ThomasHanning.com

How To Leave Your Comfort Zone As A Developer?

For sure you’ve already heard that leaving your comfort zone is a great way for improving yourself. In this article we discuss the best ways for a developer to do so. Why you should leave your comfort zone So why is it a good idea to leave your comfort

Data Persistence On iOS - An Overview

Very often an app creates data that should be saved. In this article we’ll discuss the different possibilities for data persistence on iOS. Hint: This post has been updated to Swift 3 and iOS 10 UserDefaults UserDefaults are a great way to save a small amount of data. For

03/16 - The Best iOS Development Links

The best iOS development links from March 2016. News Swift 2.2 Released!: “We are very pleased to announce the release of Swift 2.2! This is the first official release of Swift since it was open-sourced on December 3, 2015. Notably, the release includes contributions from 212 non-Apple contributors

NSTimer - Repeat

The NSTimer class is a workhorse of iOS applications, but it is also complex, fraught with hidden gotchas and cumbersome to use. For example, when a timer expires, its callback mechanism consists of performing a selector on a target object, which doesn’t work with a pure Swift class (or

Android Development For iOS Developers - An Overview

In this article we look into Android from an iOS development point of view. An Experiment Recently I’ve started an experiment: I bought an Android Phone – the Nexus 5X. Why have I done that? Well, as I said before, on the one hand specialisation is very important, but on

How to blog regularly?

Blogging has great benefits for developers. But in order to build a successful blog, you have to blog regularly. Why should you blog regularly? So, you’ve read my article 10 Reasons You Should Blog As A Developer and now you want to start? Great! However, it’s always easy

The 10 Best iOS Development Blogs

A list of the the ten best iOS development blogs in no particular order. natashatherobot.com This blog by @NatashaTheRobot is awesome! She’s posting on a regular basis and the content is always very interesting. She also publishes a weekly newsletter that keeps you up-to-date on iOS development. Take

Q&A: How Much Importance Does Graduating From University Have For Becoming An iOS Developer?

I’m regularly getting questions about iOS development. This one is about the importance of graduating from university for becoming an iOS developer. The Question […] Let me introduce myself: I’m […] studying Computer Engineering […] . There are 2 semester left to finish up my university. But right now I think that

Swift: Avoiding C-Style For-Loops

C-style for-loops will be removed in Swift 3. This may seem a little bit strange at first sight. But Swift has some features that allow better loop structures. C-style for-loops Let’s start by looking at the following C-style for-loop: let programmingLanguages = ["Swift","Objective-C","Java&

Should You Still Learn Objective-C?

Since the introduction of Swift there are two important languages in the Apple ecosystem. Swift has become quiet popular in the meantime, so that it’s a good question whether you should still learn Objective-C or not. The Question This post is inspired by a reader’s question: I’m

02/16 - The Best iOS Development Links

The best iOS development links from February 2016. News * Apple adds server API to CloudKit, unlocking new developer possibilities for the iCloud service: “Apple has quietly added a server-side API to CloudKit, following an announcement on the developer news blog. This will enable developers to add a lot of functionality

Looking For Guest Bloggers

Are you interested in becoming a guest blogger on this site? Then read this post and contact me! Recently the first guest posts have been published on this blog: * The Grand Transition by @pbellot * How To Show And Hide A Date Picker From A Table View Cell by @freddymontas It

The Most Common Mistakes In iOS Development

Recently I’ve published a post about the most common mistake in using UITableViews. The post has become quiet popular, so that I’ve decided to write this post about the most common mistakes in iOS development. I hope it will help some developers to avoid some pitfalls. Hint: This

iOS Developer Conferences In 2016

As an iOS developer you should go to conferences. It’s a great opportunity to learn new stuff and to get in contact with other developers. Also speaking on a conference is a great way to leave your comfort zone. This is a list of iOS developer conferences in 2016.

How To Show And Hide A Date Picker From A Table View Cell

If your app needs a date and/or time to be chosen, sometimes it is best not to have the user segue to a different View in order to accomplish this. This tutorial will demonstrate how to show and hide a Date Picker contained in a Table View Cell. By

The Grand Transition

Deciding to transition into a new career field can be paralyzing. The thought of learning new skills, meeting new people, or working in a new environment is overwhelming. Our brains are wired for safety. It’s this “wiring” that stops us from venturing into new realms of possibilities. We would

February 2016: The Current State Of Swift

Recently there were some interesting reports and articles about the state of Swift. In this post we will discuss them and put them in perspective. Swift in the App Store @ryanolsonk has published two awesome blog posts recently. This one investigates how many apps in the top 100 are using

UIActivityIndicatorView

You use an UIActivityIndicatorView to indicate that something is going on. For example, that could be a calculation or a network request – basically everything that takes same time. Hint: This post has been updated to Swift 3, Xcode 8 and iOS 10 Creating an UIActivityIndicatorView As with UIView and its

A Simple BlockOperation Example

Concurrency is a very interesting topic and there are many situations where you should use it in iOS development. Sometimes it is the only way to provide a responsive UI to the user. In Swift there is no language feature for concurrency yet. However, the iOS SDK provides you different

01/16 - The best iOS development links

The best iOS development links from January 2016. News * Moving On: “We have a difficult announcement to make. Beginning today we’re winding down the Parse service, and Parse will be fully retired after a year-long period ending on January 28, 2017.“ * iOS shipments overtook Windows in 2015 for the

How To Use Both Swift And Objective-C In One Project?

The Swift and Objective-C interoperability is very good so that it is very easy to use both Swift and Objective-C in one project. Using Objective-C code in Swift files In the so-called bridging-header file you can import Objective-C files. Xcode translates then all signatures to Swift, so that it feels

The Most Common Mistake In Using UITableViews

UITableView is one of the most important user interface objects you are using in iOS development. However, there is one common mistake in using UITableViews that could drive you crazy. Hint: This post has been updated to Swift 3 and Xcode 8 Example Take a look at the following example:

Why iOS Developers Should Look Into Android Development

It is a very good idea to specialise in one area, but in addition you should also look into other areas as well. So an iOS developer should have a basic understanding of Android development. Specialisation is very important… I can’t say often enough how important it is to

How To Become An iOS Developer

So you want to become an iOS developer, but you don’t know how? No problem, in this post we will discuss how to do it. Step 1: Make sure you are passionate about iOS development I think this is the most important aspect. You cannot become great in an

iOS development

Network Link Conditioner

In this post we will discuss how you can simulate a bad network connection by using the Network Link Conditioner. Bad Network Connection iOS apps are running in a very difficult environment. Compared to a desktop computer you have limited memory and CPU resources. And even worse: The network connection