So uh…anybody know how to achieve a heavily blurred background effect when letterboxing a video using AVFoundation, similar to what Apple does in the “Memories” videos it creates? I need to figure out a solution that will work for a bunch of clips merged together. ?

Merry Christmas, friends! ? Here’s a video of Charlie’s first time playing in the snow (made with Snapthread, of course!).

I’ve been thinking about how best to merge videos of opposite orientation in Snapthread. So far, I’m planning to letterbox/pillarbox with heavy blurring on either side by default. If switched off, the video will be cropped and I’ll attempt to center it.

If Nintendo made an N64 Classic, what would be your top 10 games? In no particular order:

1. Donkey Kong 64
2. Mario Kart 64
3. Super Smash Bros.
4. Mario Tennis
5. Beetle Adventure Racing
6. Diddy Kong Racing
7. Mario Party
8. Pokémon Snap
9. Super Mario 64
10. Ocarina of Time

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). ?

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.

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!