps vs native. You may accuse me of only linking to one side of this story and you would be right! :)

Tools

Slow motion in the iPhone simulator

I knew about slow motion animations on Mac OS but I did not know it worked with the iOS simulator! Every day is a school day! However, this article doesn't mention that you need to switch on "Simulate Hardware Keyboard" from the Hardware menu before repeatedly tapping the shift key so don't forget that!

Code

Clean as you go

Aaron Griffith on refactoring. "Sometimes, I find it amazing when simple, mundane, day to day tasks run parallel with the task of coding, marketing an app, or trying to make a living do something you love."

HGPageScrollView

I haven't checked this out properly yet but this looked like an interesting library for recreating the effect of the iPhone Safari page browser.

Design

Labeling the Back button

I unfortunately see more apps failing with back buttons every day, Neven Mrgan takes a good luck at why you have almost always just failed the moment you give that back button a title of "Back".

Business and Marketing

Apple, Apps, Appeals, & Appeasement: the Story of Drift

This 11.13 clause is really harming the user experience of apps like this github gist client (not to mention Kindle and the like). I really hope Apple are able to make changes to their terms soon to make this kind of app easier to get into the store. I love my iPhone because it gives me the absolutely best user experience, this clause sucks because it diminishes that user experience.

You’re Pricing It Wrong: Software Pricing Demystified

Not iOS specific but everything in this article is relevant to iOS pricing so I thought this was worth a link.

Books

Book Review: Learning Cocos2D

I have heard nothing but good things about this book by Ray Wenderlich and Rod Strougo. I wasn't a fan of Cocos2D in the early days but it has matured into a really nice framework now. If I had time to read more books, this would be top of the list.

Book Reviews: Designed for Use

Another fantastic book, this time authored by Lukas Mathis. If you have any interest in iOS app design (and if you have an interest in iOS development, you should!) then I can't recommend this book enough.

By the way, just in case it isn't clear none of the links in iOS dev weekly are sponsored. I just wanted to link to both of these books! If we ever do do sponsored links then they will be clearly marked as such, however there are no plans for that right now.