I've been spending a lot of time lately watching WWDC 2013 session videos and working with new frameworks and APIs in iOS 7, like [redacted], and I'm realizing just how big a deal iOS 7 really will be in terms of the capabilities of the platform and the depth and breadth of apps you'll be seeing appear over the next couple years.
And I'm not even talking about Apple's seemingly inevitable destruction of the classic video game console space, either! That's another fascinating arena: I am pretty convinced that in 2023, when you look back on the history of the eighth generation of video game consoles (Xbox One, Wii U, PS4), you'll find that Apple TV+iPad/iPhone and some similar Android plays will have ended up being the big winners. I've had a couple conversations with a relatively well-known tech journalist about this in the past, and we agreed that if/when iOS ever natively supported game controllers, they'd likely destroy the rest of the space. Now, I guess we'll see if we were right.
iOS 7 represents a sea change in terms of Apple's willingness to expand the capabilities of their mobile platform in a more desktop-like direction, while doubling down on a uniquely mobile experience. I'm becoming increasingly excited about it, and I can't wait to see where we are in a couple years.
Until next time,
Aaron
What We're Reading
- Obligation Isn't A Real Use Case
- Tablet Usability - Flat design and improperly rescaled design are the main threats to tablet usability, followed by poor gestures and workflow.
- Realigned - The effect of designing for iOS 7 on an iOS 6 brain
- Code Smells in Objective-C
Control of the Week
RETableViewManager
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Powerful data driven content manager for UITableView. MIT licensed. |
Weekly Roundup
MVYSideMenu
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iOS Side Menu based on Google+ iPhone app. Custom licensed. |
IAElegantSheet
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Replacing UIActionSheet with elegance. Elegant to see and elegant to code. MIT licensed. |
ACPButton
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This extension of UIButton allow you to have full control of your project buttons from one class. This class give you the oportunity to create buttons completly image free, combining flat color, gradients, borders etc. You also can create easily buttons using resizable images. MIT licensed. |
Slide View Controller
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Control is for a 3 panel slide. BSD licensed. |
WUTextSuggestion
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A text suggestion toolkit for iOS. MIT licensed. |
MSCTimeSpanPicker
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Picker for selecting a time span using native UIPickerView. It's customizable using UIAppearance, brings it's own delegate for efficient and fast integration in exisiting projects and uses ARC. MIT licensed. |
JKExpandTableView
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Expandable Nested Table View for iOS JKExpandableNestedTableView is a lightweight library for iOS that makes it easy to create a table view with expandable/collapsable rows. Recursive nesting is not supported. Compatibility: iOS 4.0+. Requires ARC. Key Features:
MIT licensed. |
KeepLayout
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Making Auto Layout easier to code. Keep Layout is project under active development whose purpose is to make Auto Layout much easier to use from code! No more Interface Builder or Visual Format. Keep Layout provides simple, more readable and powerful API for creating and accessing existing constraints. MIT licensed. |
MHValidation
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Validates objects in a view. You just have to set the classes which you want to validate. Supports:
MIT licensed. |
MJNIndexView
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MJNIndexView is a highly customizable UIControl which displays an alternative index for UITableView. I wanted to mimic the index designed by Jeremy Olson's Tapity for their Languages app. I think their idea of implementing index is brilliant and it is one of the best examples of great UX. I hope more apps are going to use similar indices instead of the generic ones. You can check this video to see it in action http://youtu.be/uV3bkPkC-GQ MIT licensed. |
HTCopyableLabel
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HTCopyableLabel is a subclass of UILabel that makes it easy to allow users to copy a label's text. MIT licensed. |
NHCalendarActivity
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NHCalendarActivity is an easy to use custom UIActivity (iOS 6+) that adds events and alarms to the iOS calendar. MIT licensed. |
UzysSlideMenu
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Slide Dropdown Menu MIT licensed. |
MNPageViewController
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A horizontal scroll view container for UIViewControllers. MIT licensed. |
UITypingIndicator
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a gorgeous component to show when a user is typing. :) MIT licensed. |
QMBTabs
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Tab View Controller just like Safari or mobile Chrome Apache 2.0 licensed. |
STPhoneFormatter
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A custom formatter to deal with an international phone number inside a UITextField. MIT licensed. |
SPHLocationPicker
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A location picker built around a UITableView, MKMapView and CLPlacemark. Displaying and the size of the map, dropping pins with a tap, providing a search controller and a bounce to return the map to the default size are all configurable. Your own datasources for the initial table/mapview and search controller can be provided. MIT licensed. |
CocoaGLPaint
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OpenGL Paint for OS X. Available features:
Apache 2.0 licensed. |
MHProgressView
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A simple progressview indicator that looks like the progressview in Instagram. MIT licensed. |
MNCalendarView
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Highly customizable calendar component for iOS apps MIT licensed. |
NKColorSwitch
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Flat style UISwitch control for iOS. Supports customizable control tint colors, sizes, and shapes. MIT licensed. |
RSCircaPageControl
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A clone of Circa's news detail views' page control, and include an easy-to-follow sample. MIT licensed. |
RSLoadingIndicator
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This project clones the Yahoo weather app's loading indicator with no image at all, everything is drawing using Quartz and everything can be customised. All you needs are importing two files under 'Loading Indicator' folder instead of using tons of images like Yahoo weather and using them in UITableView header like pull-to-refresh controls. MIT licensed. |
RSCardsView
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This project clones the card inserting animation, card exchange animation and provides UITableView alike APIs for data sourcing and delegating. All your needs are importing all files under 'Cards View', implementing single card views and implementing delegating and data souring in controller. See the sample for more information. MIT licensed. |
DAProgressOverlayView
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A UIView subclass displaying download progress. Looks similarly to springboard icons of apps being downloaded in iOS 7. MIT licensed. |