Weekly Roundup: The New Nexus of Google Hardware

Aaron Brethorst, February 01, 2014

Hi everyone - There's been a lot of talk this past week about future hardware, on both Apple and Google's parts. Mac Rumors, for what it's worth, posted an article about a rumored new app, Healthbook, coming to iOS 8 that will feature very tight integration with the rumored iWatch. It would seem entirely sensible to tie a forthcoming new product line launch to existing blockbuster product lines, meaning that a Fall release of the iWatch was always likely, but rumors of tight integration into new iOS 8-only features certainly serves to clarify timing. Although I find the idea of a 'Healthbook' app intriguing, I'm not entirely convinced that Apple will sell millions of these devices on the sole strength of that. Similarly, getting device notifications on your wrist does not a killer product make, either. But, Apple's pretty good at these things (i.e. making devices everyone wants), so I'll happily give them the benefit of the doubt for now.

Meanwhile, the big news out of Google-land this past week was the sale of Google's Motorola unit to Lenovo at a loss of somewhere between $1 - $2 billion. I have to give Google credit for recognizing they made a mistake, and course correcting with both the acquisition of Nest and the sale of Motorola. In contrast, Microsoft—had they bought Motorola—would have probably folded the division after another few years of flailing[1].

Much like with Google's Android acquisition years ago, the key challenge Google will face is with retaining key employees. Of course, Andy Rubin is still at Google 9 years later, and—if Google can keep Tony Fadell around for a commensurate period of time—I think the Nest acquisition will prove to be incredibly valuable to them. Relatedly, I expect Google's relationship with Samsung to continue to deteriorate.

Until next time,
Aaron

[1] See: aQuantive, Danger, WebTV, etc.


What We're Reading


Control of the Week

RMScannerView

RMScannerView

Simple barcode scanner UIView subclass for iOS apps. Quickly and efficiently scans a large variety of barcodes using the iOS device's built in camera.

RMScannerView is a UIView subclass for scanning barcodes in iOS applications. RMScannerView uses advanced barcode scanning built specifically for iOS. Scan both 2D and 1D barcodes such as PDF417, QR, Aztec, EAN, UPC, Code 128, etc. Get a barcode scanner up and running in your iOS app in only a few minutes

MIT licensed.

Find out more Add to Favorites


Weekly Roundup

iCloudDocumentSync

iCloudDocumentSync

Sync and Manage iCloud Documents in your iOS app. Simplifies iCloud Document Syncing. Makes iCloud just work for developers too.

iCloud Document Sync makes it easy for developers to integrate the iCloud document storage APIs into iOS applications. This is how iCloud document-storage and management should've been out of the box from Apple. Integrate iCloud into iOS (OS X coming soon) Objective-C document projects with one-line code methods. Sync, upload, manage, and remove documents to and from iCloud with only a few lines of code (compared to the hundreds of lines and hours that it usually takes). Get iCloud up and running in your iOS app in only a few minutes.

MIT licensed.

Find out more Add to Favorites


KBComposeSocial

KBComposeSocial

Custom iOS-style dialog boxes for posting to Facebook and Twitter designed to run on iOS 4.3 and above.

The SDK can be configured to capture any of four different media types, including: (1) text only; (2) text and an image array; (3) text an a url array; and (4) text, an image array and a URL array. The software is designed to be used on ARC-enabled projects, requires linking with the QuartzCore framework and is supported on iOS7.

The SDK does not actually forward information to Facebook or Twitter. For this, you must use the Social SDK of your choice. Rather, it simply provides controls you can use to capture data from your users.

MIT licensed.

Find out more Add to Favorites


AXRatingView

AXRatingView

Star mark rating view for a review scene.

  • Smooth rating (ex. 4.22 -> 4.23)
  • Step rating (ex. 3.00 -> 4.00)
  • Editable & Not Editable
  • It is easy to Get/Set.

MIT licensed.

Find out more Add to Favorites


STHTTP

STHTTP

HTTP library for iOS 5+ and Mac OS X 10.7+, based on NSURLConnection

BSD licensed.

Find out more Add to Favorites


ButtonPeoplePicker

ButtonPeoplePicker

Button-style contact picker to select multiple people from the iPhone Address Book, with type-ahead and auto-completion.

Apache 2.0 licensed.

Find out more Add to Favorites


NBUImagePicker

NBUImagePicker

Modular and fully customizable UIImagePickerController replacement with Simulator-compatible AVFoundation camera, AssetsLibrary and custom directory assets' browser, and image cropping, filters and gallery.

Apache 2.0 licensed.

Find out more Add to Favorites


DHSmartScreenshot

DHSmartScreenshot

UITableView Category to get really easy, smart and instant screenshot images like no other library out there for iOS 5+ devices.

MIT licensed.

Find out more Add to Favorites


WCFastCell

WCFastCell

A drop-in replacement for UITableViewCell and UICollectionViewCell which draws contents using CoreGraphics. Seamless integration with nibs provided.

MIT licensed.

Find out more Add to Favorites


UIImage+Dummy

UIImage+Dummy

UIImage+Dummy category provides method to create dummy image.

UIImage *image1 = [UIImage imageNamed:@"dummy.150x200"];

UIImage *image2 = [UIImage imageNamed:@"dummy.150x200.#407EFF"];

UIImage *image3 = [UIImage imageNamed:@"dummy.150x200.blue"];

UIImage *image4 = [UIImage imageNamed:@"dummy.150x200.blue..image.png"]; // If 'image.png' exists, 'image.png' UIImage object is created. If not exist, dummy UIImage object is created.

MIT licensed.

Find out more Add to Favorites


GHWalkThrough

GHWalkThrough

A UICollectionView backed drop-in component for introduction views

MIT licensed.

Find out more Add to Favorites


Disqus

Disqus

This open-source library allows you to integrate Disqus into your iOS apps. Learn more about Disqus API (http://disqus.com/api/docs/).

The project has been created by Moqod team to help many developers searching for this solution on Stackoverflow and elsewhere. Special thanks to Disqus for answering support questions promptly!

Feel free to get in touch with us in regards to any questions or cooperation requests via email [email protected].

MIT licensed.

Find out more Add to Favorites


AMTagListView

AMTagListView

UIScrollView subclass that allows to add a list of highly customizable tags.

MIT licensed.

Find out more Add to Favorites


LRScrollingSidebarController

LRScrollingSidebarController

Sidebar controllers are certainly one the the most implemented UX patterns in iOS. They became very popular due to Facebook and Path implementation. Nowadays, there are a lot of them, too may I'd say. They've replaced a lot of the tab-bar based apps, but unfortunately, they all share the same problem, they are all wrong in terms of physics. Yes, there are some out there that are kind of cool based on iOS 7 dynamics, but still, they don't work the way I expect this kind of controls to work. When you drag and release the panels, you feel like they stop suddenly, sharply, the panels don't flow and slide like they should. Mimicking physics as most of the libraries try is very, very difficult, you won't do it perfectly and you will feel this sudden speed changes or sharpness and abruptness when releasing the finger with a certain velocity.

So? What's the solution? Pretty simple actually: use a scroll view. That simple. We are all used to the scroll view physics... Why just don't use it for this very purpose? The result is a sidebar controller that is a pleasure to use... Install it on your device and use it, you'll se the difference.

MIT licensed.

Find out more Add to Favorites


UIImageView-AnimationCompletionBlock

UIImageView-AnimationCompletionBlock

A category that adds a completion block to UIImageView letting you know when the UIImageView's animation is complete.

MIT licensed.

Find out more Add to Favorites


FLStatusManager

FLStatusManager

Provide a dictionary of UIDs, names, and images to the manager, and when the user types an '@' reply into the text view, auto complete options will appear underneath.

Public Domain licensed.

Find out more Add to Favorites


FLPostLabel

FLPostLabel

A tweet-like label that has the following features:

  • When a user taps on a mention, hashtag or a link, it fires a delegate and gives you the object which was tapped
  • Resizes itself to adjust in the view
  • [postLabel size] returns you the size of the label required to adjust the content you have provided
  • Allows you to set text color, text background color, and font for mentions, hashtags, and links separately for normal and selected state.

Public Domain licensed.

Find out more Add to Favorites


SFRoundProgressCounterView

SFRoundProgressCounterView

A custom UIView with a rounded progress bar and a counter in the center of the circle. Supports multiple time intervals (in milliseconds), start/stop/resuming counter, set custom color, etc. (see example project)

MIT licensed.

Find out more Add to Favorites


NetworkActivityIndicator

NetworkActivityIndicator

More easily interface with the network activity indicator in the status bar.UIApplication category and demo app.

MIT licensed.

Find out more Add to Favorites


UIForLumberjack

UIForLumberjack

iOS UI library to display CocoaLumberjack logs on iOS devices.

MIT licensed.

Find out more Add to Favorites


SFGaugeView

SFGaugeView

A gauge control.

MIT licensed.

Find out more Add to Favorites


VENVersionTracker

VENVersionTracker

iOS Version Tracking Library to update betas, let users know about new versions in production and enforce deprecated versions of your app.

MIT licensed.

Find out more Add to Favorites


PMParentalGate

PMParentalGate

Since the introduction of special 'Kids' category in the App Store, Apple has enforced developers to perform a good practice - guarding anything that's not targeted for the kids by the 'Parental Gate'. This means that any links to other apps, or to App Store ratings or any In-App purchases should be guarded from the kid's access.

One of the ways to perform this task is to ask the user to perform some kind of operation that, in general, the kid can not do (we're talking about quite small kids here) - like triple-tapping the button instead of a single tap, or solving a simple math equation...

This control allows for a simple, one-line "equation" gate.

This is released as-is under the terms of MIT License.

MIT licensed.

Find out more Add to Favorites


Simple Bar Chart

Simple Bar Chart

A simple animated bar chart class. Uses datasource and delegates similar to UITableView for easy addition of data. Also can set properties to manage time of animation, grid spaces, label fonts and orientation, etc.

Public Domain licensed.

Find out more Add to Favorites


MZRSlideInMenu

MZRSlideInMenu

This is a simple slide-in menu. When the button tapped, the menu slides in from left or right. You can use this like UIAlertView.

MIT licensed.

Find out more Add to Favorites


Smerk

Smerk

Smerk is designed to make implementing either Face Detection or QR Code/Bar Code/Machine Readable Code detection incredibly simple.

MIT licensed.

Find out more Add to Favorites