A couple summers ago, I wrote a blog post detailing some of the pluses and minuses of hybrid apps on iOS. The conclusion I came to at the time was that, for the most part, they simply weren't worth it. Facebook agreed and released an incredibly well-done, well-reviewed native rewrite of their app. But, inevitably, things change, and I wonder if it's worth taking another look at hybrid native apps. But, perhaps with a bit of a twist this time around.
New web frameworks, like Ionic (linked-to below) promise native-like behavior on iOS, and Apple now offers the developers the ability to write application logic in JavaScript while still proffering up a native UI. (at least in theory...there's definitely some work required to build an interop layer between Cocoa and JavaScriptCore.) What do you think? Is there a future in writing native or hybrid apps in JavaScript on iOS? I sure hope so. Anything that will make the platform more accessible to more developers seems like a huge win to me.
On an unrelated subject, I highly recommend checking the "MultiPlane Camera" video below. It's only about 7 minutes long and will give you some great background on parallax effects, and how these were accomplished decades ago by cartoon makers. It's fascinating and informative, and well worth your time. Finally, our control of the week is really quite something: it's a full-fledged, feature rich image editor that you can just drop into your app.
Best,
Aaron
What We're Reading
- "The MultiPlane Camera" (Video)
- Ionic Framework - A really impressive-looking HTML/native hybrid app framework.
- Apple's iOS7 Native JavaScript Bridge
- Touch ID Patent Applications Show Details Behind 'Secure Enclave' and iPhone 5s Implementation
- Video Trailers Debut On The App Store With 'Clumsy Ninja'
- NSNotificationCenter with blocks considered harmful
Control of the Week
CLImageEditor
Weekly Roundup
IQFeedbackView
Feedback/BugReport iOS control MIT licensed. |
RCHBackboard
SHEmailValidator
An iOS library that will provide basic email syntax validation as well as provide suggestions for possible typos (for example, [email protected] would be corrected to [email protected]). Apache 2.0 licensed. |
YASlidingViewController
PanToBack
Pan gesture To Back Naivigating in iOS App Gif Screenshot HERE https://github.com/soleaf/PanToBack/raw/master/screenshot.gif MIT licensed. |
UIImage+BlurredFrame
UIImage+BlurredFrame is a UIImage category that blurs an specified frame of a UIImage MIT licensed. |
MDHTMLLabel
DrawReport
AMScrollingNavbar
Scrollable UINavigationBar that follows the scrolling of a scrolling view (e.g. UIScrollView, UITableView or UIWebView). Similiar to Chrome or Facebook for iOS7. MIT licensed. |
DDHTextView
A UITextView subclass which lets you move the cursor and select text with a pan gesture. MIT licensed. |
UAObfuscatedString
A simple NSStringCategory to hide sensitive strings from appearing in your binary MIT licensed. |
APTimeZones
The easiest way to get an NSTimeZone from CLLocation. MIT licensed. |
ARAutocompleteTextView
URBMediaFocusViewController
An easy-to-use view controller that animates thumbnail previews of your media to their full size versions with physics similar to Tweetbot 3. MIT licensed. |
MSDynamicsDrawerViewController
Container view controller that leverages UIKit Dynamics to provide a realistic drawer navigation paradigm. Here's some example gifs to see MSDynamicsDrawerViewController in action: You can fling it, bounce it, open & close it, and replace it. MIT licensed. |
SFSCollectionMenu
An open-source menu control for iOS utilizing UICollectionView layout. MIT licensed. |
QTree-objc
Library for location-based clustering of data using Quadtree written in Objective-C. MIT licensed. |
UzysCircularProgressPullToRefresh
Give Pinterest Like PullToRefresh to any UIScrollView with just simple code UzysSlideMenu features: It's very simple to use. Support iOS7. Support only ARC Support CocoaPods. (to be) MIT licensed. |
KXKiOS7ColorsAndGradients
A collection of colors and gradients taken from Apple's iOS 7 Apps and icons. MIT licensed. |
IQActionSheetPickerView
ActionSheet with UIPickerView MIT licensed. |
IQDropDownTextField
TextField with DropDown support using UIPickerView MIT licensed. |
IQEditableLabel
UILabel with UIKeyInput protocol implementation MIT licensed. |