On Being an Indie & Making Great Software
Friday just as I was packing up to leave the great state of NJ I noticed this post from Scott. I thought perfect, that is the kind of developer I want to be. The person that thinks always about experience. Not just of my users (but of course, them first) but also about my future self trying to read my code. Did I hack, did I do something that was quick and easy instead of spending the time to make it right? And not just with my games but also with the books too. Did I spend the time to make the section or chapter right, I always want to do that. I never want to settle for less than my best.
Then on the plane while not allowed to use 'personal electronic devices' I stumbled onto page 17 of this. 'The Business of Magic', apparently United is trying to teach their folks that building the plane ride into a positive experience will lead to more committed customers. I doubt they have much chance with the declining nature of air travel its time for a revolution there. But that is another post...
United appears to be turning to Disney to help them. Apart from some of the tactics they use to milk nostalgia for every last $ Disney is a great company. Going to DisneyWorld/Land is a magical experience for a 3 year old. It's like walking into a fairy tail. And its not just the princesses and other characters everyone there is all about the experience. All of the staff want to make your day magical, as a Dad it's just fantastic. From start to finish the whole thing is just immersive. That is why Disney does well, and I think a big part of why Apple does well.
Apple does not settle for iPhone light, that is kinda cool and does some fun stuff. They only settle for fantastic. They don't settle for iPhoto that works, they make iPhoto that delights. That is the kind of software I want to build. The kind that people show to their friends and say 'wow this is cool, look at this!'. I'm working on it, and working and working.
Permalink Add A Commentbeta 8
Get it while its hot..
Permalink Add A CommentGreat review of the CA book :)
Clint Shryock has some very kind words to say about the CA book.
It is exceedingly gratifying to have someone get something out of a thing you have labored over so hard for so long. Thanks for posting Clint, you made my day!
Permalink 2 Comments - Add YoursiPhone Games
So I'm more or less done with bringing 1 of our games (dot game, the only one to get staff pick) native as well as building a 'from scratch' puzzle game. I'm sorta struggling with what to do with that. Since the NDA is still in force can I post screen shots? I'm dying to. The puzzle game is fun and the dot game needs no introduction, anyone with kids has played the game with a crayon in a restaurant. Screen shots and such would be good so I could start to talk about the game. But it probably violates the NDA... Ah well I can wait another couple of weeks I guess. Here is hoping that July 11 is the end of the NDA...
Should this be a tweet instead?
Permalink Add A CommentCATiledLayer section...
After much procrastination I finally got the CA section done on tiled layers. Man what a pain. Not that the tiled layer is hard to work with, I just had a hard time figuring out how to explain the example that I did without miring the reader in detail. I basically took the concepts I talked about here and expanded it to show using a sliced image. I hope it is helpful, for thoes on the beta it should be in the next drop. Your comments are greatly appreciated.
Permalink 1 Comment - Add YoursiPhoneDevCamp 2 - speaking and hacking
I am going to be speaking @ iPhoneDevCamp2 about
Hope to see you there!
Update: I had some personal stuff come up so I'm not going to make the SanFran event but I will be at the one in Denver.
Permalink 3 Comments - Add YoursIB, the ultimate inversion of control container...
In the Enterprise Java world IoC containers are all the rage as popularized by the wildly successful Spring Framework.
It struck me this morning while trying to explain how IB works that IB & AppKit work together and make something a lot like an IoC container for interfaces. This is probably old hat and has been discussed at length in the past. What really struck home though is that in 1989/1990 I was doing IoC on a NeXT cube.
So elegant and before its time... I'm really glad its time has finally come.
Permalink Add A CommentiPhone Book in the works
I'm really excited to announce that I've started work on an iPhone book for the Pragmatic Programmers. With the CA book more or less wrapped up I was getting a little bored being able to sleep more than 6 hrs a night so I signed up for something new. Until the NDA is lifted I can't say too much more but watch this space.
We (Chris, Marcel and I) don't yet now how the tech review process is going to work with the NDA but if you are interested in being part of the review team please send me an email (bdudney At mac Dot com) and I will make sure to let you know as soon as we know what the scoop is.
Permalink 1 Comment - Add YoursCATiledLayer Example
One of the examples I put off until I had to do it was CATiledLayer. Basically the docs were not very complete so I was hoping that by the time I really needed them I'd have better docs. Well the docs never materialized but I had 2 or 3 errata about the lack of an example so I figured I'd get off my back side and get something done. I did an example that will make it into the book. It is on drawing png's with multiple versions of the image that are drawn depending on the scale factor, its cool you will like it :).
In the mean time there were still a few things that seemed like I did not grok. So, I went to the CA lab time while out here at WWDC (besides networking that is the other 'coolest thing' about being here). After spending some quality time with the folks in the lab I think I finally have the tiled layer nailed.
I've uploaded the example here.
The example shows a delegate doing all the drawing (which is drop dead simple) and the view setting up the layers. The thing I had wrong in my head was related to levelsOfDetail and levelsOfDetailBias. Levels of detail determines the # of levels of detail (seems obvious doesn't it...) and the bias determines how many are 'reserved' for zooming in. So if you set the levels of detail (LOD) to 4 and the bias to 1, you'd get 2x zooming in (2^1) 'native zoom' (2^0), 2x zoomed out (2^-1) and 4x zoomed out (2^-2). If you set the LOD to 8 and the bias to 5 you'd get 32x zoomed in (2^5) to 4x zoomed out (2^-2). Hope that makes sense, if not feel free to ping me.
Happy animating...
Permalink 5 Comments - Add YoursMeeting people is key @ WWDC
Yesterday I was chatting with Mike and Jonathan when someone in a mic head set said, hey would you guys like to be on a pod cast. I, being the ham I am, jumped up and said Sure!
Turns out the guy in the head set was Lee Givens of the Mac@AOL Blog and the podcast was from MyMac. Fantastic time, I'm hoping to do more with these guys.
Then a little later in the day I ran into Dave Batton. I first ran into Dave way back about jan or feb of last year on his blog. Reading about 'living the life' in Italy was part of my inspiration to just dump the java world and make the jump. I finally meet him face to face @ the Boulder Cocoa Heads a few months ago. Very cool. He just released a new product that looks great, go check it out.
I had lunch with Scotty. Which was great fun to put a face with the guy on the other end of that skype connection. Scotty brought along Uli Kusterer and Craig. Both really interesting guys to hang out with. I'm esp interested in the design ideas that Craig had. Great to talk to people that have an aesthetic instinct, now to integrate that into my own thinking...
And I had a late coffee with Chris. Fantastic guy building some really cool new stuff.
How cool is that! What a blast to meet folks doing creative and fun stuff seemingly randomly. I love this show.
I also saw some amazingly fantastic demos of some really cool technology... But I can't say more (or probably even that) but as always its going to be a great ride over the next 18 months.
Permalink 1 Comment - Add YoursWWDC is a Blast!
So I'm totally wiped out, took my iPhone games to the UI consultation and the metaphor sucks. Of course the UI expert did not say that but the more I think of it the less I like what I did with it. Initially I was going to use Penguins for the characters but switched. I'm going back to penguins... Great feed back and if you do go to WWDC (or you are here) you should definitely take the time to show these folks you app. They can really really help. Very useful and great feedback.
On another note, I was handing out promo cards for my book and taking with the Core Animation people in the lab trying to make sure that my CATiledLayer example in the book was not lame (i'm reworking it if that is any indication) and ran into the folks from TinyPlannetSoftware. Very cool group of folks and the app is fantastic! Check it out!
The awards thing was cool too. Event though Mike did not win, seeing all the cool apps was really fun.
Permalink Add A CommentNew iPhone SDK Posted...
Beta 7, developer.apple.com/iphone
Permalink Add A CommentWWDC Predictions all wrong...
As usual all my predictions are wrong. Fun to speculate.
New iPhone looks amazing, can't wait to get my hands on one. Update from Scott was not really an update apart from the demos, which were cool.
Mobileme looks great, already got my email from .Mac with 'you will be upgraded automagically' which is cool. I was hoping there would be an SDK for it though. What ever happened to the .Mac sdk...
Permalink Add A CommentWWDC Keynote Line...
So I feel like i'm part of some crazy cult. I was in line this morning @ 4:30 and i'm about 200 folks behind the front. Not bad compared to last year when I got in line @ 5:45 and was about 2500 in line...
The line...
NDA lifted, please please please oh please...
Permalink 2 Comments - Add YoursWWDC Bound...
I'm about to head to the airport. Here is hoping the SDK NDA is lifted as I can't wait to share some of the fun and cool stuff I've been working on. Watch this space...
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