Whether you did or didn’t make it to WWDC 2012 this year, Apple’s published 113 videos covering developer sessions across iOS and OS X, which you’ll want to check out if you’d like a refresher or need to get in the know on how to best build and optimize your applications for iOS 6 and Mountain Lion. Developers can watch the sessions online in the developer hub, or the videos can be downloaded in HD from iTunes.
WWDC 2012 Session Videos Now Available
Just Type, And You’ll Get Your Perfect Quick Note-Taking Companion
When it comes to notetaking, I’m a Simplenote guy. I work a lot on the road and love typing on my iPad, so I need a syncing service to have all my notes constantly updated on all my devices. Apple incorporated iCloud syncing in their own Notes.app in iOS 5, but I totally detest the app’s interface and standard note typefaces like Marker Felt, or please forgive me the mention, Comic Sans (not in Apple’s notes app of course, but in really bad third-party ones). When I discovered Just Type by Shubham Kedia on Beautiful Pixels yesterday I also immediately checked, if it has any cloud syncing service, and yes, it’s iCloud compatible, but there is no Simplenote support. Because of this, at first didn’t want to test it at all, since I use apps after the “never touch a running system”-method —meaning I’m always afraid when switching from a reliable app to a new one. After some investigation of app screenshots, I decided to install it on my iPad, and thank god I did. Its UI contains some of the best graphic elements I’ve ever seen (Just Type is an universal app, but I’ll only cover the iPad version today).
#MacStoriesDeals - Tuesday
Here are today’s @MacStoriesDeals on hardware, iOS, and Mac apps that are on sale for a limited time, so get them before they end!
Read more
“Do It All” Highlights the new iPad’s Features in a New June Advertisement
Following Microsoft’s announcement of their Windows 8 Surface tablets, Apple has posted their latest commercial for the new iPad titled, “Do It All.” Panning over the new iPad’s Retina display, “Do It All” highlight’s the iPad’s bullet points for sending email, reading magazines, watching movies, and learning, while also touching on content creation with slideshows, managing photos, and painting. Demonstrated earlier in the evening, Microsoft’s Windows 8 RT Surface tablet will come with Microsoft Office Home & Student 2013, while Microsoft’s Windows 8 Pro Surface tablet features a pressure sensitive pen stylus and palm recognition. While Microsoft’s event focused on bolstering the tablet form factor with the power of a touch-sensitive desktop OS, unfortunately Microsoft did not announce pricing or availability amidst the applause. Apple’s timing with their latest commercial is impeccable, and as a response, it’s as if to remind their competitor that you can already do quite a bit with a tablet that’s available right now thanks to the iPad’s broad app ecosystem. You can check out Apple’s commercial past the break, on YouTube, or on Apple’s website.
A Newsstand-like Platform For iOS 6 Podcasts→
A Newsstand-like Platform For iOS 6 Podcasts
Jake Marsh writes about a possible implementation of Apple’s rumored standalone Podcasts app for iOS 6 [via Marco Arment]:
Now the really big one. A universal (iPhone & iPad) iOS application entitled “Podcasts”. This application would provide a way to browse available shows, read about them and subscribe to your favorites. Basicallly extending the existing functionality avaiable in the Podcasts section of the iTunes Store today.Since Apple will now control the experience end-to-end, they can now provided fantastic support for things like new episode push notifications.
As Cody wrote last week when AllThingsD was first to report on speculation about a separate podcast app for iOS 6 devices, podcasts have been neglected for a long time on iOS. Bundled with iTunes within a unified interface for the Store, support for podcasts on iOS has spurred the creation and popularity of third-party solutions like Instacast and Downcast, which make it extremely easy to create playlists, stream episodes without downloading them, and sync settings (including play position) across devices. These are all features Apple’s iOS iTunes app is lacking, but it doesn’t necessarily mean Apple is ignoring the podcast category.
As we suggested, Apple could provide a separate directory for discovering podcasts and a native podcatcher to simplify the process of listening, downloading, and managing podcasts and playlists. What Marsh envisions isn’t too dissimilar from Newsstand – a platform that allows developers to host content on Apple’s servers and manage new releases from iTunes Connect, and that enables iOS users to conveniently browse audio and video content through a dedicated storefront.
It’s important to keep in mind that, if Apple were to provide a new platform for Internet audio and video producers, they’d likely want to see a revenue opportunity to at least break even and cover the costs of offering a better experience. With Newsstand, Apple got several publishers (including Time) on board with the revenue cut business model whilst providing an integrated solution to the end user. With podcasts on iOS, there is certainly room for improvement – but it has to make sense for Apple too, not just the developers and end users.
#MacStoriesDeals - Monday
Here are today’s @MacStoriesDeals on hardware, iOS, and Mac apps that are on sale for a limited time, so get them before they end!
Read more
Kickstarter: Hone for iPhone 4S: Never Lose Your Keys Again
During CES 2012 we were introduced to the BiKN, an iPhone case-dongle solution for finding and tracking your stuff. The BiKN was a hit at CES but it is expensive ($130 US) and burdened by a case that you must use. Louis Gerbarg and Geoff Litwack have come up with a much simpler and lighter solution called the Hone and now they have a Kickstarter project focused on getting it into the public’s hands. Video after the break. Read more
Mozilla Developing “Junior” Browser for iPad→
Mozilla Developing “Junior” Browser for iPad
The Verge’s Chris Welch writes about Mozilla’s latest iOS effort: an iOS browser app called “Junior” aimed at rethinking the tablet’s basic interactions for web browsing with a new interface and touch controls.
So here comes the fun stuff,” said Alex Limi as he began discussing the prototype iPad browser Mozilla has been working on for several months. “We wanted to make something entirely new. We wanted to look into how we could reinvent the browser for a new form factor,” he said. He goes so far as to deem Safari for iPad “a miserable experience” all the while acknowledging that it remains the best option available in terms of tablet-based browsing. iOS is a platform where Mozilla has yet to make an impact, he admits. “There are a lot of reasons we should be on iOS even though we can’t bring our rendering engine there.” Ultimately he says Junior was born out of necessity: as of now, Mozilla has “no vehicle on one of the biggest consumer platforms in the world.
According to Mozilla’s own blog post, Junior (which hasn’t been given a release date) will make browsing more “fun” and “ergonomic”. In spite of the lack of additional details, Mozilla will surely have to use Apple’s WebKit engine to release Junior as a browser app on the App Store, putting it on the same technical level of other third-party browsers like iCab and Maven.
The demo given by the Mozilla design team shows a functioning web browser with full-screen mode, visual tabs and bookmarks, and large touch-based controls sitting at both sides of the screen to access new pages and standard browser controls like Back and Refresh. Looking at this first demo, it appears Junior will be somewhat inspired by apps like Grazing, which has long experiment with “thumb controls” to facilitate the process of interacting with the browser without losing the convenience of holding the iPad comfortably.
With Safari getting an even faster engine and iCloud tabs on iOS 6, it will become harder for developers to gain mass traction with third-party browsers. Safari is integrated with the system (iOS users can’t replace their default browsers in the Settings) and, with iOS 6, it will work with iCloud to synchronize tabs across devices. But the “big players” like Mozilla and Google have a chance to leverage their existing desktop ecosystem to build mobile companion apps that, even if not as capable as their computer counterparts, could implement features like “official” tab and bookmark sync to provide solid experiences to users accustomed to other browsers on their Macs or PCs. Google is rumored to be working on an iOS version of Chrome; Mozilla could, in theory, build Firefox Home (which is currently a separate app) straight into Junior to keep a Firefox user’s session synced and stored in the cloud.
Check out Mozilla’s Junior presentation here.
PaintCode Automatically Transforms Vectors Into Valid Code
Many developers have problems with designing their apps due to the lack of knowledge on how to transform their graphics into valid and working Objective C code. Because of this, many semi-professional designers either choose iOS-preset interface elements or they design just badly colored, two-dimensional fields. This obviously leads to many incoherent, poorly designed apps no one wants to buy. If you are not able to do better but still want to offer something in the App Store, this is the only way to do so - even if it’s a very malicious one for pixel lovers.
To give developers an edge, Pixelcut is now offering PaintCode for Mac. It combines detailed and full-featured vector creation with a powerful code compiler to immediately convert your created UI elements into valid Objective-C code, which is ready for copy & paste implementation in Xcode. When starting a new design, you can set for which device and canvas, in which code language and which canvas the app has to compile your design. Then you can start creating, for instance, a button with the various shapes the app offers (traingle, star, rectangle and much more), and optionally apply new colors or even gradients to it using the upcoming selection inspector. With every change and addition you make to your graphics, the code will instantly update in the small editor panel in the bottom of the app window. To see the immense amount of time the tool can save, have a look at the screenshot below. I tried the demo version of PaintCode and started out with a simple oval area, with a light outer and inner shadow applied (usually used to make an object seem plastic). Just these two small UI features need more than 40 lines of standard iOS ObjC code. For more complex (and better-looking) elements, this app is a outstanding time saver.
PaintCode is a tool every busy UI designer and app developer should consider buying. It has an immense feature set and works fast and reliable. You can check out and investigate the Xcode files of various design examples created and coded with PaintCode on the app’s website; there’s also a demo video of the app. If PaintCode seems useful to you then, get it on the Mac App Store for a quite expensive, but still justified, $99.99.