Links

Link

iPads in Music Education

iPad and Technology in Music Education

If you are at all interested in learning or making music with your iOS device(s), definitely check out this blog by Paul Shimmons. He updates it constantly with new music app reviews and also notifies readers of any app sales/price drops. If anything, it will give you an idea of the price point for these types of apps: often between $5 and $20.

I’d also encourage you to read this iPad Pro review from Scott Dawson’s daughter. She writes about how the larger screen size is great for reading sheet music. The post includes a video of her playing the piano and using a foot pedal to turn the virtual pages on her iPad.

 

Link

WordPress Mac App

WordPress Gets a Mac App

In addition, WordPress.com is now powered by a new front-end called Calypso which the company has made completely open source.

This site runs on WordPress, as do six other sites that I’ve set up for small non-profits in my local community. It’s really handy to have one central place where I can go to view their stats and make sure all of them have up-to-date plug-ins—a process that used to take forever as I’d have to sign in to each site’s individual admin dashboard.

Link

Intro to Guard & Defer

guard & defer

For some reason, this is the first explanation of Swift 2.0’s new guard and defer statements that makes perfect sense to me! It was written by Nate Cook over at NSHipster and is worth a read if you still find yourself confused about how best to use these new language features.

Link

Saving the iPad

Saving the iPad

Good thoughts from Jared Sinclair on how Apple can elevate the iPad from a position of uncertainty and confusion to a position of strength. Developers have been asking for improvements to the app submission/review process for years in the hope that Apple might take steps to improve the overall economy for pro-style software on iOS. Jared’s suggestion that Apple create a iPad-only fork of iOS is important as well, since the iPad is now the only device in Apple’s line-up without its own specialized version of the operating system.

My mom loves her iPad. I know lots of people that do. They tend to use it for web browsing, reading, and photo viewing. However, if that’s all that Apple wanted the iPad to be, then the iPad Pro would not exist.

Unfortunately, that’s all the iPad ever will be if Apple does not listen to the pleas of what I believe to be the majority of its independent third party developers. If Apple continues to turn a deaf ear to these issues, many talented developers will be forced to throw in the towel, and we will all be worse off because of it.

Link

Finishing a Game

You Won’t Finish Your Game

This community post over at Gamasutra really resonated with me, as I’ve started and given up on more projects than I can remember. In fact, that’s why I haven’t posted here in so long: I’ve been caught in the endless cycle of “start a project” -> “hate the project” -> “abandon the project” -> “become demoralized & mope” -> “repeat.” The moping part is what takes the longest, honestly.

I would really, really like to make a game. It’s something I’ve wanted to do since I was a kid. I have an idea for a game, but I’ve already hit some bumps while trying to create a prototype and it makes me want to quit. But I won’t. Not this time.

Link

Petz Hexing

Lost to Time: Gaming’s Forgotten Petz Subculture and the Women Who Shaped It

I wrote about Petz hexing back in March and about how it gave birth to a unique modding community comprised primarily of women. However, Jessica Famularo over at The Mary Sue was able to put much more time and effort into creating a truly excellent article about it. As an 11-12 year old, Petz really ignited my interest in HTML and furthered my already growing fascination with computer software and virtual pets in general. It’s great to see someone else drawing attention to the impact it had on women and young girls in the 90s and early 2000s.
Link

Apps for Love

Love (by Brent Simmons)

Could the do-it-for-love era — with the creative freedom that that brings — bring us back to the days when we downloaded apps that weren’t from Facebook and Starbucks and Funded Company X, and we told our friends about our exciting finds?

I hope. I have hope.

Great post. I have hope too, and am looking forward to making my next app (out of love, of course).

Link

Teaching App Development with Swift

Apple: Teaching App Development with Swift

Apple has a really nice curriculum on GitHub for teachers interested in having their students learn Swift. The curriculum is divided into 3 levels:

  • Level 1: Xcode Fundamentals and Swift
  • Level 2: Single View Applications and MVC
  • Level 3: Frameworks and APIs

Each level consists of several app projects, each focusing on a particular concept. Every app project is further broken down into a series of lessons (usually between 6 and 15), complete with lesson plans, Xcode project files, and Keynote presentations.

The lesson plans are very well-written and include elements that all teachers will recognize, including lists of learning outcomes, materials, and vocabulary; an introduction, body and conclusion; modifications and extensions; and a list of resources. The only thing missing is an “Assessment” section, which makes sense as teachers will have to find assessment methods that align with their own educational philosophies as well as their school’s grading policies.

Honestly, I’m thinking of teaching the course to myself, just to make sure I understand all of the things that Apple considers important for beginners to learn.

Link

Watch Connectivity Framework

How to Communicate Between Devices Using Watch Connectivity

For anyone who doesn’t feel like scrubbing through the “Introduction to Watch Connectivity” WWDC video to find the slides of code that you want to see, this post by Kristina Thai is an excellent introduction to the Watch Connectivity framework. It helped me out enormously today. Honestly, I’m thankful for all the people out there that scramble to put out tutorials and helpful articles right after new APIs are released. #bless

Link

Adding Source Control to Xcode

Xcode: adding source control

I admit, I pretty much dove into the app-making process without any clue as to what source control was or why it would be useful to me. And since I didn’t tick the “create git repository” box when I started my Xcode project, I didn’t think I could even add source control to my project. Fortunately, this lovely, easy-to-follow tutorial cleared things up for me!