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A simple workaround for an iOS 5 bug with video playback from a UIWebView

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 16:55:00 -0500

A simple workaround for an iOS 5 bug with video playback from a UIWebView:

Here’s a workaround for a bug introduced by iOS 5.0: when displaying a full-screen video from a UIWebView in a view controller within a UINavigationController, the view controller won’t receive the typical willRotate / didRotate calls, and won’t be queried as to whether the controller should rotate.

Why Music.app is no longer on my home screen

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 19:32:46 -0500

tl;dr – It’s been replaced by Pod+

It was just over a year ago that a particular shortcoming of the iOS iPod app (now known simply as Music) came to my attention. I typically listen to music an album at a time, and browsing by artist for something to listen to was starting to get on my nerves. My iTunes library includes several soundtracks and compilations (such as the excellent Dark Was The Night), and my artists list was getting cluttered up with bands that only had a song or two each.

This frustration, and the lack of an existing app to solve it (I searched!), provided the spark of motivation to start another app project in my spare time. With over half a million apps in the store it’s tough to come up with a concept that brings something new to the table. And coming home after spending most of the day working in Xcode (as an iOS developer at Kobo), it’s tough to find the interest and energy to sit down and get right back to it. Coming up with a solution to my iPod problem was both concept and motivation in one.

Over the next few months I worked on-and-off on my app, using it on a daily basis and adding features as ideas occurred to me. Once I had things in a very unfinished, but quite usable state, the motivation problem struck again. I had solved my problem – the drive to continue working on it took a big hit.

After months of very sporadic work, and having dealt with some issues introduced by iOS 5, I finished and released Pod+ earlier this week. Here’s a quick run-down of its features:

• Reduce clutter in the Artists list by filtering out those that don’t meet an adjustable set number of songs (example: show only artists with 4+ songs).

• Track down stray songs, singles, and one-hit-wonders by filtering out songs by artists with a certain number of tracks (example: hide all songs by artists with more than 1 song).

• Songs are intelligently grouped by a combination of artist and album artist. What this means is that you can easily play an entire album that features multiple artists, but you can also find tracks from that album listed under the individual artists (the iOS 5 Music app forces you to choose one grouping over the other).

• The Artists list features album artwork to help as a visual cue when browsing.

• You can quickly select groups of songs to play from an album (example: play tracks 1-10 and don’t automatically play the bonus tracks).

I’m not sure what the demand for a niche feature set like this will be, but it’s made a big difference in my listening habits and officially bumped Music.app off of my home screen – buried in a shallow grave, err, folder.

Pod+ is available in the App Store at http://bit.ly/w3P0cL

If you’d like to provide feedback, report a bug, or request a feature, you can find me on Twitter: @lessthanuthink and @PodPlusApp

"Earlier this week I spent some time driving around Kansas City in order to field test the..."

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 16:54:24 -0500

“

Earlier this week I spent some time driving around Kansas City in order to field test the turn-by-turn navigation, the LTE network, and the battery life. At 11:30 AM I started out and the battery of the Nexus was at 43-percent. After 25 minutes the battery had drained down to 33-percent even though it was plugged into a car charger.

Think about that. If you’re on a road trip and want to use the 4G LTE network to provide you with driving directions, your drive had better be shorter than 4 hours because even when plugged into a car charger, the battery will not last.

”

- From Shawn Blanc’s review of the Galaxy Nexus. Wow.

"Because their collection methods are kind of primitive, these sites have to coax you into doing as..."

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 13:21:44 -0500

“Because their collection methods are kind of primitive, these sites have to coax you into doing as much of your social interaction as possible while logged in, so they can see it. It’s as if an ad agency built a nationwide chain of pubs and night clubs in the hopes that people would spend all their time there, rigging the place with microphones and cameras to keep abreast of the latest trends (and staffing it, of course, with that Mormon bartender).”

- A very amusing metaphor from Maciej Ceglowski’s article on the social graph (http://blog.pinboard.in/2011/11/the_social_graph_is_neither/)

Apple's Three Laws of Developers

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 13:20:52 -0400

yourhead:

A developer may not injure Apple or, through inaction, allow Apple to come to harm.

A developer must obey any orders given to it by Apple, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

A developer must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

— I. Developer

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, but this is pretty spot on.

"(a typical comminqué between Apple and their developer community ends with a Vader-esque “I am..."

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 10:42:06 -0400

“(a typical comminqué between Apple and their developer community ends with a Vader-esque “I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further”)”

- Andy Ihnatko, in a clever aside

tumblr:~ jagreenwood$: HOWTO: Bring Back Vertical Swiping in Lion

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 15:19:26 -0400

tumblr:~ jagreenwood$: HOWTO: Bring Back Vertical Swiping in Lion:

jagreenwood:

One of my biggest annoyances about OSX Lion is that it broke vertical (up/down) 3-finger swiping in most of my favorite apps including Carousel.

So being the diligent developer that I am, I wanted to figure out why and try to fix it for our users. Turns out the code doesn’t need to be touched for…

Yes! Nice find.

A snapshot of current reviews for the latest version of the Kobo...

Mon, 16 May 2011 10:48:00 -0400

A snapshot of current reviews for the latest version of the Kobo iOS app – our most well-received release to date! (via Tyler Bindon’s CommentCast iTunes review collector)