liverotate

Sherlocked?

Well my friends, WWDC has come and gone and I, like many of you, am now deeply engrossed in the plethora of new videos, sample projects, and API diffs that Apple has posted.

Whether you were actually there or experienced the fun from the comfort of your home, you may have noticed one fateful phrase wedged amongst the many words on the Developer APIs slide: “Live Photo Editing.” And if you didn’t see it there, you may have read about it on the “What’s New in Photos” pop-up in the iOS 10 beta:

What's New in Photos

Screenshot by Casey Liss

So yeah, with iOS 10 you can now rotate, crop, and otherwise adjust Live Photos right in the Photos app—which is awesome and just as it should be!

I hesitate to say that I was sherlocked (which, incidentally, keeps auto-correcting to “shellacked” ?). In order for an app to be sherlocked, I think there has to be some uncertainty involved. In other words, it wasn’t inevitable that Apple would build f.lux-like capabilities into iOS. Nor was it inevitable that Maps would gain the ability to locate your parked car, or that Photos would auto-generate compilations and call them Memories (there is an app by that name with similar functionality). However, I do believe it was inevitable that Apple would expand Live Photo-editing capabilities…the question was just “when?”

Now we know the answer.

And that’s OK. I learned so much building LiveRotate, and even sold a few copies! From its release on June 7 to today (June 28), LiveRotate was downloaded 304 times. A few people requested refunds, which was expected. I think the app can still provide value to the general public this summer, though when September rolls around I’ll likely remove it from sale.

Overall, I’m very happy with how well it sold, and am feeling more confident than ever about my ability to build apps!

LiveRotate stats

So what’s next for me? Well, I have two ideas for Messages apps: one sticker pack (depending on my drawing abilities) and one app that lets users build their own stickers. I’m also in the process of updating my Bible verse app for watchOS 3. After that, it’s back to Corgi Corral and then onward to some other app ideas that are floating around in my noggin (wow, does anyone use that word anymore?).

Best of luck to all of you with your summer projects! And for those tinkering with the idea of making an app: there’s no better time to get started! ?

LiveRotate

This post could’ve easily been titled “I made an app with a two month old baby glued to me, AMA.” Of course, if it weren’t for Charlie, I wouldn’t have gotten the idea for the app in the first place! ?

It started with a giraffe.

At the ripe old age of two months, Charlie enjoys things like smiling, staring at ceiling fans, getting his outfit changed (that one seems unusual), and of course, conversing with stuffed animals. By “conversing” I mean “looking intently, grinning, and occasionally yelling at.” One day I snapped a bunch of pics him speaking with his giraffe pal and this happened:

Pics of Charlie and giraffe pal incorrectly rotated
Whoops. I wasn’t paying attention and was tilting my phone in such a way that it thought I was holding it in portrait rather than landscape. When you attempt to edit a Live Photo beyond simply auto-correcting it, you get this message:

Editing will turn off Live Photo

At this point, I was kinda sad because the Live Photos were cute but weren’t captured as I intended. A few days later, I decided to do something about it.

Programming is fun!

I really enjoy writing code, especially when it requires me to learn a lot of new things. However, while I’m still really excited to finish my game, Corgi Corral, it’s officially on hold for two reasons:

  1. I don’t have the creative energy for it. Taking care of a baby who doesn’t sleep through the night has sapped me of the mental resources I need to make stuff like art and music. Someday!
  2. I’m interested to see what changes to GameplayKit and SpriteKit Apple will show off at WWDC. Maybe I’ll get some new ideas or will be able to improve my code in some way.

Even though I’m taking a break from Corgi Corral, I still have that itch to make something. So, I decided to dive head first into the Photos framework and create an app that rotates Live Photos.

It actually took me several weeks to get something working due to my lack of experience with both Core Image and AVFoundation (not to mention the fussy way that Live Photos are constructed). I’ll write more about the process of building the app in another post, but needless to say there were many headaches involved!

However, I still had a blast doing it. For the first time ever, I truly feel like a real app developer. Sure, my Bible verse app was fun to make, but there are a zillion Bible verse apps on the App Store. I haven’t found an app yet that can rotate Live Photos. Maybe one exists, maybe not, but I finally feel like I was able to identify a unique problem and build my own solution. It’s a powerful feeling!

Shipping things is fun!

Charlie & his giraffe

Confession: I love filling in all the blanks in iTunes Connect. The screenshots, the app preview video, the description…there’s something really satisfying about seeing my app’s profile come together. I even had fun making the screenshots, using David Verwer’s SimulatorStatusMagic to ensure the status bars looked nice and clean.

I don’t really know if there’s a market for this app. I mostly built it for myself, so I could enjoy my pictures of Charlie. Having it on the App Store is just the cherry on top. ? Still, it sure is fun to ship something—to be able to point to something and say “I made that.”

LiveRotate icon

The app is called LiveRotate (I decided to adopt _David Smith’s straightforward approach to naming apps) and it costs $0.99. Any money I happen to make will go towards purchasing the new MacBook Pro I’ve been dreaming of for the past two years!