Statuses

Status

For the past few months I’ve been grumbling about the fact that Apple no longer sells official silicone cases for the iPhone X. My Rose Red one is peeling badly, so I started looking at Apple’s iPhone XS cases (they fit the X, but there’s a slight gap below the camera bump because the XS’s bump is a few millimeters taller). I was about to buy a green one when I thought, why should I buy a $40 case for a phone I may replace this fall?

Browsing Amazon, I found these $12 silicone cases by SURPHY and decided to give one a try. I ordered a yellow one and was surprised when the color actually matched the photo on the product page. What I like most about this SURPHY case (besides the price and the color accuracy), is that there’s nothing printed on it—not even a logo. It feels the same as Apple’s cases and has the same soft lining. If you have an X or an XS and are looking for a cheap silicone case to get you by, I recommend this one!

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I was reminded how important documentation is today after spending fifteen minutes trying to figure out why a certain code path wasn’t being reached.

If you shuffle between UIImage, CIImage, and CGImage a lot, you might be tempted to access the handy “.ciImage” property of a UIImage. However, that property definitely does NOT have a value if you initialized your UIImage from a CGImage, and you need to use a CIImage initializer instead. Thanks, Apple docs!

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Here’s the new 40mm Apple Watch Series 4 on my tiny 6-inch wrist next to my original Series 0, and then on its own with my old Rose Red band attached to it (please ignore the weird white balance difference…the super pale one is correct).

Watch Series 0 to Series 4 Comparison

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I’ve always written blog posts in either Notes, the WordPress app, or the browser. This week I tried iAWriter and used Markdown for the first time. I like it! Next I think I’ll take MarsEdit for a spin. ??

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I always figured I’d make a whole bunch of apps that would each generate a little income, like David Smith. Instead, it’s become increasingly clear to me that Snapthread should be my main gig. I have so many feature ideas for it, and I think there’s a lot of potential for growth and improvement!

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One thing I struggle with as I attempt to transition from a beginner to intermediate-level iOS developer is learning language conventions. For instance, I can take just about any Objective-C code and do a word-by-word translation to Swift that will compile and run, but it won’t be very “Swifty.” (An aside: I actually really enjoy translating old Apple sample projects written in Objective C) It’s like my knowledge of German: I kinda remember the vocabulary and sentence structure, but a native speaker would probably laugh and say “that’s technically correct, but we would never say it that way.”

Anyway, I’d love if someone started a blog where they went through a generalized programming problem and stepped through how to solve it in Objective-C and then Swift, taking into account the “spirit” of both languages. I would glean a lot from a comparison like that.

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“Layout-driven design” from WWDC Session 233 (Adding Delight to Your iOS App) kinda blew my mind. If you’ve seen the session or know what I’m talking about: do you use this approach?

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Looking forward to installing the iOS 12 beta on my iPad Air 2, iPhone 5S, and maybe iPhone 6S. I’ll report as to whether or not I notice any performance improvements (I realize the early betas aren’t really optimized). ?? #WWDC

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The great promise of blogging hasn’t failed. The freedom of expression, of owning your creative work, and the notion that if you persist in sharing good quality writing (photography, poetry, etc.), you too can achieve the success of someone like John Gruber—is still true today.

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Snapthread to-do list:

  • Fix scaling/rendering/exporting issues that users have reported
  • Overhaul data model in preparation for improved title cards
  • Design new titles
  • Add support for still photos (may not ship with Ken Burns effect…hoping to add it eventually once I figure it out)