Mobile Couch

The top 25 apps of all time, and what can be learned from them; skeuomorphic design vs. flat design, choosing the correct icons, and what good design really means when it comes to building your apps; guided access, the system feature that nobody knows about; a handy method for using vector icons in your app by utilising PDFs; and some tools to help you prototype and test your apps: Heatma.ps and Briefs 2.

• UIImage+PDF on GitHub
• ShrinkIt - Panic's PDF Shrinking Tool
• Heatma.ps
• Briefs

We'd love it if you got in touch! We are @_mobilecouch on Twitter and you can even email us at [email protected], if you're so inclined!

Why you would go to WWDC (assuming you manage to get a ticket); a new plugin manager for Xcode, Alcatraz, is released; techniques for debugging your apps, including a discussion about profiling using Instruments and how it helps you track down issues. Also this week, we”re joined by Ben Trengrove, who is taking over hosting from Caleb.

• WWDC First Timer's Guide 2013 Edition (Jeff LaMarche)
• Alcatraz: Xcode Package Manager
• Heapshot Analysis (Ben Trengrove)
• Debugging - Nathan de Vries (Swipe Conference)

We'd love it if you got in touch! We are @_mobilecouch on Twitter and you can even email us at [email protected], if you're so inclined!

The importance of user-testing apps and some techniques for testing with users; making apps accessible for vision-impared users; using plugins with Xcode; and the team behind CocoaPods releases CocoaDocs: a single source for open-source library documentation.

• Case Study: ABC Art Maker (Swipe Conference 2012)
• Accessible iOS Apps by Jake MacMullin
• Dash (Mac App Store)
• KSImageNamed-Xcode (Github)
• Cocoadocs

We'd love it if you got in touch! We are @_mobilecouch on Twitter and you can even email us at [email protected], if you're so inclined!

The Pebble smart watch and the development possibilities of Google Glass and Siri integration; Caleb”s plans for making money from his new free app, Cute Fruit; places for learning about new techniques and frameworks in the Objective-C frameworks; releasing open source projects and how CocoaPods is a great tool for discovering them; Jake gives a general overview of how to use bitmasks in your own projects.

• Library app delivers the goods on music (Canberra Times)
• National Library's iPad app makes sweet music (ABC News)
• Cute Fruit
• NSHipster
• iOS Developer Library Sample Code
• Quayboard (GitHub)
• CocoaPods: The Objective-C Library Manager
• Romain on App.net (Regular posts of open source projects)
• How do those bitmasks actually work? (Stack Overflow)

We'd love it if you got in touch! We are @_mobilecouch on Twitter and you can even email us at [email protected], if you're so inclined!

Filing Radars for SDK bugs, the usefulness and importance of Open Radar, dynamically overlaying your app”s details directly on the icon, Caleb”s new app Cute Fruit and marketing your app through video, word of mouth and advertising. Plus an interview with Russell Ivanovic (@rustyshelf) of Shifty Jelly.

• Working around a bug(?) in UICollectionView (Stripy Sock)
• Overlaying application version on top of your icon (Krzysztof Zab?ocki)
• Accidental Tech Podcast, Episode 4: The Bridges
• Cute Fruit
• Shifty Jelly
• MessagePack

We'd love it if you got in touch! We are @_mobilecouch on Twitter and you can even email us at [email protected], if you're so inclined!

Developing with multiple versions of your app on your test devices, advertising your app and tracking the success of advertising (without having your app rejected), and setting up a server backend to add server functionality to your app, including persisting your Core Data storage in the cloud, sharing data via a simple API, and adding the ability to remotely update your app”s settings on user”s devices.

• Creating a custom collection view layout (Stripy Sock)
• Apple Rejecting Apps Using Cookie-Tracking Methods (Tech Crunch)
• Apple probably isn't cracking down on native app cookie tracking yet (Giga Om)
• Apple clarifies new Advertising Identifier (9to5Mac)
• ASIdentifierManager Class Reference
• The Google Job Experiment (You Tube)
• Parse
• Heroku services for mobile apps
• Get Started with Windows Azure Mobile Services for iOS
• GroundControl (GitHub)
• AWS SDK for iOS (Amazon)

We'd love it if you got in touch! We are @_mobilecouch on Twitter and you can even email us at [email protected], if you're so inclined!

Follow-up on Hola! Unblocker, automating build numbers and Nimbus (with a short discussion about CocoaPods and whether it’s good or not), the pros and cons of using Storyboards in your app from prototyping to full-blown app, and how to approach version targeting with your app.

Please note: there is some unfortunate noise and echo present in this episode. We apologise for this. Please know that we are doing our best to ensure that the show is the best quality that it can be.

• PlistBuddy
• CocoaPods: The Objective-C Library Manager
• Debate on CocoaPods on App.net
• iOS Storyboards by Daniel H Steinberg
• 31% iOS 6.1 Uptake After Three Days (Stuart Hall)

We'd love it if you got in touch! We are @_mobilecouch on Twitter and you can even email us at [email protected], if you're so inclined!

Superbowl 101, Superbowl ads, the Apple TV, and content distribution. In more on-topic conversation, Jelly gets suggestions on how to deal with a new project, and Jake, Jelly and Caleb discuss useful third-party libraries, issue tracking and distributing test builds.

If you”re not interested in hearing the casual banter about non-development topics, the boys start discussing the podcast itself and the development related topics at 0:23:44. This sort of behaviour where they blatantly disobey listener”s requests may or may not continue in the future. Stay tuned to find out!

• Hola! Unblocker
• MonoTouch
• Jake's National Library Digital Sheet Music app on Github
• NimbusKit
• AFNetworking
• CargoBay (StoreKit Companion) on Github
• Basecamp
• JIRA
• Trajectory
• GitHub Issues on the App Store
• Bamboo
• Continuous Integration on Wikipedia
• HockeyApp

We'd love it if you got in touch! We are @_mobilecouch on Twitter and you can even email us at [email protected], if you're so inclined!