Side Project Spotlight

Kotaro hosts solo one more time this week to briefly talk about "secret sauces." No, not the kind you use on nuggets! It's that ineffable quality of an app that makes you love it vs those annoying anti-patterns often prevalent in apps created just to catch the wave of a hype cycle. Kotaro wants to make apps he loves and that you might love, too! This is a short, but practical and personal essay celebrating some apps that found their "secret sauce."

## Topics Discussed:

- Introductions

- iOS 17 is out

- Xcode 15 is out!

- To continue work on visionOS keep Xcode 15 Beta 8 around.

- New iPhones out. Dynamic Island is available across the board.

- What is the secret sauce in an app that makes you love it?

- Hype cycle

- Generative AI

- AR/VR

- Crypto

- How can I make a cool app with these? Lots of bad ideas

- Personal favorites:

- Modo

- SoundStudio

- Sketch

- Procreate (also Procreate Pocket)

- Not A Sponsor: GetClipDish.com

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

Kotaro is solo this episode due to scheduling issues around the end of summer holiday festivities. But, fear not, this episode is short, but jam packed with advice about opportunities for your next big app as we move into the iOS 17/visionOS world. Widgets, AI, visionOS, Macros, and more! There are so many cool new features in this next generation of updates that can lead to brand new opportunities for success in your developer journey...if you read the tea leaves.

## Topics Discussed:

- Introductions

- Episode 50

- visionOS status and personal

- Xcode Beta 8!?

- Reading Apple’s tea leaves and looking for opportunities for your next big app.

- Obvious leaves:

- Widgets Everywhere

- AI in plain site

- CoreML/CreateML make it easier to consume and create custom models.

- visionOS

- ARKit/RealityKit

- SharePlay

- Freeform as a example has an app that came out of nowhere but is now the key app to demonstrate what Apple intends for SharePlay to be utilized.

- Not-so obvious ones:

- DocC

- Better documentation and deeper long term integrations

- SwiftData

- Easier to implement and work with CloudKit sync

- Macros

- Easier to wrap complex templates inside a macro

- Interactive Widgets

- Standby mode becomes more interesting

- CarPlay might be more useful

- Implementation of visionOS version

- Wrap-Up

- One More Thing: GetClipDish.com

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

The trio gather to hear about Steve's Baltimore e-scooter adventure and the app experience. Then, a brief discussion of Xcode Beta 7 before diving into inspiring visionOS demos found on social media. Multiple bad app ideas are entertained this week, including one based on a classic Kids in the Hall sketch. Kotaro goes into some detail on how hand gesture recognition works today and how it might work in the future while Aaron describes our dystopian nightmare future of inescapable avalanches of ads in immersive environments. Ending on a positive note, the Trio wonder if "spatial computing" could usher in a new era of developer experiences. One More Thing...GetClipDish.com!

## Topics Discussed:

- Introductions

- Steve’s Baltimore e-scooter adventure

- Government apps have gotten better!?

- Xcode Beta 7!?

- visonOS Inspiration is Out There!

- Kotaro follows some Japanese devs on X

- Yasuhito Nagamoto https://github.com/ynagatomo/VOClimateSpiral

- Hattori Satoshi https://github.com/satoshi0212/visionOS_30Days

- Bad App Idea: Squishing Heads! (Like Kids in the Hall)

- https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/im-crushing-your-head

- Hand gesture recognition

- An Avalanche of Ads

- Long Long Man https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-1Ue0FFrHY

- Will visionOS lead to new development experiences?

- Wrap-Up

- One More Thing: GetClipDish.com

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

The trio continue exploring visionOS despite ongoing beta challenges. Steve updates his experiment with a little more functionality while Kotaro scans a "mutant peach" into a 3D object, and Aaron is stymied in his physics experiments due to inadequate Simulator support. Kotaro provides some insights into what game developers may find familiar and frustrating if they decide to venture into visionOS development before discussing some "hot shader action" coming to SwiftUI in iOS 17. Finally, Bad App Ideas returns, revisiting "Portal Pigeons," and we give a shout-out in our "Not a Sponsor" segment to Happy Scale!

## Topics Discussed:

- Breaking Beta News:

- Xcode 15 Beta 6

- visionPro Beta Restrictions

- visionOS Experiments Progress & Challenges

- Steve updates his toy photo demo app

- Kotaro has issues with 3D objects

- Aaron physics experiments

- Kotaro’s “Mutated Peach”

- iPad or iPhone Pro (LIDAR) used to scan an object to create a 3D model

- Kotaro scans a “mutated peach”

- Use Object Capture demo app from Apple

- https://developer.apple.com/augmented-reality/object-capture/

- Get a USDZ asset that can be used in RealityKit

- Reality Composer Pro & Package Oriented Programming

- Assets contained in an SPM library that you import into your app

- Game Developers & visionOS

- Hot Shader Action

- https://www.hackingwithswift.com/quick-start/swiftui/how-to-add-metal-shaders-to-swiftui-views-using-layer-effects

- https://www.shadertoy.com

- Shader modifiers

- Bad App Ideas

- Portal Pigeons

- One More Thing…

- Not a Sponsor: Happy Scale

- https://happyscale.com/

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

The trio continue to suffer the Beta Blues, but Steve did do his pod homework this round and made a very janky visionOS prototype that lets you apply a pixelation filter to a photo! This leads into some good discussion of photo app features that would be appropriate on visionOS interspersed with some "bad app ideas," a digression about Share Play, and Kotaro & Aaron decide they want to build Cerebro! It's an easy-breezy episode, perfect for these hot summer days.

## Topics Discussed:

- visionOS Progress

- Steve: Success with loading an image and applying a pixelate filter.

- visionOS Photo App Ideas

- Beta Blues

- Reading the Apple Tea Leaves & App Ideas

- Share Play

- Next Steps

- Steve: grid or ornament or picker

- Kotaro: videos, windows, and geometry

- Aaron: work with Kotaro

- Bad App Ideas Throughout!

- Pixelate the world!

- Wrap-Up

- Not a Sponsor: https://GetClipDish.com

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

The trio are trying to run the visionOS sample apps, but broken Xcode betas are getting in the way! Undeterred, Kotaro leads a discussion on what you can learn via the four visionOS demo apps (if you get them running). Then, the trio speculates about the forthcoming dev kits, Steve brings up the movie Hackers (because it's awesome!), and we end the show with some truly "bad app ideas." We are taking baby steps into our spacial computing developer journeys!

## Topics Discussed:

- Beta cycle breakage!

- The Four Apps & More

- https://developer.apple.com/documentation/visionos/world

- https://developer.apple.com/documentation/visionos/diorama

- https://developer.apple.com/documentation/visionos/happybeam

- https://developer.apple.com/documentation/visionos/destination-video

- Learn about visionOS - https://developer.apple.com/visionos/learn/

- Hello World - Introduce you to Windows, Volumes, Spaces

- Happy Beam - Mixed immersive, ARKit for hand shape

- Physics via ARKit

- Meet ARKit for spatial computing - https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2023/10082/

- Diorama - 3D map to show shader stuff in a Volume

- Destination Video - Multiplatform video playback app

- SharePlay

- Xcodes.app - manage multiple Xcode versions

- https://github.com/XcodesOrg/XcodesApp

- Dev Kits Coming Soon?

- Work with Apple section on Developer site

- Coming in July

- VR Gaming Thoughts

- VR Gaming in Hackers - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQ7o3ziR5io

- What is Vision Pro For?

- Desktop metaphors

- M2

- iPad/iPhone apps

- For Next Time

- Hopefully run all these apps in beta 4!

- Steve: Load an image and put a filter on it!

- Kotaro: UI component exploration & PencilKit.

- Aaron: ARKit physics (if it works in the beta)

- Bad App Ideas (Gone Good?)

- Book Shelf AR Cover Visualizer

- visionOS Fart App

- visionOS fire/ice hand beams

- visionOS movie theater apps

- visionOS tabletop card games

- visionOS virtual telegram

- Next Time:

- Big corporation bad ideas

- Wrap-Up

- Not a Sponsor: https://GetClipDish.com

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

The trio have had some initial hands-on time with the visionOS SDK and are ready to dive into a new development adventure. That's right, it's time to pivot! We think visionOS is a rare opportunity that should not be missed by Apple developers. Maybe it's a big nothing burger, maybe it'll be a new App Store gold rush, maybe somewhere in between, but the time to start exploring this new platform is now! In this episode, we talk about what we have already learned from the visionOS SDK before discussing some very rough prototyping ideas we want to use to start exploring this brave new Spatial Computing world.

## Topics Discussed:

- What’s up with PickleJarTodo?

- Pivot to visonOS

- Physical Dev Kit

- Apple’s visionOS timeline

- Knowledge and skills in this space good career wise

- visionOS SDK Discoveries

- RealityKit for rendering engine (no SceneKit!)

- Windows/Objects anchor in real world

- Windowed Apps

- What’s the market?

- Prototype Ideas

- Work on interaction prototypes

- Scan real world objects to create 3D models

- Hand tracking, detect open/close fist

- AV Player interactions

- Photo editing/exploration/framer

- Hang Photos on your wall

- Portal based Item box

- Portal based JIRA! LOL

- Scan real paper notes and “fax” them

- Magnetic Blocks

- For Next Time

- Pick a prototype that is SMALL

- Steve: Window app, desaturate photo with basic editor controls

- Kotaro: Hand gestures

- Aaron: Something with 3D models/physics engine

- Final Thoughts

- Sound will be vital

- The Wrap-up

- GetClipDish.com

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

The trio are joined by developer and educator, Mohammad Azam to discuss some of the big announcements from WWDC23. Topics include Swift Macros, SwiftData, app architecture patterns, server-side swift, and more! There are ton of great links in the show notes this episode, so be sure to check them out! When you are done, follow some of the links to Azam's courses and content. We have found his work to be very helpful in our own developer journeys and maybe you will, too!

## Topics Discussed:

- Welcome Azam!

- Azam’s WWDC23 Highlights

- Swift Macros

- SwiftData

- VisionOS

- visonOS/Vision Pro

- Swift Macros / Observable

- SwiftData & App Architecture

- Building Large-Scale Apps with SwiftUI: A Guide to Modular Architecture

- https://azamsharp.com/2023/02/28/building-large-scale-apps-swiftui.html

- Backyard Birds Sample Code (WWDC23)

- https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swiftui/backyard-birds-sample

- Food Truck Sample Code (WWDC22)

- https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swiftui/food_truck_building_a_swiftui_multiplatform_app

- Data Essentials in SwiftUI (WWDC20)

- https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2020/10040/

- Server-Side Swift

- Use Xcode for server-side development (WWDC22)

- https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2022/110360/

- Vapor

- https://vapor.codes/

- Express

- https://expressjs.com/

- Machine Learning / CreateML

- Azam’s CreateML Workshop Preview

- Tabular Data

- What’s a tomato?

- ChatGPT

- Azam’s Content / Production Tips & Tricks

- Twitter: https://twitter.com/azamsharp

- Web: https://azamsharp.com/

- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKvDySsrOVgUgRLhWHeyHJA

- Udemy Courses: https://www.udemy.com/user/mohammad-azam-2/

- Bonus: Azam’s Developer Advice

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

Twas the pod before WWDC and the trio decided to enjoy themselves with a little speculation about what gifts Apple will bestow on June 5, 2023. Most of the discussion centers on speculation about the "mythical goggles" rumored to be released along with a brief tangent on widgets, some thoughts on whether Apple will even utter the acronym, "AI," during the conference, and we end with a nerdy grab bag wishlist of features we hope to see added to Apple's platforms this year. Don't miss the Not a Sponsor segment this week as Steve demonstrates that the Clip Dish devs' prompt engineering is second to none!

## Topics Discussed:

- WWDC23 is Almost Here

- Keynote

- State of the Union

- Apple Headset / xrOS

- Name

- External Screen

- Use Cases

- Stage Manager UI?

- Content Creation / Art

- Games

- Hardware SDK Possibility

- Developer Tools

- Widgets All the Way Down

- Apple and AI

- Not a Sponsor: GetClipDish.com

- Nerdy Grab Bag Wishlist

- SwiftData

- ScrollViewReader improvements

- PencilKit improvements

- CarPlay next-gen

- Under the Radar - Preparing for WWDC 2023

- https://apple.co/43xRlJc

- Wrap-up

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

This week, the trio is joined by our good friend and Philly CocoaHeads alum, Joe Cieplinski. Joe is an accomplished designer who transitioned into iOS development and has built multiple apps for iPhone and iPad. With the recent announcement of Final Cut and Logic on iPad, it feels like a new era of pro iPad apps may be on the horizon and there is no one better to talk to about iPad apps than Joe. In this wide-ranging discussion, we touch on Joe's journey from teacher to designer to developer of awesome iOS apps, his former podcast and sometimes current conference, Release Notes, plus a whole lotta iPad talk. What makes iPad a unique computing device? What kind of apps thrive? Has Apple lost its way navigating the path between simplicity and power with iPadOS? What do we hope to see at WWDC this year? All that and much more is covered in this very fun conversation between old friends. Enjoy!

## Topics Discussed:

- Welcome Joe Cieplinski

- How we know Joe

- Teleprompt+

- Joe’s iOS journey

- Joe’s apps

- Polywork

- Release Notes Podcast

- https://releasenotes.tv

- Release Notes Conference

- CocoaLove Segue

- Kotaro’s Introduction to the iPad

- Joe, Champion of the iPad

- Photoshop on iPad is interesting

- SF Symbol Creation App Idea

- iPad is Computing for “Normal” People

- Is iPad Getting Too Complicated?

- Final Cut & Logic on iPad

- Pro iPad app market

- What makes iPad software good?

- Where are the opportunities?

- iPad & Apple AR development

- WWDC23 Wishlist

- “Underwear people podcast”

- Independence

- https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/independence/id1238555061

- Multi-app audio routing

- Apple Watch independence

- SwiftUI improvements to replacements for UIKit controls

- Swift Core Data

- Foundation in Swift 5.9

- Where to find Joe!

- https://micro.blog/joec

- https://joecieplinski.com/

- https://boulderos.com/

- Every third Wednesday, 7pm - 9pm in Boulder, CO

- Upcoming WWDC watch party

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