Tag: iOS

[Security Now] iOS Security by Steve Gibson

Whenever I listen to @SGgrc‘s GREAT lecture, it’s hard to stay unimpressed.

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The Wonderful World of Computer Graphic User Interface

As WWDC 2013 is over, some of the respectable opinion leaders share their thoughts on iOS 7’s new look. I would like to share links to their posts:

I admit, I’m quite biased in selecting these posts, having positive perspectives.

Surprisingly, there are some common understandings I could find, and have come up with myself, about iOS 7’s new look. Though I’m not a professional designer, or an influential leader like the ones above, I think it won’t be too bad to write one more post about iOS’ User Interface.

Representation by Animation: Until recently, objects or ideas have been represented by visualization. However, instead of bringing full detail from the looks of the objects shown in the real world, iOS 7 chose to use subtle or obvious animations of the objects, or about the ideas as the essential representation method. Please watch the video about Apple’s Design Intention, and recognize how different animations have been used to identical circular dots, to represent many different objects and ideas. This shift can be a great opportunity to those who believe in the apps to be more dynamic and alive, and a great challenge to those who are so used to draw beautiful but only static images.

Content Supremacy: iOS 7’s extremely minimal buttons and labels remind us what we’ve been forgotten; that the app’s main content must have full attention. If pixels or focus inside the device’s screen cannot be shared, so fighting between the main content and user interface controls cannot be avoided, iOS 7 voluntarily yield user’s attention to the main content, by making the controls so thin, translucent & borderless. Because they occupy so little area or look so simple, they can help the main content to be stood out automatically. However, what should not be misunderstood is that, the limitation on the controls can be ignored if they are parts of the main content.

Space Telescope: It’s not that easy to bring fluid transitions between views, but iOS 7 provides new methods to help the developer to implement them as easy as possible. I think it is to encourage the device’s screen to be utilized like a telescope showing one area of much bigger space, which includes more contents yet to be shown, until the device’s screen is looking toward them. The concept of panning & zooming from scrollable views have become more adoptable into view transitioning. Personally, I really like this. (Don’t know how to express in clearer form but…) This is to motivate the apps to bend more space and time, which is no real world medium will ever be able to do.

Still, it is Beta 1. I wonder how the end result will be for the look of iOS 7. But, at least for now, the heading of this exploration is showing the glimpse of the wonderful world of computer graphic user interface.

Fully informed and experienced decision

My comment for “Why I Don’t Use Interface Builder”: http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/why-i-dont-use-interface-builder

IB is about Organizing, not about Replacing. IB is a tool, not a regulation.
Once you know the limits of IB and developed good programming habits, IB can be extremely useful.

I saw too much terrible spaghetti codes, which could have been helped by adopting MVC principles and knowing the life cycles of UIViewController & UIView instances.
As a way to help those developers to learn about the principles, I show them how to complete a project using IB and later replace it using only codes, to help them to realize the limits of XIB files and see how whole structure is preserved, to show the real reason for using IB: Separating codes.

And once VIEW components are separated from others, I point out patterns or repetition, which are just configurations at loading of the instances.
Other than iteration, they are not so easy to be solved creatively and quickly, without taking precious seconds, minutes, or hours.
Also, there are more important tasks for fulfilling the requirements of the app, than tasks for calculating frames for labels.

Unless you like it (I saw some people who like it), it’s smart or even necessary to use a tool which was developed to avoid working mechanically. Fortunately in Xcode, we have Interface Builder.

Depending on the characteristic of the projects, the decision to use or not to use IB is totally up to the developers. When they decide not to, I hope it’s fully informed and experienced one, instead of one caused by estranged or uncomfortable feeling toward IB.

Can App PREview Process be helpful?

Recently, our team has submitted an iOS app to the App Store to be reviewed.

Unfortunately, due to Apple’s own policy, this app was rejected and we couldn’t release it.

Personally, I have known this would happen. What this app tried to do was something questionable, at least in its intention, even if there is no technical violation.

Our team’s strategy was very simple. If Apple didn’t publish anything against about what this app tried to do, we could challenge Apple to accept the end product. If Apple didn’t say NO publicly, we should try it. That was the argument of the team leader.

However, Apple’s decision after reviewing was solid and there is no way we can reclaim time we spent to develop this app. The only comfort we could get was that Apple’s reviewer himself also felt sorry for us, recognizing it’s not a technical violation but just a political issue.

I just wish we could have known about Apple’s policy on this long before designing and developing the app. At least for me, if I could present public documentation about this matter, maybe I could persuade the team leader not to waste our time.

Or, it could be so much better if there are people in Apple’s side, who may answer our questions, BEFORE we start designing & developing something. I wonder if it’s helpful to have PREview team, like REview team.

Of course, there are a lot of instructive materials, teaching us what should we consider when developing an iOS app. But I just wish there is an actual Apple Genius whom we can talk to about very special and rare idea of ours, we just can’t help but to try out.

It’s just wishful thinking of mine.

PopToo is updated to version 1.3.5!

And changed its name to PopToo Classic.

[iTunes Link: http://itunes.com/apps/poptoo]

As a preparation for New PopToo, this Classic version has implemented potential iCloud functionality. It’s not yet operating, but next updates will bring ways to utilize iCloud storage, so you can migrate your history to New PopToo with no problem.

Currently, New PopToo is being developed by totally rewriting it. The main goals of New PopToo are:

  1. Focusing on Personal Use: Instead of requiring the user to connect to his or her social network to use PopToo, it will focus on being an utility which is great for geotagging user’s favorite music. Of course, sharing through social networks will not be gone, but be upgraded instead.
  2. Improved User Experience: New PopToo will be more handsome to look at, more interactive to touches. After all, iPhone and iPad has been touch centric devices and New PopToo will take more advantages of them.
  3. Adopting latest methodologies in iOS development: After being more informed about strong user acceptances in latest iOS versions in general, I am confident that us iOS developers are free from supporting legacy versions, and the cost of such freedom is tremendously inexpensive.
  4. Optimizing essential performances: The fundamental software problems including error handling, concurrent processing, and database architecting will be thoroughly revised. As a student of computer science, it’s my responsibility and privilege to look for the right solutions and learn to implement them to bring the best performance of PopToo.

By the way, I was able bought a ticket to WWDC 2012. It will be a great experience for me to be able learn new ideas and meet great people, I believe.

Enjoy PopTooing your favorite music!

Celebrating PopToo’s First Year

PopToo recently has become one year old!

I thank every PopToo Friend for finding this meager iOS app and using it everyday.

To a solo developer like myself, who never had his own personal project before PopToo, any kind of interest means a lot. I can’t help but feeling grateful and be humbled by all the PopToo-ings made by our Friends. Thank you so much!

Here are some records made with our PopToo Friends:

179 PopToo Friends checked-in 37419 times.

The first check-in was done by @revilo1390 at Jan. 5, 2011 20:13 UTC from Denver, Colorado, United States.

The song was “Chasing the Lights” by Last Winter.

Top 3 users who checked-in their songs are:

  1. @orbitat (14995 times)
  2. @r_Salxixa (11818)
  3. @yukino1230music (3020)

11932 songs, 3719 albums and 2651 artists were identified.

The Most checked-in song (84 times) is titled “All I Want” by

  1. A Day to Remember” (58 times)
  2. LCD Soudsystem (23)
  3. The Offspring (2)
  4. Cure (1)

The Most checked-in album (516 times) is “The Black Swan” by “Story of the Year”

The Most checked-in artist (1763 times) is “A Day to Remember”

Top 5 songs of “A Day to Remember” are:

  1. “All Signs Point To Lauderdale” (64 times)
  2. “I Heard It’s The Softest Thing Ever” (59)
  3. “Better Off This Way” (59)
  4. “All I Want” (58)
  5. “If It Means A Lot To You” (56)

Top 10 genres are:

  1. Rock
  2. Pop
  3. Soundtrack
  4. Indie
  5. Hardcore
  6. Alternative
  7. Punk Rock
  8. Indie Rock
  9. J-Pop
  10. Electronica/Dance

The Most checked-in Foursquare venue is “Runner Academia (1199 times) in São Paulo, Brazil

Top 10 cities are:

  1. Sao Paulo (Brazil)
  2. San Francisco, CA
  3. Vallejo, CA
  4. Fremont, CA
  5. Palm Coast, FL
  6. Berlin, Germany
  7. Mt. Shasta, CA
  8. Rocklin, CA
  9. Santa Barbara, CA

Because of the experience in developing PopToo as my own personal project, I was able to prove my proficiency in software development and eventually got full-time employment.

Though I had to compromise time I may spend to improve PopToo more rapidly, having financial security freed me from the pressure to find the business model for PopToo.

So, I could keep PopToo as a free app without advertisements. By treating it as a non-commercial project, I didn’t have to ask for the user’s attention for the ads, but just for their satisfaction in using PopToo everyday.

About 3 months after PopToo’s release, an awesome app called Soundtracking was introduced. Other than its name, the app and its service were exactly how PopToo dreamed to be. Instead of feeling beaten, it taught me about the importance of knowing the limits of PopToo project. Without serious capital and additional development resources, trying to make PopToo as good as Soundtracking while having full-time job could have been the fatal disaster. It did solidify PopToo’s mission to stay non-commercial project, to be used for training me to become better iOS developer and for building meaningful relationships with PopToo Friends.

The future of PopToo is about becoming the Real Service. Though I’m not sure about keeping it non-commercial, I want to build great community of people who love to use PopToo. Three of the important objectives for continuing PopToo project are upgrading to have aesthetically pleasing user experience, building the web platform and utilizing geolocation more effectively. For these objectives, I guess I should learn more about graphic design and web development.

Again, I would like to thank all my PopToo Friends. Thank you so much for enjoying your favorite music with PopToo!

PopToo is updated to Version 1.3.0!

PopToo is updated to fix some minor bugs and added small performance improvement.

[iTunes Link: http://itunes.com/apps/poptoo]

In about a few days PopToo becomes 1 year old. We are thinking about how we can celebrate it with PopToo Friends. Any idea is welcome! You can send an email to poptoo@fxceed.com or a tweet to @poptooco.

Thank you and keep enjoying your favorite music with PopToo!

iOS Tech Talk 2011 in Seoul

[This blog does not contain any technical information. Also, I am an Apple fan, probably my blog will be purely subjective.]

iOS Tech Talk World Tour

Today, December 8, was very special day for me.

It was my birthday, which was meaningful to me and my parents.

Also, it was the event day for iOS Tech Talk in Seoul, which was meaningful to every iOS developer in S. Korea.

One of the greatest things I didn’t expect from this event was to be able to meet the same instructors who were at the WWDC. In other words, this Tech Talk event can be considered as the extension of WWDC, not the another kind.

To some people, including myself, these instructors are the Rock Stars. They were touring around the world to excite their fans. Some people took pictures with their stars. I didn’t do it because I thought it could be perceived as objectifying them, which could be impolite. However, I just hope I don’t regret not taking pictures with them, later.

Aside their professional authority in the field of software development, the instructors were extremely friendly. They were so generous enough to pay good attention to people they never met before, who kept asking annoying questions. Probably, it’s their job requirement as the  Apple Evangelists. However, it’s impossible to ignore but respect their effort.

This one day event did impress me a lot, strengthening my positive perception about Apple and its people. They do know how to make their fans happy.

Allow me to reuse the tweet I shared: With these enthusiastic, friendly and yet extremely professional masters, the future of Apple will stay to be bright, I think. Even if Steve is no longer with them, with us.

I definitely want to attend WWDC 2012. Not only because I am eager to learn new technologies, but also I want to continue the joyful conversation I was having with the masters. Now it’s clear to me that, everything about Apple has become very personal to me.

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