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Canvas, Episode 12: Programming on iOS→

The mission of Canvas has always been to illuminate the parts of iOS that people think cant be done. In that spirit, this week Fraser and Federico dig into how to program on iOS.

We take a look at both traditional Integrated Development Environment tools such as Pythonista and Codea and block-based programming tools like Editorial, Workflow and Hopscotch.

Just ahead of WWDC, Fraser and I prepared a special episode of Canvas all about programming on iOS. It’ll be interesting to see how outdated this will be by next week. You can listen here.

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BitCam→

The Iconfactory has launched BitCam, a new iPhone app inspired by old Macintosh apps. BitCam lets you take pictures and apply retro filters such as dithering. It’s fun and it makes people like Stephen Hackett happy.

Even if I can’t relate to it because I didn’t live in the Macintosh era, my favorite part of BitCam is the care The Iconfactory put into making everything feel retro and old. The icons in the app are intentionally low-res and menus don’t appear with a standard iOS animation. The app has credits that scroll and there’s throttling to simulate how old computers would react to more advanced settings, such as higher-res colors.

Even better, the entire website is styled to feel old: it’s an .html page, it has an animated “under construction” GIF, a “webmaster” email address, and multiple references to “application store” instead of App Store. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate The Iconfactory’s 20th anniversary.

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“A Lot of Maintenance”→

Lauren Goode, writing for The Verge, on Phil Schiller’s subscription comments:

Schiller imagines scenarios where many kinds of apps that were previously single-time purchases could move to the model. Games that have an ongoing subscription-like program, ones that have a massive online playing world that require upgrades of game worlds, might make sense. He suggests many enterprise apps could move to subscription, and that professional apps that require “a lot of maintenance of new features and versions” would be a good fit.

Taking Schiller’s comment at face value, it does sound like developers of productivity apps will be able to experiment with subscriptions. “A lot of maintenance” applies to most of the apps I have on my devices, which use the classic paid-up-front model.

Also from the article, this semi-hidden note on a new subscription management UI coming to the App Store:

The App Store will also have a revamped interface to make it “even easier for users to manage subscriptions,” he adds.

I’ve been saving a “finally” for these buttons that are still around in iOS 9.

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An App Store Subscription Success→

Adrian Hon is the CEO of Six to Start, makers of the popular Zombies, Run! app for iPhone. They switched to a subscription model last year, and he has some words of advice for developers considering the option today:

So you need to do everything you can to reassure your users that you’re in this for the long haul. That means regular, consistent updates and bug fixes. You don’t need to release a new build every two weeks like Facebook, but you need to demonstrate commitment to _maintaining _a stable and reliable app — one that adopts useful new features (e.g. Healthkit, Apple Watch) in a reasonably timely manner.

This is the opposite of a big bang release once a year, laden with new features and new bugs. Frankly, it’s a much more sustainable, relaxed, and consdered mode of development. It means you can justify the time to achieve 99.9% crash-free sessions, as we’ve done.

With more subscription-based apps, faster review times are a necessity. Users expect continuous improvements to a service they’re subscribed to.

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Message Your Journal Using Ipsum→

Ipsum, an app released today from developer Sam Ghobril, is a journaling app with a twist. Instead of fiddling with titles, formatting, and tags, you’ll simply type – like you would in iMessage – and Ipsum will log what you write. Other than the text, the only other piece of information in the timeline is the date an entry is written.

Sam said in a Medium post that he built Ipsum as a chat-only journaling system because he wanted users to “feel okay writing down even the smallest of thoughts.”

I’ve spent some time with Ipsum and am pleasantly surprised. It’s ridiculously easy to use, so much so that it made me afraid I was missing something else entirely. But no – all you have to do is type your thoughts, hit send, and they are in Ipsum for as long as you use the app.

If you’re looking for a new journaling experience, Ipsum should definitely be on your radar. You can pick it up in the App Store (iPhone only) for $1.99.

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iPads for India→

Fraser Speirs:

I’m starting a new short-term project to raise money to send iPads to the Barefoot College in India.

My friend Srini Swaminathan recently asked me if we had any iPads that we could donate to the project he’s working with in India. We didn’t actually have any right then but we are coming up to the end of our lease at school and I thought there might be an opportunity.

Our lease requires that we either send the iPads back to the leasing company or buy the lease out. To buy out, we would need to pay back the fair market value of the iPads, which is currently about £100 per unit and we have 110.

And:

Barefoot College, which was recently visited by Apple VP Lisa Jackson, is an organisation that trains women in rural India to build solar powered projects to help their villages. These projects include solar water heating, cooking, desalination and even data projectors for use in night schools.

Great initiative. You can donate here.

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Google Maps & Apple Maps: Cartography Comparison→

When I linked to Justin O’Beirne’s analysis of Google Maps in May, I asked:

It’d be interesting to see the same comparisons between Apple and Google, as well as between old Apple Maps and Apple Maps today.

Not only did Justin deliver (for context, he designed and led the development of Apple Maps’ cartography), he’s started an entire series detailing the cartography of Google Maps and Apple Maps.

At its heart, this series of essays is a comparison of the current state of Google’s and Apple’s cartography. But it’s also something more: an exploration into all of the tradeoffs that go into designing and making maps such as these.

These tradeoffs are the joy of modern cartography — the thousands of tiny, seemingly isolated decisions that coalesce into a larger, greater whole.

Our purpose here is not to crown a winner, but to observe the paths taken — and not taken.

(Can you tell he left Apple in 2015?)

I couldn’t stop reading the first post in the series, in which Justin compares the choices Google and Apple have made for displaying cities, roads, and points of interests on their maps. Utterly fascinating and amazingly detailed.

I’ve always preferred Apple’s overall design and balance of their maps (which Justin’s data confirms), but, in my experience, their data (POIs and roads) was either old or inaccurate. My area in Rome seems to have improved in the past year, and maybe I should try Apple Maps again.

I’m looking forward to Justin’s next entries in the series.

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