Nedi the Yeti Launched on the Apple App Store!

Irreverent Bits first app commercial application has officially launched on the Apple App Store!

Nedi the Yeti and his friends were conceived and designed by Rob Warnick, owner of Spinaroo LLC. Irreverent Bits helped bring the characters to life in the form of a children's book for the iPad. Nedi the Yeti is intended to allow parents and their children to read along together as Nedi plays hide and seek with his friends. Children can help Nedi find and interact with his friends on each page. Tilt the iPad left or right to see the depth of the scenery on each page as the layers move in parallax. Drag Nedi's friends out from their hiding places and tap on them to see what they have to say.

WWDC 2011 Ends

My first WWDC has come and gone. I'm already looking forward to next year and planning on attending. My expectation is that I will have released apps by then, both through my employer and on my own, so my perspective will change in many ways. There's a fundamental difference between preparing for releasing an app and having an app available. I recognize there is a difference, but I can't know the full implications until it happens... should be a wild ride!

WWDC: Labs

I visited the Core Data lab twice today. On my first visit, an Apple engineer helped me think through how my Core Data application should be initializing a document based on whether the document is created via a "New" command or from an "Open" command.

On my second visit, three Apple engineers helped me in turn. The first listened to my plight and determined who might be able to help me. The second ruled out a Core Data issue and determined that I needed to talk to a Core Data engineer with a solid Bindings understanding. The third worked some GDB command line magic to ultimately determine that the problems weren't with Bindings, rather the problem was that I didn't fully understand how much the frameworks did automatically and how much still needed to be done manually.

After the WWDC bash, I went to work coding the manual portion of loading a Core Data document. Documents are now loading perfectly.

Thank you to the several Apple engineers who graciously helped me resolve my issues. After the excitement of the keynote, this was the best experience of the conference - seeing an actual Apple engineer trouble shoot an issue, seeing how they approach the problem, and recieving their genuine interest and attention was uplifting. The labs reinforce the community aspect of the conference and have inspired me to work harder at perfecting my craft. Just awesome

WWDC: Beyond the Half

WWDC has been a great resource so far, but tomorrow I hope to talk to someone in one of the labs about an issue I'm having. It's a newbie level question, but I've found nothing online, in documentation, examples, tutorials or books about it. The labs are really the best reason to come to WWDC since time with actual Apple engineers is limited to this week, while the sessions will all be available on video in a few weeks. I think once I get past this one issue, the application I'm working on will come together quickly since I have the more difficult code written already.

WWDC 2011

WWDC is just around the corner. Flying out at 9:20 AM Sunday from Cincinnati, arriving in San Francisco at 11:20 AM. Excitement is high. OK, excitement is really high. I've wanted to attend for 10 years and have watched from the sidelines with bated breath, anticipating new possibilities and inspirations. Finally, off the bench and to the show!