My next task for Snapthread is to add support for landscape videos. I think what I’ll do is have the app “smartly” pick the best aspect ratio for your final video based on the clips you’ve chosen, but also give you the ability to manually change it (including 1:1). ?
Microblog
Posts that are also displayed in my Micro.blog account.
My Last Mac
‘Tis the season for End of the Year blog posts! Much like Charles Dickens’ three Christmas ghosts, the blogosphere is frequented by holiday posts, some reflecting on the past, some making sense of the present, and some speculating about or making resolutions for the future. With a fresh update to Snapthread packaged up and sent to the review queue, I thought I’d sit down and write a little something about the Mac: specifically, why my current Mac may be my last.
Quite an incendiary statement, isn’t it? If you’re heavily involved in the Mac community, it can evoke strong emotions: defensiveness, sadness, nostalgia, or perhaps hearty agreement. If you’ve read my blog for awhile, it might also elicit confusion. “Wait, Becky. I thought you loved your new MacBook Pro?” I do love it! It’s a great little machine. I love the Touch Bar, and the big trackpad, and the beautiful screen. It’s fast, and the few keyboard issues I’ve had have quickly resolved themselves. I love the Mac, and I hope it has a long, prosperous future ahead of it.
Here’s the thing, though. I replace my computer every five years. Five years is an incredibly long upgrade cycle in the world of technology. This post isn’t about the quality of the Mac declining, but rather the quality of iOS improving. I’m making a bet that by the time I’m ready to buy a new computer, the iPad Pro is going to be able to do everything that I need it to do, including run Xcode. And if there’s a few little things that it still can’t do, I’m betting this 2016 MacBook Pro will still be chugging along in 2021.
I mean, think of the changes that have come to iPads between iOS 6 and iOS 11. Now imagine what changes could occur between iOS 11 and iOS 16 (or whatever it’ll be called at that point). Multitasking will continue to improve, and maybe there will be some kind of panel/windowing system. Hopefully it will be easier to shuffle files between apps. There will likely be hardware keyboard improvements and perhaps even an extra port or two. There will be even more pro software from great folks like Affinity.
In short, I’m feeling really optimistic about the future of iOS, despite the many hiccups I and others have experienced with iOS 11. And I never thought I’d say this, but I’m looking forward to living the iPad lifestyle. Just not yet.
Why switch at all? Well, first, it would be a great relief for my bank account. Replacing a Mac, Apple Watch, iPad, and iPhone on a semi-regular basis gets really expensive (as those of you shelling out for an iMac Pro today can painfully attest). Taking one of those devices out of the mix can help a lot. Aside from that, there are four main reasons why I’d like to move to an iPad someday: 1) cellular connectivity, 2) detachable keyboard, 3) Apple Pencil support, and 4) overall portability.
Maybe next I’ll write up my grand wishlist for my “ultimate” iPad Pro. ?
? (Shot on an iPhone X)
I miss blogging. I’ve done an absolutely terrible job this year of balancing programming and writing. Maybe I’ll shoot for one blog post per week in 2018.
Did anyone at Apple even try to use Control Center on the iPhone X while carrying a coffee, or a briefcase, or, I don’t know, a baby? I think I’m gonna have to yell about this until they change it.
How do I add multiple volume changes to an AVMutableAudioMixInputParameters instance? Using setVolume:atTime twice in a row is causing the first instruction to be ignored.
Control Center on the iPhone X
I ended up enabling AssistiveTouch, and under Custom Actions set Single Tap to Control Center. I placed the virtual button at the very bottom of the screen and set it so that a triple-click of the side button activates/deactivates AssistiveTouch. It’s not an ideal solution, but I need one-handed access to Control Center and this does the trick.
Version 1.1 of SnapThread, my video-merging app, is now available! This version introduces Live Photo support, so you can stitch those little 3 second videos together. I’ll post more soon but for now here’s the link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/snapthread/id1277445843?mt=8 ?
Indies: when you decide to run with a new app idea, what sort of prep do you do before you ever fire up Xcode? Prototype? Design sketches?
iOS 11 has already had two major effects on my iPad usage: 1) I feel delighted whenever I interact with it and 2) I want to use it more.
Wrote a press release for the first time (using Dan Counsell’s excellent guide) and sent it out to a few newspapers. Fingers crossed! ??
Currently preparing to submit my Nebraska app for review later tonight. This whole project took about five months longer than it needed to, but I’m proud of the finished product and hope people in my state will have fun with it!
Quick progress update: I’ve been treating Corgi Corral as sort of a SpriteKit/GameplayKit sandbox, as I really want to learn about everything these frameworks have to offer. Lately I’ve been exploring particle emitters, which means my winter scene now has falling snow and a small campfire! Next up: creating some more custom menu icons to reduce the amount of text in the game.
Lately I’ve been thinking about how I should get the word out about my game both now and when it’s released. I have my self-hosted devlog, but what else? Should I also post on TIGForums, TouchArcade, and/or SlideDB? Do I need to post more GIFs? I don’t have a dime to spend on marketing, but I’d like to do as much as I can otherwise!
Let’s try this one more time… I’d like to try doing some microblogging on my site and I’m hoping this 1) posts to Twitter and 2) is excluded from my main RSS feed. I definitely need to find a better way to cross-post to Twitter (right now I’m using WordPress’s “Publicize” tool), so maybe I’ll try IFTTT.