Eye On iOS

All things iOS development, iPhone, Apple and more. By NYC-based app developer Michael Sanderson. Positively charged.

[theverge]

Apple’s WWDC banners show iOS 8 is coming Get ready for Monday

[eyeonios]

Sensibo wants to make your dumb air conditioner smart

@casskhaw writes on The Verge:

Intelligent temperature control is becoming increasingly popular, in part thanks to the success of smart devices like the Nest Learning Thermostat. Over at Indiegogo, an Israeli startup is looking to fund Sensibo, its attempt at appending smart functionalities to just about any remote-controlled air conditioner. The core gadget is a "pod" equipped with two microprocessors, multiple infrared emitters, and sensors that allow it to gauge humidity, temperature, lighting, and whether a room is occupied. It also comes with an app outfitted with pre-installed commands, multiple modes, alarm clock synchronization, and other functions.

This style of air conditioner is more common in other countries than the US, so there's a lot of potential.

In my apartment now we have 4 small bedrooms (it's almost a college apartment-style dorm) and four people on different schedules. The only temperature sensor is on the thermostat in the main room, which means if one person wants to cool his bedroom, the a/c has to cool the whole apartment.

Also love adapting new gadgets into existing infrastructure.

[joanawithonen-blog]

Tap Here to Learn More | Small Planet Soapbox

Sometimes I write things and give talks with friends at work.

[eyeonios]

Great advice from Small Planet designers. Especailly 5: 

5) Know what’s important.

Hierarchy is where things tend to get most messy for folks new to thinking through mobile interfaces. Make sure users can immediately tell what’s important on a page and what they can do. Avoid lazy thinking like “hamburger” menus that are often a catchall for haphazardly grouped items, or tab bars that are used as regular buttons. Taking care to understand what’s most important to the user every step of the way will help create a natural guide and flow to the app.

Love it.

[ios-goodies]

Articles

Bug Splitting, by Russell Ivanovic

How Apple Cheats, by Mark Sands

Things you didn’t know about GIT, by Matheus Lima

How Dropbox Uses C++ for Cross-Platform iOS and Android Development, by Ole Begemann

Controls/Tools

MGConferenceDatePicker, by Matteo Gobbi

...

[eyeonios]

A New AppCode

There's a new AppCode. AppCode is becoming more well-known, despite the utterly counter intuitive fact that it exists: Xcode is free! And it's pretty good. Who would  pay $200 for "better"?

But IDE maker JetBrains is extraordinary at what they do. I've only used PHPStorm, which is just wonderful for providing some order to a language notorious for not requiring any. And Xcode is far from perfect. 

AppCode is worth a look. You can download and get a 30-day trial here. Link is organic; no paid/sponsored posts or links accepted without clear labeling. And Quinn McHenry, senior iOS developer at Small Planet who uses XML extensively with their "Gatsby" tool (which I will look at another time) told me it's their XML editor of choice for the Mac.  

Think of AppCode as a capitalist alternative to the state-owned Xcode, with its resources and dominance and privileged position (and AppCode does keep Xcode around to do a certain percentage of the work) but AppCode has to fight for its customers and it shows.

So as strange as it may to defect from the motherland mothership on an issue as fundamental as the IDE, when you spend half your life in an integrated developer environment it's worth chasing after perfection. If nothing else, it's good that someone is keeping the Xcode team on their toes. 

[eyeonios-deactivated20140529]

Three months ago we announced a new Crashlytics Labs project: a beta distribution tool to simplify the process of sharing apps with testers…. we’re excited to announce the official launch of Beta by Crashlytics.

Beta out of Beta.

The potential for linguistic confusion was my first thought:

"Install the latest the beta."

"On beta?"

"No, the beta on beta’s not the latest beta, that’s the old beta."