Side Project Spotlight

Ok, we are really spinning our wheels now getting a new app idea pinned down, but the upshot is there are a lot of interesting subjects touched upon this week, including the "confirmation" of RealityOS, how people occlusion works in ARKit, a tangent about the history of Web API technologies, and much more. Plus, our Not a Sponsor this week could help you keep your food from spoiling!

## Topics Discussed:

- RealityOS is Real!

- How ARKit People Occlusion Works

- What makes a good AR experience, according to Apple

- AR Goggles Pricing and Design

- A Tangent on XML, JSON, gRPC, and Web APIs

- Ray casting and ray tracing

- Not a Sponsor: GroceryTimer.app

Intro music: "When I Hit the Floor", © 2021 Lorne Behrman. Used with permission of the artist.

Continuing our incremental progress exploring the AR app space, this week, Aaron shows off our first baby steps with a working prototype! Steve discusses his month long side project making movies, which prompts a discussion of how AR could be used in filmmaking. Then, Kotaro and Steve go on a tangent exploring nightmare AR/VR dystopia possibilities before getting back on track with this week's "Not a Sponsor" segment. Finally, the trio settles on a handful of feature paths to explore for next time.

## Topics Discussed:

- Steve’s Film School Experience

    - Potential for AR as a filmmaking tool

    - AR for V-Tubing

- Aaron's AR prototype

    - Drop a marker on an IRL location

    - Reality Composer Explained

    - How to get/create AR assets

- Dystopian AR/VR Nightmares

- Not a Sponsor: Nuuly Thrift

- Next Steps with the AR App

    - Occlusion mapping

    - Interactions with 3D objects

    - Some Text-based UI GUI

Intro music: "When I Hit the Floor", © 2021 Lorne Behrman. Used with permission of the artist.

We decided that we want to work on an AR app, but we still can't figure out what to build. The space is still very new, hardware from Apple doesn't exist yet, and life really got in our way last sprint, so we didn't get much prototype exploration done. This week, we continue our search for an AR app idea, perhaps come up with a germ of an idea by the end, and in the middle, Kotaro expounds on game jams and creative cheats from his own past. It's a diamond in the rough kind of episode, but sometimes that's how it goes when you are trying to start down an unexplored path.

## Topics Discussed:

- Searching for an AR app idea on Twitter

- Types of AR Hardware

- Game Jams & Creative Cheats

- A Prototype Idea for Next Time

- Not a Sponsor: Happy Scale

Intro music: "When I Hit the Floor", © 2021 Lorne Behrman. Used with permission of the artist.

After a brief retrospective about our last app, Kanji Love, and a shout out to the recently departed Release Notes podcast, the team starts a discussion about our next project, which looks like it'll be focused on Augmented Reality. First, we ask ourselves, what is the relationship between AR, VR, and the "Metaverse" concept? Then we read the tea leaves of Apple's APIs to make an educated guess about future hardware and types of applications that would be useful to build. Finally, we spend time talking about some specific app ideas and end the episode with some bonus talk about recognizing hand gestures. Next time, we will decide what app we will build for season 2!

## Topics Discussed:

- Introductions

- Kanji Love Retrospective

    - Built for the learning experience

    - How could we make money, theoretically?

- RIP Release Notes

- What is the Metaverse?

- Reading the AR Tea Leaves

    - What can Apple AR APIs do?

    - Big Funky Goggles VR

    - Apple Glass v1 Speculation

- What app should we build? 

    - AR Dance Instructor  app

        - Record dance movements with body pose estimation APIs

        - Playback via an AR character

        - Mixamo.com for character asset 

    - IRL to 3D Object Scanner app

        - Scan with the iPhone

        - Generate 3D object in Mac app

        - Export a file for 3D asset or AR

    - AR Graffiti app

        - Create a drawing and post it on a wall

    - AR Scavenger Hunt app

        - Smashing Crates animation FTW!

- Next Steps

    - Look for/build prototypes to explore ideas

        - Steve: AR Dance Instructor

        - Kotaro: IRL to 3D Object Builder

        - Aaron: General AR research

    - Our next project should use SwiftUI as much a possible

    - Decide the project on next podcast

- Bonus Discussion about hand gesture recognition

- Not a Sponsor: ClipDish AR feature idea

    - getclipdish.com

Intro music: "When I Hit the Floor", © 2021 Lorne Behrman. Used with permission of the artist.

It's release day! Kanji Love is in the App Store! In this season finale episode, we discuss the story behind the app's name as well as some of the final bug fixes and tasks we had to complete. Then, you can listen in to the moment we made the app live in the store! Finally, we discuss some ideas for next season. Don't worry, Side Project Spotlight WILL RETURN!

- Download the app!

- Check out the website!

## Topics Discussed:

- Story behind the app name: Kanji Love

        - cocoalove.org

        - Fracture Prints FTW!

- Sprint Retrospective

- Kotaro: Website & Metadata

      - Aaron: Minor Bug Fixes

      - Steve: Launch From Notification Discussion

- Using GitHub Pages for your App Website

     - https://abilenky.github.io/kanjilove/

- PUSH THE BUTTON!

    - Releasing the app LIVE!

- What’s Next?

     - Bug Fixes

     - Complications improvements

     - App Store Marketing Team Submission

- Next Season on SPS

     - AR + CoreML?

     - Explore ideas more than develop projects?

     - Playgrounds App Projects?

     - The Podcast will continue!

Intro music: "When I Hit the Floor", © 2021 Lorne Behrman. Used with permission of the artist.

We are in the endgame now! Kotaro has refined the UI while Aaron has updated our Core Data stack and Steve got Notifications working! All the pieces are together and we basically have a feature complete 1.0 app! Now we are entering into the final stress test, debugging, and polishing stages. In this episode we discuss the promise and current limitations of Xcode Cloud, provide an overview of the App Store submission process and steps we need to complete, and worry out loud about whether Swift UI conditionals are a good idea or not. App Submission Day is rapidly approaching. Will we make it?

Beta Test the app: https://testflight.apple.com/join/Ag07XWbg

## Topics Discussed:

- Sprint Retrospective

    - Aaron:

        - Core Data migrations

        - Card Deck updates

    - Steve:

        - Notifications work!

    - Kotaro:

        - Refined UI!

        - Refined text-to-speech 

        - Refined metadata displayed

- Xcode Cloud Issues

    - Archive & build almost works. Bug in Xcode Cloud.

- App Store Submission Process Overview

    - Copyright Info

    - Keywords

    - Privacy policy

    - App nutrition label

    - Screenshots

    - etc.

- Core Data Migrations 

- Automatic Lightweight migrations 

- Swift UI Conditionals

    - If/Then, Switches, etc. within a view

    - Looks ugly

    - Is it appropriate?

    - Refactor into View Builders?

- On-Device & Swift UI Preview Problems

    - Problems getting it to run on Kotaro’s watch

    - Swift UI Previews unreliable

    - Rely on Simulators

- getslopes.com

    - Not a sponsor!

    - Awesome app

- How to open a SwiftUI View From a Notification?

    - Jump to a SwiftUI view from notification

    - Deep link via scheme?

- Complications

- Onwards to Submission Day:

    - We are feature complete for v1.0

    - Need stress testing on device.

    - Polish time

    - Get app setup on Aaron’s account

    - Marketing materials, App Store metadata, etc.

    - Deadline for Submission: Dec 23

- Parting Words

Intro music: "When I Hit the Floor", © 2021 Lorne Behrman. Used with permission of the artist

Sprint 4 is over and we are entering the home stretch. Kotaro got the swipe mechanic working, Aaron got so much done, he started adding features, and Steve ran into issues trying to build a Notifications UI. The trio discuss Git branches and merging strategies and then spend the bulk of the episode diving into SwiftUI architecture in general and specifically regarding the app. Finally, in a segment that is the nightmare of project managers everywhere, new features are discussed! This is a long one, but with a lot of great technical discussion. Bonus! It's edited more gently than the last episode. You're welcome, Zorn!

## Topics Discussed:

- Sprint 4 Retrospective

    - Kotaro: Swipe mechanic

        - Got it working!

        - Had to modify the Deck library for watchOS 

    - Aaron: Next Kanji algorithm

        - Initial implementation is simple, but works

        - Added some methods

        - Daily Goal 

        - Some complications work

    - Steve: Notifications reactions

        - UI picker (third party)

        - Refactoring

    - Basically everything almost works

- Merge Strategies

    - Feature branches & Pull Requests

    - How Steve does merging at work

    - What does the master/main branch mean?

    - Kotaro has been testing Xcode Cloud!

- App Architecture - High Level of how our app works

    - Structs not Classes (for the most part)

    - Views

    - Managing State vs UIKit

    - App Struct

    - Scenes

    - Environment

    - SwiftUI - How does it work?

    - Notifications Integration

- Feature Creep

    - Complications Discussion

    - Haptics

    - Speech-to-Text on Long Press

    - SiriKit intents

- Next Sprint: Path to Release

    - TestFlight

    - App Store metadata like privacy policy, screenshots, etc.

    - App Store transfer

    - For Next Time:

        - Kotaro: complications placeholders, deep links, and polish UI

        - Aaron: CoreData migrations, Siri

        - Steve: Notifications / Podcast / Website

Intro music: "When I Hit the Floor", © 2021 Lorne Behrman. Used with permission of the artist.

Sprint 3 is over and Kotaro has made progress on the UI with a complete app skeleton now linked together, but is still working on the core swipe animation. Meanwhile, Steve found notifications a little harder to setup in a SwiftUI environment than expected, but got the basic plumbing working when he wasn't editing the podcast. Aaron is the Sprint MVP as he updated the data managers so that Kanji can be retrieved from the database with ease and user stats saved on demand.  All together, this means we are getting close to a working app! Plus, a discussion comparing Objective-C and Swift and the struggle to switch mental modes when you are learning new things.

## Sprint 3 Retrospective:

- Kotaro

    - Swipe UI not done, yet. Working on choosing library or technique

    - Improved onboarding screens to initially load JSON into database

    - Completed linking areas of the app together

- Aaron

    - Added accessing methods to kanji database like next, random kanji

    - Added stats tracking

- Steve

    - Notifications wired up, but not fully implemented

    - Need proper settings for schedule

    - Lots of refactoring needed

## Topics Discussed:

- Time management in a sprint - How Kotaro approaches game jams

    - Week 1: get features done

    - Week 2: fine tuning/bug fixes

- Notifications

    - Where do you put authorization check?

    - SwiftUI modifiers for WindowGroup?

    - How to handle implementing delegate methods in Swift UI?

- Structs vs Classes in SwiftUI

    - Structs for layouts and immutable values

    - Classes for data model and data state stuff in background

- Objective-C vs. Swift

    - Obj-C doesn’t slap you on the hand like Swift will

    - Swift enforces a kind of discipline

    - Toughest part is changing your mental model

    - if let and guard statements

    - Obj-C geared for reading and Swift geared towards writing?

- Async/Await in Swift 

    - Inside a closure, has to be wrapped in a Task

- Future Features

    - Fling a card from one watch to another using nearby interactions framework

## Next Sprint:

    - Core mechanics of scheduling specific notifications and handle actions (Steve)

        - Know it

        - Don’t know it

        - More Info (deep link with tap)

        - Dismiss

        - Mute for Today option

    - Next Kanji algorithm (Aaron)

        - Method on public database class to get the next kanji

        - Debug settings screen

        - Complications, if time

    - Swipe mechanic (Kotaro)

        - Main UI

## Links:

- https://github.com/1amageek/Deck

Intro music: "When I Hit the Floor", © 2021 Lorne Behrman. Used with permission of the artist.

Sprint 2 is done and we have data! In this episode, we check-in on our goals for the sprint and discuss what got done, what didn't, and some interesting issues that came up along the way. Now that we have Kanji data in the Core Data database, we can shift focus to building the UI for the app and notifications for next time. 

## Follow-up from last sprint: 

 - Wireframes and prototype UI

 - Kanji database parsed into JSON

 - Core Data stack setup

 - Everyone get the app built and run on their watches

 - Look into how notifications might work

 - Get a podcast website setup

### Steve

- Got podcast website done

- No notifications

### Aaron

- Got subset of data parsed into Core Data (3,000 kanji!)

### Kotaro

- Started skeleton layout of all views

- Hasn't hooked up UI to Core Data, yet.

## Topics Discussed:

- Hugo as an option for building your podcast or app website

- PRs for collaboration on GitHub

- Analysis Paralysis and comic book artists

- Core Data array magic with the transformable attribute

- UI mechanics

- What are the stats we are saving?

- Extensions on CoreData models (like Kotaro's Fav10)

## Next Time:

- Working prototype swipe UI and save user stats (Kotaro)

- Working notifications (Steve)

- Public interface to the Kanji database (Aaron)

Intro music: "When I Hit the Floor", © 2021 Lorne Behrman. Used with permission of the artist.

Our first sprint encountered some hiccups and we are off to a slow start, but progress has been made!  This week, we have some follow-up about changes to our initial App Store Connect environment, describe how we setup the podcast, and spend the majority of the meeting talking about data sources, structures, and UI. 

Topics include:

- Switching to an App Store Connect Team account for development

- Podcast infrastructure setup with Anchor.fm and Podcast Connect

- Exploring Kanji databases using Python in Google Collab

- What data do we really *need* for a "card" in the app?

- What kind of stats do we need to track and where do we store this data?

- What are the primary user interface interactions?

Goals for next time: 

- Wireframes and prototype UI

- Kanji database parsed into JSON

- Core Data stack setup

- Everyone get the app built and run on their watches

- Look into how notifications might work

- Get a podcast website setup

Intro music: "When I Hit the Floor", © 2021 Lorne Behrman. Used with permission of the artist.