After my recent blog post iOS Development Tips I Would Want If I Was Starting Out Today I was asked the same question several times.
"How do you keep up to date with the changes in iOS development?"
Three days after iOS 6.1 was released Discovr Music is over 31% iOS 6.1 uptake. iOS 6+ is just a touch under 90% in total.
The iOS Simulator and I have a love / hate relationship. It's super handy to quickly run your app on a variety of devices and iOS versions, but it can have you chasing bugs that just don't exist on the device.
Here are some tips that I use to get the most out of the simulator:
Making iOS apps is getting easier and easier with each new release of Xcode. However, all the new features and approaches means there are more options to choose from, outdated books and old documentation.
Back in my day it was so much harder - that's is true in many respects, but a much higher level of quality and features is expected now. The bar keeps rising, and that's a very good thing.
If I was starting out with iOS development today these are the things I would hope somebody would tell me.
I'm always curious what products growth curves are like. Here's the low down of AppBot's growth since it was launched four months ago.
I always find it interesting to see how people are using our apps.
Here is the breakdown of devices using Discovr Music for the last couple of days over hundreds of thousands of data points. Note this app is now iOS5+ only.
We reported recently how impressed we were with the latest version of Discovr Music iOS 6 adoption.
Looking at the stats for all our apps (we have 4 universal apps with almost 3 million downloads) and for all versions after a month gives an interesting picture:
A little while ago I did an interview with the OzAPP Awards, we talked about making your first app, Discovr and raising venture capital.
Here is a copy of the interview.
I love a good startup or technology quote.
Here are some of my all time favourites, in no particular order.
"Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful, that’s what matters to me." - Steve Jobs
Several months ago we started a whole new project (that's not Discovr related) and also had our third full time developer start. So it was time to get more serious about our process and communications.
Although we have raised money I find a lot of value and inspiration from bootstrapped success stories. I think there is a lot of value running lean and thinking bootstrapped even if you have money in the bank.
Here is some of my recent reading list:
Development is a creative process. Projects can be long and draining, we can hit roadblocks and become run down.
As a technical founder of a startup, and having been in many far from ideal jobs in the past, I believe it is my job to make sure developers are looked after.
I've seen many situations where companies expect developers should be spending every waking hour hacking away on their project. Developers who work long hours are thought to be more committed to their job. People are rewarded based on hours rather than output. This is neither productive nor healthy.
There are many things you can do to keep developers motivated and productive. I believe a key to this is encouraging them to work on other things, give them options, here they can step away from a massive code base, start something new, learn new things and recharge. Let them be creative.
Love this quote from a great book Make Your Idea Matter.
The people who succeed are the ones who put the need for certainty aside, to focus on riding the best wave they can. They don't wait for the tide to be perfect tomorrow.
Over on AppBot I shared some lessons I learned launching an MVP. You can check out all the details over there:
AppBot - App Store reviews and features straight to your inbox.