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iOS 8 App Extension Demo
Nov 19, 2014
iOSDevCamp Colorado was a couple of weeks ago and I did a presentation/demo on iOS app extensions. I wanted to focus on how to actually do things, so mostly I worked in Xcode rather than present from slides. But rather than paste code in as I went or (gasp!) try to do it live, I worked from a git repository I had built while developing the demo app. Every time I made a significant change, I’d commit it.
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iOS 8 App Extension Development Tips
Oct 3, 2014
Recently I’ve been working on some iOS 8 app extensions, and I’ve run into a few non-obvious details that might come in handy for anyone else in the same situation. Some of the following relates to bugs still in the system, and so will probably only be relevant for a limited time.
Debugging: General The intended approach is simple: when you tell Xcode to run the extension, Xcode will ask you what host app you want to use.
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CloudKit: Moves like Azure
Jun 17, 2014
After my past travails using iCloud with Core Data, I was both interested and concerned when Apple announced CloudKit at WWDC 2014. In this post I’m going to go over what Apple has planned for CloudKit from the perspective of someone wanting to sync app data via some cloud-based means. “Planned” is a key word here, because it’s still to early to say how things work in practice.
CloudKit vs. iCloud Core Data CloudKit makes a refreshing change from iCloud Core Data in that there’s a lot less magic going on in the framework.
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[objC autorelease]; t-shirts
Jun 10, 2014
At WWDC 2014 Apple introduced Swift, a new programming language for iOS and OS X developers. Objective-C has had a long and distinguished run with Apple, but times change and we move on.
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Making your own Passbook Business Card
Jun 9, 2014
My Passbook and iBeacon enabled business card was something of a hit at WWDC last week. Some people wanted more detail on how it worked or how to create their own version. This post describes the process, from the perspective of a software developer. If you’re not a developer, there are numerous web sites that will help compose Passbook passes, but I can’t personally vouch for any.
The very basics: A Passbook pass is defined by a JSON file.
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Passbook and iBeacon for a 21st Century Business Card
May 30, 2014
I’ll be in San Francisco during WWDC next week (though without a ticket). This is the only time of year I ever think about business cards, and this year I decided that paper business cards suck and it was time to do something cooler.
Instead I’ll have an electronic card distributed via Passbook. Electronic cards are hardly a new idea but (on iOS) they usually depend on both people already having the business card app.
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Storm (i)Cloud
Apr 12, 2014
Last year I did a series of posts here where I ran through problems I had encountered with Core Data’s iCloud integration, with various solutions and workarounds I had been able to devise. Then iOS 7 and Mac OS X 10.9 came out with numerous visible (and internal) updates and people started asking me, so, is it any better now? Can we use it?
Since then, the answer has been: I have no frickin’ idea.
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Probably Approximately Correct Location for iOS
Oct 28, 2013
If you’re writing an iOS app and you need to know the user’s current location, the answer is straightforward: use Core Location. That fires up device GPS (when available). Apple’s A-GPS combines this with things like local Wifi networks and IP addresses to work out the device’s location. All of this, of course, assuming that the user allows your app to know their location.
That’s great if you actually need nearly-exact location information.
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Mark Dalrymple on the Objective-C Run Time
Jul 18, 2013
Over at the Big Nerd Ranch blog, my friend Mark Dalrymple continues his 'Inside the Bracket' series with an article on practical uses of Objective-C's run time introspection.
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Dropbox Datastore, the iCloud Killer? (updated)
Jul 10, 2013
This week was DBX, Dropbox’s first ever developer conference. The big news as far as I’m concerned is their new Datastore API. In a break from their file-oriented past, Dropbox now has an API for syncing structured data between devices. I’ve long been a happy Dropbox user and I’ve lately been a frustrated iCloud developer. So the question is, should I care? Should you?
Some of the hype has suggested that the new API is an “iCloud killer”.
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