Hello, and welcome to our weekly roundup! This week, Brent Simmons continued his fantastic series of articles over on his blog about building Vesper, the note-taking application created by him, Dave Wiskus, and John Gruber. He offers up a lot of great insight into making a decision on SQLite3 vs Core Data. Speaking for myself, I actually spent a good deal of time this past week getting a handle on Marco Arment's SQLite ORM library, FCModel. And, I have to say, despite some rough edges (spoiler alert: it's still considered 'alpha'), I like it a heck of a lot better than Core Data. Sure, it doesn't do as much, but it also offers a far more simple conceptual model, and actually feels like you're interacting with a database instead of a crazy object graph system. Your mileage may vary; I'm sure there are lots of people who actually like Core Data, but I still can't count myself among them.
Meanwhile, the folks behind objc.io have put out another fantastic issue with lots of great insights into iOS 7. Like I said months ago, iOS 7 itself is a huge leap forward for the platform, but it will end up paling in comparison to the amazing new apps it will enable folks like us to create. Were I doing any greenfield iOS development today, I can't imagine any scenario under which I wouldn't only target iOS 7.
Best,
Aaron
What We're Reading
- This is how a Helsingin Sanomat journalist tried to save Nokia
- Achieving Zen with Auto Layout
- Objc.io - Issue 5
- Curved Handheld Displays Almost Ready for Market
- Vesper and Core Data Performance
- Vesper Sync Diary 2: Core Data
Control of the Week
SWTableViewCell
|
An easy-to-use UITableViewCell subclass that implements a swipeable content view which exposes utility buttons (similar to iOS 7 Mail Application) MIT licensed. |
Weekly Roundup
Core Background
|
CoreBackground is a set of Objective-C classes inspired by the iOS Yahoo Weather App. It provides iOS location-based Flickr backgrounds with Gaussian blur light effects for iPhone. As one scrolls over the foreground a Gaussian blur light effect is applied to the background. This provides for an engaging location-based UX while at the same time providing a canvas to apply readable content to the foreground. CoreBackground is a non-blocking "event-based" Objective-C block API and all rendering occurs in backing stores to preserve the main run loop. Make it be the foundation of your next iOS project today. MIT licensed. |
IQProjectVideo
|
Record the screen of the iOS Simluator. WARNING: This project uses a private function UIGetScreenImage() to get screenshot image. You should only use this for generating project video only. You shouldn't submit apps to the app store with this. MIT licensed. |
ADSR
|
Customizable ADSR Controller MIT licensed. |
PCSEQ
|
EQ visualizer Is an animated EQ visualizer that can be used for audio ios applications. How to use: PCSEQVisualizer* eq = [[PCSEQVisualizer alloc]initWithNumberOfBars:20]; [self.view addSubview:eq]; [eq start]; To pause the EQ call: [eq stop]; BSD licensed. |
MCSFishEyeView
|
An OS X Dock-like control for iOS. Apache 2.0 licensed. |
LDProgressView
|
A flat or gradient progress view with a simple color setter and customizable options written in pure Core Graphics MIT licensed. |
JKDataSource
|
Helper class to make managing UITableView delegates and data sources easier. Main Features:
MIT licensed. |
ITPullToRefreshScrollView
|
Apache 2.0 licensed. |
CMSCoinView
|
Double sided UIView subclass that flips horizontally when tapped. MIT licensed. |
3DMultiPhotoView
|
This is an image view control which represents multiple images on 3D octagon. The control is available to be customized by using properties. MIT licensed. |
GLMoveToTrashAnimation
|
Move to trash animation replica from Whatsapp. MIT licensed. |
KSCardView
|
KSCardView is a robust, customizable, easy to use, subclass of UIView for iOS. KSCardView has built in features for supporting moving the view in the horizontal or vertical direction and performing an action if the view is dragged past an edge of the screen. This makes for a very simple, gesture-based UI that can be incorporated into any number of apps. Any amount of subviews can be added to it just like a standard UIView. MIT licensed. |