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Got an app idea, but stuck on where to start? Here’s a framework to get started and keep going

Got an app idea, but stuck on where to start? Here’s a framework to get started and keep going

Published April 26, 2019

Once you’ve built your iOS skills up to a certain point, your mind probably starts going crazy coming up with ideas for apps to build. App ideas that will grow your knowledge (like maybe cloning an existing app?), or maybe apps you want to release to the App Store to make some money. Finally, you pick one that you are ready to build. And then you freeze.

You’re thinking: ”I’ve got my great idea. Now how the @*%$( am I going to build it?” Because it looks overwhelming. So many screens to design and code, an app workflow to develop, backend services to connect up, new iOS concepts to learn. But you open Xcode, select New Project, and you don’t even know which new app template to pick.

The blank page problem. This happens when we’re starting an app, adding features, anytime we’re building something new. It’s something big and unclear. There are so many parts, and you have no clue how they fit together. Or worse, you don’t even know all the moving parts in the first place.

Every creative discipline knows this problem well, and all of them have developed various techniques to combat it. Here is a useful framework I use as I’m building a new app or new features for an app to begin and keep filling in that blank page.

Read on »Got an app idea, but stuck on where to start? Here’s a framework to get started and keep going
Adding manual app badges to your app: step by step

Adding manual app badges to your app: step by step

Published April 18, 2019

It’s really common for apps that support notifications to use them to update the application badge to display numbers of unread messages, undone tasks, etc. But what if you don’t need or want the added complexity of supporting push notifications, or even local notifications, but want to alert the user via an app badge?

Apple’s documentation on this particular way of using app badges is not the best. Badges are combined with the UserNotifications framework, but if you want to set the badge yourself outside of a notification, that is part of UIKit. And the documentation are missing important points like: do you need to check that you’re authorized to show badges to set the badge manually? Will it error out? Crash? Result in strange app behavior?

Manual app badges turn out to be really easy, but the docs don’t make it seem that way. Let’s demystify them right now.

Read on »Adding manual app badges to your app: step by step

Making your circular views circular in Interface Builder

Published April 15, 2019

A really common thing to do in iOS interfaces is make interface elements either circular or into a squircle (squircular?). This is a common thing to do when displaying user avatars, for example.

If you’re building your interface in a storyboard, though, you’ll find one big problem when you add the code to make your view circular: Your storyboard doesn’t look like your app.

Ugly. This just won’t do.

Luckily, there is a really simple way to make your storyboard controls match your app controls.

Read on »Making your circular views circular in Interface Builder
You can go home again — Using unwind segues to navigate back to previous screens

You can go home again — Using unwind segues to navigate back to previous screens

Published April 8, 2019

If you are doing all of your app navigation in storyboards, one of the advantages you have surely discovered is that it’s a great way to specify all of the navigation for your app with minimal code. You may run into this catch, though: specifying a segue for forward navigation is straightforward, but what if you want to specify a segue to dismiss a screen, such as the simple case of tapping a Done button to dismiss a modal screen? Suddenly the answer isn’t quite so obvious.

If you search for this on the web, you get all sorts of proposals, from pretty close to just plain wrong:

  • Make a regular segue
    • This solution is clearly wrong, because you want to remove view controllers from the stack when you dismiss, not add to them
  • Dismiss the controller yourself in code
    • We’re using storyboards to get our navigation out of code, this defeats our purpose
  • Write a custom segue to dismiss your view controller
    • This is closer, but is inflexible and makes reuse of your view controllers more difficult as we’ll touch on later

The correct solution for flexible navigation backwards in your storyboards is what is called an unwind segue. The functionality is a little more hidden in Interface Builder than the regular segue — let’s talk about how they work, and how to find and use them in Interface Builder.

Read on »You can go home again — Using unwind segues to navigate back to previous screens
Slow, laggy Xcode? Maybe it’s not (just) Xcode…

Slow, laggy Xcode? Maybe it’s not (just) Xcode…

Published March 8, 2019

When you’re developing for iOS, there is pretty much no other game in town other than Xcode. And if you’ve needed to use it for any period of time, you know: it’s a memory hog. Not just Xcode, but the iOS simulator, Interface Builder, debugger… You can easily use several GB of memory with just the iOS development tools alone. If you have 8GB of RAM (or 4GB… 😱), it’s enough to bring Xcode to its knees, and your blood pressure to a boil. When your code completion starts lagging to the point you can’t type… 🤬

It’s 2019. Shouldn’t your machine be thinking faster than you?

But your problem may be more than just Xcode. You may want to look at what else is running on your machine to see if you need to put it on a RAM diet.

Read on »Slow, laggy Xcode? Maybe it’s not (just) Xcode…