Yearly Archives: 2018

Two Million Visitors

Announcements

Dear Friends,

today is a very special day for me and the iOS Dev Diary. Since I’ve launched this site in 2012, over two million visitors have come to check it out and find solutions to puzzles this challenging hobby has presented to all of us.

TWO MILLION VISITORS!

That’s a phenomenal amount of people for me, and I’m thrilled that my site has helped so many interested and like-minded folks on this planet.

Keep in mind, this site is a personal note pad on all things iOS, meant as a thinking aid for myself rather than visitors. I’ve started it so that I don’t forget the solutions to intricate puzzles I found answers to. It was never meant to be anything along the lines of “presentable” or “understandable for others”.

Sometimes the best things happen when you don’t really try. This site is certainly proof of that.

To take a look at all the articles I’ve written here over the years, check out the Table of Contents. It’ll tell you that at the time of writing, there are over 400 articles to explore, featuring a total 135,000 words. That’s the equivalent of THREE WHOLE BOOKS.

I’d like to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who’s been coming over, and for those who continue to drop by, so I’ve prepared a few surprises for ya’ll’s enjoyment:

Continue reading →

Which iPhone should you buy (August 2018)?

Opinion, ,
Since Apple have positively and officially lost the plot when it comes to their iPhone Model Offerings, and with the “new iPhone” just around the corner, I thought I’d take a look at which iPhone model – in August 2018 – is the best one to buy. I shudder to think what and how many other models our friends in Cupertino will announce in September, and which of the many models of iPhone currently available will be ditched from the lineup. This article was inspired by a chat I had with a friend of mine the other day, and he asked me which iPhone he should buy. He’s an average user, by no means a fanboy or techie, but he’s been a long-time Apple user. He was genuinely confused by the current state of affairs in regards to the available iPhone models. I agreed, and we both began to discuss the inevitable “has Apple lost the plot” aspects of iPhone developments. That aside, here’s the overall result of our discussion, strictly based my own opinion as both a hobby-developer and iPhone user. At the time of writing, which is August 2018, we have the following lineup to choose from:
  • iPhone X (introduced in late 2017)
  • iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus (late 2017)
  • iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus (late 2016)
  • iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus (late 2015)
  • iPhone SE (late 2015)
All these models come in various RAM and colour configurations. This is more variety than Apple has ever had on offer in the iPhone arsenal, which in and by itself suggests that they no longer know what consumers actually want. Otherwise, they’d do what they usually do: offer the latest model, and last year’s model for $100 less. Not all of these models are going to be on offer forever, and this lineup is probably due to change in September, when traditionally new iPhone models are released. But until then, let’s see which one is a sensible one to pick from the iPhone smorgasbord. Continue reading →

Building a Day Counter on iOS – Part 3

Podcast, ,

In this series I’ll show you how to create a simple Day Counter on iOS, using Objective-C and Xcode 9. The idea is to set a date in a settings screen, and then see how many days have elapsed on the main screen right after launching the app.

This is a 3-Part Mini-Series:

  • Part 1 is all about building the interface in Interface Builder
  • Part 2 is about coding the NSDate subtraction methods, using NSCalendar and loading/saving data using NSUserDefaults
  • Part 3 will introduce Key/Value Observing to update the first view controller as soon as the date is changed in the settings and deals with how to normalise an NSDate object.

You can find the full code on GitHub:

Happy Hacking!

Podcast: Download (Duration: 19:59 — 18.3MB)

Watch the full course in one convenient playlist:
Catch this episode on my iOS Dev Diary Podcast:

Building a Day Counter on iOS – Part 2

Podcast, ,

In this series I’ll show you how to create a simple Day Counter on iOS, using Objective-C and Xcode 9. The idea is to set a date in a settings screen, and then see how many days have elapsed on the main screen right after launching the app.

This is a 3-Part Mini-Series:

  • Part 1 is all about building the interface in Interface Builder
  • Part 2 is about coding the NSDate subtraction methods, using NSCalendar and loading/saving data using NSUserDefaults
  • Part 3 will introduce Key/Value Observing to update the first view controller as soon as the date is changed in the settings and deals with how to normalise an NSDate object.

You can find the full code on GitHub:

Happy Hacking!

Podcast: Download (Duration: 28:54 — 26.5MB)

Watch the full course in one convenient playlist:
Catch this episode on my iOS Dev Diary Podcast:

Building a Day Counter on iOS – Part 1

iOS Development, Podcast, ,

In this series I’ll show you how to create a simple Day Counter on iOS, using Objective-C and Xcode 9. The idea is to set a date in a settings screen, and then see how many days have elapsed on the main screen right after launching the app.

This is a 3-Part Mini-Series:

  • Part 1 is all about building the interface in Interface Builder
  • Part 2 is about coding the NSDate subtraction methods, using NSCalendar and loading/saving data using NSUserDefaults
  • Part 3 will introduce Key/Value Observing to update the first view controller as soon as the date is changed in the settings and deals with how to normalise an NSDate object.

You can find the full code on GitHub:

Happy Hacking!

Podcast: Download (Duration: 19:18 — 17.7MB)

Watch the full course in one convenient playlist:
Catch this episode on my iOS Dev Diary Podcast: