John Cox

Blogs · @wyome

Tagged ios · everything

www.macstories.net

GoodLinks Updated with Three-Column iPad Layout, Widgets, and New Keyboard Shortcuts - MacStories

GoodLinks, a read-it-later app, received a major update introducing an iPad three-column layout that mirrors standard iPadOS design while maintaining the app's original feel, alongside configurable List and Link widgets for quick access to saved articles. The update also added numerous keyboard shortcuts to help users navigate large link collections efficiently. The app has matured significantly since its June launch, addressing early rough edges and building out iOS and iPadOS 14 feature support.

Permalink productivityappsdesignios

Current

Current - A River of Reading

Current is a premium RSS reader ($9.99 one-time purchase) for Apple devices that organizes feeds by content velocity—breaking news expires within hours while essays remain for weeks—so your reading stream stays fresh without manual curation. It groups feeds into customizable "Currents" for different topics, highlights individual writers as distinct voices rather than faceless sources, and offers nine carefully designed reading themes alongside features like keyboard navigation, offline saving, and sync with multiple backend services. The app prioritizes a serene reading experience with no subscriptions, ads, or tracking.

Permalink productivitydesigniosmacos

www.macstories.net

Our Favorite Indie Apps for iOS 27, Vol. 2 - MacStories

This roundup showcases five indie apps that have integrated Apple's latest AI and on-screen awareness features into their ecosystems. Bear now uses Siri to create and append notes with voice commands and screenshot annotation; Gentler Streak and The Outsiders provide fitness data summaries via Siri and Spotlight; Cheatsheet Notes lets you query and append to notes using Siri's understanding of on-screen content; and DoMarks makes saving and organizing URLs by category simpler through voice control and the "Surprise Me" feature to rediscover old bookmarks. The article emphasizes how these updates make common tasks more efficient by reducing manual steps and enabling hands-free interaction.

Permalink productivityappsfitnessai

mela.recipes

Mela

Mela is a recipe management app that collects recipes from multiple sources—websites, recipe blogs via RSS feeds, and printed books via text recognition—into a centralized personal collection synced across Apple devices via iCloud. Beyond storage, it offers practical cooking features including an in-app browser with live recipe detection, a full-screen cook mode with timers and ingredient checkoffs, meal planning via calendar integration, and grocery list management. All data stays private on the user's iCloud account with no third-party services involved.

Permalink appsrecipescookingmeal planning

App Store

Strategery App - App Store

Strategery is a turn-based strategy game where players roll dice to conquer neighboring blobs on a map, with the goal of dominating the entire world in one color. Originally launched in 2008 and praised by early App Store reviewers, the game has been revived by Lex Friedman (one of those original reviewers) and now offers solo play against AI, online multiplayer with friends, and local pass-and-play modes, along with a "Chaos" variant that adds unpredictable consequences. It's a casualty-free conquest game playable on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Vision.

Permalink strategyclassicsios

iosdevelopertips.com

Swift Access Control - Private, Internal and Public [iOS developer:tips];

I can't write a meaningful summary of this piece because it appears to be a landing page or placeholder for a non-profit organization still under development, rather than an article or report that makes specific arguments or conveys concrete information. The page describes general intentions (volunteer distribution, skill-building, safe spaces) without detailing any actual community impact initiative, outcomes, or reporting.

Permalink programmingdevelopmenttutorialios

Treehouse Blog

Absolute Beginner's Guide to Swift

This tutorial introduces Swift's fundamental syntax and features for beginners learning Apple's new programming language. It covers core concepts including variables and constants (var vs. let), basic data types (String, Int, Double, Bool), collection types (arrays and dictionaries), control flow structures (loops and conditionals), and function definition, emphasizing Swift's design priorities of safety, modernity, and power. The piece positions Swift as a deliberate replacement for Objective-C that balances developer experience with language rigor, featuring immutability by default and type inference to prevent common programming errors.

Permalink programmingtutorialios

GitHub

dringend.cc

iconsandcoffee.com

Essence | Icons & Coffee

Bear's latest update adds Siri AI features that let you create, append to, and pin notes entirely by voice, with onscreen awareness so Siri understands context without you explaining it. Gentler Streak and The Outsiders now use App Intents and onscreen awareness to surface fitness and training data through Spotlight and Siri without opening the apps. Cheatsheet Notes and DoMarks similarly integrate Siri AI and onscreen awareness to let you quickly save notes, images, and bookmarks while leveraging each app's core purpose—Cheatsheet for quick scraps of information and DoMarks for organizing links by action categories like "buy," "read," or "watch."

Permalink productivityappsappleios

developer.apple.com

Cult of Mac

Signal v. Noise by Basecamp

Why I loved building Basecamp for iPhone in RubyMotion by Nick of 37signals

The author describes his experience developing the Basecamp iOS app using RubyMotion, a tool that lets Ruby developers write native iPhone applications without learning Objective-C from scratch. He shares practical lessons including avoiding Xcode's Interface Builder by coding layouts directly, adopting Objective-C naming conventions for consistency with iOS APIs, leveraging the BubbleWrap gem for common tasks, and prioritizing device testing over simulator work to catch real-world performance issues. His conclusion is that RubyMotion successfully lowered the barrier to mobile development by preserving his existing Ruby workflow while making it possible to ship a production app.

Permalink programmingmobiletutorialios

stuartkhall.com

iOS Development Tips I Would Want If I Was Starting Out Today

This article offers practical advice for beginner iOS developers, emphasizing modern tools and practices like ARC for memory management, blocks for cleaner code, and Grand Central Dispatch instead of manual threading. The author advocates for code-based layouts over Interface Builder for anything beyond basic apps, recommends embracing open-source libraries managed through CocoaPods, and stresses the importance of crash tracking, code analysis, and localization from the project's start. Throughout, the piece balances technical guidance with opinions on what tools work best in real-world development scenarios.

Permalink programmingdevelopmentadvicetutorial

GitHub

Laker compendium – Designing digital publications in HTML5

I can't write a summary of this material because it isn't an article—it's a marketing page describing software features for creating digital publications on mobile devices and browsers. There's no argument or reporting to summarize, just a list of technical capabilities and contact information for what appears to be a publishing platform called Laker Compendium.

Permalink designmobileios

www.css3files.com

iOS6 gives us two new CSS3 properties | css3files.com

iOS 6 brings CSS3 filters and cross-fade support to mobile devices, expanding their practical use beyond the limited desktop browser adoption in Chrome and Safari. CSS3 filters enable powerful visual effects like blur and greyscale directly through stylesheets, making them immediately valuable for mobile apps, while cross-fade offers a less compelling option for blending images. Firefox and IE10 support remains uncertain, meaning widespread desktop deployment of these properties is still distant despite their maturity on WebKit-powered mobile platforms.

Permalink designtutorialioscss3

The Verge

Longform iPad app brings the web's best reads into one place (hands-on) | The Verge

Longform is launching a $4.99 iPad app that curates long-form articles from major publications and smaller outlets, automatically filtering out shorter content and slideshows to deliver a streamlined reading experience. The app prioritizes simplicity and discoverability over the overwhelming unread counts of services like Instapaper, aiming to help casual readers find quality content without effort while also surfacing excellent work from lesser-known publications. Future versions will expand the source pool to include international publications and integrate better discovery features, though the current launch feels somewhat minimal for the price.

Permalink productivitydesignreadingios

iosboilerplate.com