There is not much update on this website on June and July because I have been busy with my company project (Watch Over Me 3.0 Enhancement) and also my personal project. The personal project is a dating social network on mobile. This personal project is developed with the intention to test my skills and to learn new things. I do not have any plan to monetize it at the moment. To develop this app, I am using Facebook and Parse API heavily. The “engine” behind this app is mostly complete. I still have to add some features and polish the interface before ready to be uploaded to the appstore. There will be more updates on this dating social network within the next 2 months.
The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2014 (WWDC 2014)
There are some exciting announcements by Apple during the WWDC 2014. For example, the new programming language – Swift and the new frameworks like Home Automation and also the new APIs on CoreBluetooth and CoreLocation. All of these will be ready to ship by Apple probably on September 2014 together with the stable version of XCode 6 and iOS 8.
Swift – Programming Language
Swift is a new programming language that is developed by Apple for iOS and OSX. When the Swift was announced, I did a simple Google search and I was surprised to find out that Swift has been in the development for almost 5 years. It means that Steve Jobs could have been involved in the early stage of the development of Swift. He could have been the visionary behind the development and he knows that Swift could replace Objective-C in the future and make the apps development much easier, faster and powerful.
Since the release of Swift on the XCode 6 Beta, there has been many discussions on the comparison between Swift and Objective-C. At the First glance, I found out that the variable declaration is somewhat similar to JavaScript. After watching the WWDC videos, I understand that Swift is designed to be more safe, more modern and more power.
– Safe: The design of the syntax + the auto error detection by the XCode has made the chances of a programmer to create an erroneous code will be reduced to the minimal.
– Modern: The programming syntax is modern. It was described as the “Objective-C without the C”. Develop a similar app using both Objective-C and Swift, the development using Swift could be faster because the developer can develop using lesses lines of codes. Some unnecessary syntax such as @ and { } has been removed when comparing with the codes in Objective-C.
– Power: Swift has some powerful features such as Nested type and Extensions that will help developer to create great apps.
Here is a list of videos titles related to Swift on WWDC 2014:-
402 Introduction to Swift
403 Intermediate Swift
404 Advanced Swift
406 Integrating Swift with Objective-C
407 Swift interoperability in depth
408 Swift playgrounds
409 Introduction to lldb and the Swift repl
410 Advanced Swift Debugging in lldb
You should be able to watch/download it from: https://developer.apple.com/videos/wwdc/2014/
I have watched all these videos and started to learn Swift since a month ago. I am going to get more serious in it on August and hope that I can master it together with some new features on XCode 6. I am going to convert all the codes on the dating app that I developed to Swift as well.
Apple mentioned that they have big plans for Swift. Well, we shall wait and see.
Home Automation and Indoor Positioning System
Apple has released a new framework calls HomeKit for the iOS developers. The HomeKit can be used to create mobile apps to communicate and control different devices in a house such as television, lightings, air conditioner, garage door and more.
The core technology in the HomeKit is Bluetooth LE. So, the communication using the iPhone/iPad to control the home devices will not consume a lot of battery. Since iBeacon (the indoor proximity system by Apple) is using Bluetooth as well, so, HomeKit and Indoor positioning system are closely related and may compliment each other.
Bluetooth technology is going to play an important role for the years to come as I believe the development of the technology is moving towards indoor. There are many exciting developments in the Smart Home and also Indoor positioning technology. Just to name a few:
1. Google has acquired Nest (maker of “smart” thermostats and smoke alarms for homes) for USD $ 3.2 Billions.
2. The new CoreLocation framework by Apple for iOS 8 will support multistory building. It means that you will know which floor that you are currently standing inside a building from your iPhone.
I am not sure about you. But, I am very excited on the latest development on the mobile app ecosystem. I really can’t wait to see how these new technologies shape the world in the next few years.
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