As WWDC fast approaches, and rumors of the next OS X update focusing on polish persist, I thought I’d go over my wish list for what I’d like to see Apple address. Vulkan/Enhanced Graphics Support The graphics situation on OS X is bad. 3D graphics on OS X have been rocky from the beginning (the first ever public OpenGL demo on OS X, which sadly I cannot find video of), but Apple in the past was willing...
Continue reading...Where is the no compromise Mac Pro?
I’ve been looking at replacing my 2008 Mac Pro, and as much as I’d like to replace it with a new Mac Pro, the Mac Pro just looks so odd when you compare it to both Windows products and other Macs. The most visible missing feature that has been widely commented on is the lack of an Apple 5k display. I don’t really want to buy a Mac Pro at the present time because I’m pretty sure it’s...
Continue reading...Obj-C and Swift, not Obj-C vs. Swift
On Twitter, I’ve been vocal that I don’t believe Obj-C is going away any time soon. For reference, Apple’s stance on the matter is: “Objective-C is not going away, both Swift and Objective-C are first class citizens for doing Cocoa and Cocoa Touch development.” It’s important to note that while there are a lot of community websites stating that Swift is the replacement for Obj-C, that has never been any sort of official position from Apple. This “There...
Continue reading...Pushing Updates and User Expectation
In the debate on Apple quality, OS X Snow Leopard is usually cited as the high mark in recent OS X quality. Whether or not you believe that Snow Leopard had less bugs than any other release (which I tend to), another thing has changed since Snow Leopard is how Apple distributes Mac OS X.
Continue reading...On iOS Quality
My mom loved her iPad 2. She got it a little more than 3 years ago. It’s been with her and my dad all over Europe. She’s used it with her camera to import photos. She does shopping on it, looks up directions in maps, browses Craigslist. In November I got a text from her. She was strongly thinking of getting rid of the iPad and buying an Android tablet. She’d made a mistake and had upgraded to...
Continue reading...Initial Look At The Secrets of the iWatch SDK
The release of the iWatch SDK has given developers a head start in adding WatchKit to their applications, but with the release of the iWatch Simulator, they’ve also given developers a valuable insight into how the iWatch API stack is shaped. The WatchKit framework runs on the iOS device, but to power the simulator Apple has also added many of the device side frameworks. With a little elbow grease, we can learn a lot about the...
Continue reading...Why I’m Buying The Big Phone
This was my first “handheld” device. It was a NEC MobilePro 200. My neighbor had bought it, but never found a use for it, so I got it in exchange for some web work I did for him. It had Mobile Word and Excel, Solitaire, and a 56k modem in the PC card slot I could use for dialing up and checking email. I couldn’t sync it with my Mac, but aside from that it worked...
Continue reading...Why I’m Not Adopting Swift (For Now)
If you follow me on Twitter, I’ve made a lot of noise about how I don’t think developers should be adopting Swift in it’s current state. My problem isn’t with the idea of Swift, or replacing Obj-C. I believe Swift could, in the coming weeks or months become a language suitable for writing production code. But I don’t believe it is such a language today.
Continue reading...Using NIBs for Awesome
One of the basic Objective-C design paradigms is Model-View-Controller. Views is views typically have two components. There is the logic that drives a view: formatting, management of subviews, and lifecycle management. And there is appearance of the view. This might include the positioning of subviews, the color of the view and subviews, how the view scales, and so on.
Continue reading...Xcode CI Review
Recently I’ve been piloting Xcode’s Continuous Integration server for a project at work. We’ve been using it over the last few months, and so far it’s been going well. I’ve had people both at work and outside of work ask me about it, so I thought I’d write up a review of my experiences so far.
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