Douglas Hill’s posts in 2015
1 June 2015
Really excited to join the incredible team at @PSPDFKit today. »
8 June 2015
Going to watch the WWDC Keynote at Yoyo Wallet attending.io/events/wwdc-keynote-relay-yoyo-wallet »
Safari Shared Link extensions sound intriguing. The new way to make RSS apps? »
News looks like a kid’s pop up book. »
9 June 2015
Objective-C __kindof is nice: +NSEntityDescription insertNewObject… and +UITableView dequeueReusableCell… no longer return id.
»
Now I can scrap github.com/douglashill/touch-prediction — it’s built in. »
23 June 2015
We just released Cambugs First Words to help children become fluent, confident readers itunes.apple.com/app/cambugs-first-words/id929792621?ls=1&mt=8 »
2 July 2015
I had a quick look at variance with Objective-C generics. Covariance and contravariance are supported. gist.github.com/douglashill/802ed825389cc5de6e9d »
6 July 2015
Typing in @SlackHQ is much easier after turning on correction and replacement from the contextual or Edit menu.
15 July 2015
iOS 9’s UICollectionView interactive movement is astonishingly easy to implement and ‘just works’.
»
22 July 2015
Reasonable to not expect a nullability conversion warning for this?
30 July 2015
It isn’t immediately obvious how to enable secure decoding with NSKeyedUnarchiver gist.github.com/douglashill/05d8ac23e6435ae578ad
»
Another lively evening at @NSLondonMeetup. Flattered to be ID checked going into the bar.
Key takeaways:
- Justify asking for user data: it’s respectful.
- Carthage exists and I like its approach.
- Handstands! »
13 August 2015
Apple bug: UIPresentationController lets you initialise it incorrectly openradar.appspot.com/22269465
»
Another iOS 9 bug: the new back button results in apps in the wrong order in multitasking openradar.appspot.com/22277673 »
One more: I really like swiping from right-to-left to go forward in Safari; iOS 9 Slide Over breaks that. openradar.appspot.com/22278219 »
24 August 2015
Specific bugs with Apple’s UIPresentationController:
More general problems with UIPresentationController:
Of all these UIPresentationController problems, the important one is that adaptivity is limited openradar.appspot.com/22394182
»
Tumblr had a similar problem combining a custom presentation with a popover cocoa.tumblr.com/post/92070238973/how-can-i-use-both-uipopoverpresentationcontroller »
I fixed @steipete’s presentation controller hack gist.github.com/douglashill/e1e1d6fd3d59a3c59295 »
Still a hack »
25 August 2015
It’s nice when an old question on Stack Overflow is trivial to solve with new API. Progress! stackoverflow.com/a/32200627/2207249 »
28 August 2015
Had a fantastic time seeing great people at @NSLondonMeetup yesterday. Good times! »
29 August 2015
3D Gunstar Heroes: buy buy buy! nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-3DS-download-software/3D-Gunstar-Heroes-1043756.html »
4 September 2015
Bugs with iOS using the wrong view controller for the status bar:
Wouldn’t it be nice to coordinate two view controller transitions? openradar.appspot.com/22565398 »
7 September 2015
UIPageViewController needs to learn some adaptivity.
»
This is Xcode’s Page-Based Application template using two pages because it’s in ‘landscape’.
9 September 2015
Looking forward to running iPad Pro and Apple TV simulators on my 11″ Macbook Air. »
App Store submissions don’t seem to be open yet for apps built with the iOS 9 SDK. »
Still no UIUserInterfaceSizeClassLarge developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/documentation/UIKit/Reference/UIKitDataTypesReference/index.html#//apple_ref/c/tdef/UIUserInterfaceSizeClass
»
Marketing came in too late
My favourite feature on the iPad Pro is the four speakers: stereo now works in landscape.
My least favourite addition to the iPad Pro is the rubbish filling in spaces on the keyboard: \ | ^ ` and worst of all caps lock.
Software keyboard can do better. We can have different characters available for programming and for prose. »
10 September 2015
watchOS for Watch, tvOS for TV, iOS for i »
About 750 APIs are __TVOS_PROHIBITED
grep -r __TVOS_PROHIBITED /path/to/TV/SDK/frameworks
Force/3D touch in not available on the iPhone 6S simulator. Trait collections’ forceTouchCapability is Unavailable. »
11 September 2015
iOS 9 SDK/Xcode 7 App Store submissions are open. @cambugs is in. »
14 September 2015
Undo and cancel are both translated into French as annuler. And this happens:
2 October 2015
Apple rereleases Xcode 3 for nostalgic Mac OS X Leopard and iPhone OS 2.0 development.
On my Mac the Movies folder contains videos; on my iPad I go to the Videos app to see films. I search for the wrong thing every time. »
I fell in love with Shovel Knight all over again playing thought Plague of Shadows. Really challenging, but so much fun. »
Just found Plague Knight can fly indefinitely by mapping two attack buttons and charging while throwing midair. Feels godlike. »
4 October 2015
The Martian was great, just like everyone said. I don’t think I’m made for space travel. »
Made a parts of speech highlighter at @sideprojectlon today. Might be useful for foreign language reading.
My test article about water on Mars: 1jour1actu.com/science/de-leau-coule-sur-mars-75142/ »
5 October 2015
Nice to see improvements to WWDC video search — developer.apple.com/news/?id=10052015a — but I still see vastly better results from asciiwwdc.com
Ah, Apple’s search inside WWDC videos only covers WWDC 2015. That’s why I see zero results developer.apple.com/search/?q=uipresentationcontroller&type=Videos »
27 October 2015
It’s bug time. First, back button truncation openradar.appspot.com/23255903
UIKit bug: status bar inset can be applied twice openradar.appspot.com/23256354
UIKit bug: form sheets underneath status bar on iPad in compact widths openradar.appspot.com/23257624
Not interfering with adaptive presentation — an acceptable use case for respondsToSelector:? openradar.appspot.com/23260682
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It’s hard to make a minimal UISearchBar look good on a dark background openradar.appspot.com/23262835
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Presentation controllers do not know their future container traits. Makes adaptive presentation controllers harder. openradar.appspot.com/23273355 »
UIPageViewController uses orientation. Very broken in this age of adaptivity. openradar.appspot.com/23274100
Last UIKit bug for now. Why do we have separate methods for trait and size changes? openradar.appspot.com/23263181 »
28 October 2015
Hmm, Facebook is showing an event time inconsistently. On some screens it’s an hour earlier than it should be. Daylight savings bug? »
29 October 2015
It doesn’t seem advertised or confirmed anywhere, but OS X El Capitan Disk Utility can resize Core Storage volumes. Free space reclaimed! »
2 November 2015
Spectre was quite exciting, although seemed lacking cohesiveness. Great action scenes. »
Spectre’s north Africa scenes were especially gratifying since I recently went to Morocco. Train wasn’t as luxurious in real life. »
4 November 2015
OS X Photos with Optimize Mac Storage uses more space than I expected: it downloaded 32 GB of a 46 GB library. »
8 November 2015
With Halloween over, what do you do with the leftover half-mouldy pumpkin? vine.co/v/eluVIMdpvu2 »
Pumpkin: final smash vine.co/v/elu3vBvLil0 »
State of video on Twitter:
- 30s clips from official app/site show as nasty links in @tweetbot
- 6s clips via @vine look nice in @tweetbot »
9 November 2015
I somehow only just realised @1Password 5 is available, after it’s been out for a year. Not sure why it didn’t autoupdate. »
10 November 2015
There’s talk of a sequel to Radiant Historia: the smartest time travel game I’ve played. Yes please! #rh_atlus »
11 November 2015
I’m pretty pleased how this photo of Saturday’s Guy Fawkes fireworks turned out. New iPad wallpaper.
12 November 2015
I agree with everything here. Fix the root cause and make iOS self sufficient. twitter.com/SteveStreza/status/664918885473259522 »
13 November 2015
iOS Keychain programming guide is very misleading. This post from five years ago is helpful. useyourloaf.com/blog/keychain-duplicate-item-when-adding-password.html »
Switching Bank branch -> Charing Cross branch on the southbound @northernline at Euston is not pleasant. Like a maze. »
15 November 2015
It’s @sideprojectlon today from 12. Bring something cool to work on. »
Just learned about @JetSmarter from @mostgood. Turns out ‘accessible private jet travel’ is a thing. »
There shouldn’t be spelling mistakes in your source code. I’m making tools to help with this. »
I’m looking for beta testers for my Mac spell checking tools. Email me if you want to get involved: hello at douglashill.co »
Apple Pencil has high latency offset by excellent prediction: when implemented properly it feels great. »
Just found the iOS Short Name setting and fixed the horribly formal ‘D Hill’ labelling in Messages. support.apple.com/en-us/HT202590 »
16 November 2015
Going to @SwiftLDN for the first time tonight. I’m the lost Objective-C developer using using key-value coding in Swift. »
17 November 2015
Great talks and people at @SwiftLDN. I wonder if @radexp’s github.com/radex/SwiftyUserDefaults could work in Objective-C. »
The red dot in the 7 Up logo is a character called Cool Spot. What? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_Spot »
A shame I missed games in the early ’90s. This is so surreal: Cool Spot SNES Gameplay youtube.com/watch?v=nsbwXl-EuHw »
18 November 2015
The German word for cotton is Baumwolle: tree wool. So logical. »
20 November 2015
Xenoblade Chronicles X comes out in two weeks. It’s been a while coming. Hype crescendo time. »
Your Apple TV Tech Talks Status. »
25 November 2015
I wrote about our problems with UIPresentationController and adaptive presentations at PSPDFKit. »
26 November 2015
Good point by @kharrison: with iPad Split View, all scroll views should be ready to avoid the keyboard. useyourloaf.com/blog/split-views-and-unexpected-keyboards.html »
I have a class for avoiding the keyboard. No subclassing necessary. github.com/douglashill/DHAvoidKeyboardBehaviour »
And UIKeyboardDidChangeFrameNotification works better than watching for showing and hiding notifications. Simpler too.
»
28 November 2015
Wii U ordered. Too many great games to not buy it; not enough time to play them. I don’t know how this will work. »
This weekend @cambugs Phonics is free. Get your children reading confidently. itunes.apple.com/app/cambugs-phonics/id676677690?mt=8 »
Cambugs First Words is also on sale this weekend: the next step on a child’s journey to fluent reading. itunes.apple.com/app/cambugs-first-words/id929792621?mt=8 »
4 December 2015
Back from seeing the PSPDF home team in Vienna; Christmas coming up; Swift open source; Xenoblade Chronicles X out. Good times. »
5 December 2015
The @Nintendo_NWR 2015 charity telethon starts in a couple of hours. It’s always a good laugh. nintendoworldreport.com/sitenews/41550/6th-annual-nwr-live-podcast-telethon-for-childs-play »
8 December 2015
It sucks that @ThreeUK blocks iPads on pay as you go. I pay per MB; why does it matter what device I use? #makeitright »
12 December 2015
Apple Pencil really calls for a higher level API. UIDrawView would be even better than example code. twitter.com/drwave/status/668535669052960768
»
13 December 2015
Tried out the iOS update Install Tonight feature and it didn’t work: device is still not updated this morning. »
15 December 2015
I’m down for any game featuring riding motorbikes up launching space rockets. Bayonetta is intense fun. »
I find iPad two finger cursor positioning not useful at all. It seems optimised for large adjustments, which were never a problem. »
16 December 2015
Covent Garden Apple Store had 100 Apple Pencils in this morning. Gone by lunchtime. »
19 December 2015
All my OS X text replacements have disappeared. That’s really not cool.
I heard signing out and in to iCloud might help, but will that hose my Photos library and need to download everything again? »
29 December 2015
The iOS shift key is still broken openradar.appspot.com/24021283 »
I’ve been very frustrated by iCloud email’s false unread badges openradar.appspot.com/24021271 »
30 December 2015
Current status: fast
