Developer Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Ambrosia Software employees report layoffs, but company says it's still in business (updated)

by Megan Lavey-Heaton (Apr 10th, 2013)

Tweets posted in the past couple hours from Ambrosia Software employees reveal that a number of its developers have been laid off. "End of an era, so long and thanks for all the fish, ambrosia. On to the next adventure," Rudy Richter, a software developer for Ambrosia, tweeted. Subsequent ...

Payback 2 goes free-to-play

by Mike Schramm (Apr 10th, 2013)

Payback 2 arrived on the App Store late last year. It's the sequel to a game called Payback that was sort of a Grand Theft Auto for iOS (before Grand Theft Auto for iOS was actually released). Payback 2 added online multiplayer and a new "custom mode," and as of today, it has gone free-to-play, ...

DevJuice: Better Objective-C associated objects

by Erica Sadun (Apr 10th, 2013)

iOS/OS X internals guru Gwynne Raskind tipped me off to a much better way of creating associated object keys. Until now, I've been doing this: static const char nametag_key; return objc_getAssociatedObject(self, (void *) &nametag_key); Turns out there's a much easier and better way. ...

DevJuice: Three useful Xcode tricks

by Erica Sadun (Apr 8th, 2013)

Some Xcode challenges seem to crop up repeatedly. Today, I thought I'd share a few solutions that you might find helpful to integrate into your workflow. Challenge: When you move an Xcode project to a new folder, all your file references die. Solution: Avoid those red "can't find" file ...

Google Drive adds apps folders and customer properties for developers

by Kelly Hodgkins (Apr 5th, 2013)

Google realizes the importance of its Drive online file storage service in our always-on, always-connected world. To make Drive better for users and developers alike, Google has added two new features, app data folders and custom properties, to its Drive SDK. The app data folder serves as a ...

Daily iPhone App: bit Dungeon is a retro RPG done well

by Mike Schramm (Apr 3rd, 2013)

bit Dungeon arrived on the App Store a little while ago, and if you missed it then, you'd do well to try it out now. Quite a few games have used the old 8-bit, top-down RPGs as a rubric, but bit Dungeon is probably the best example I've seen of all of them. You simply go from room to room, ...

Detailed look at pricing an app for the Mac App Store

by Kelly Hodgkins (Apr 1st, 2013)

Apple developer Michael Jurewitz took a detailed look at Mac App Store pricing in a five-part series on his Jury.me blog. It's a thorough exploration of the dynamics of App Store pricing that touches upon revenue maximization, demand curves and the basic research each developer should be doing ...

DevJuice: Preview of Fasten dev utility

by Erica Sadun (Mar 31st, 2013)

Today, I got a peek at a little utility that converts iTunes URLs to more readable App Store versions. From developer Moshe Berman, Fasten automates the process Apple described in QA 1633. I found the app easy to use and a great timesaver. Berman tells me that it's in the review queue as I ...

NimbleBit readies Nimble Quest, and then plans a return to Pocket Trains

by Mike Schramm (Mar 26th, 2013)

I've met with David Marsh here in San Francisco a few times before, and somehow it always turns out that I meet with him right before his big releases. The last time was right before he and his brother Ian, the founders of NimbleBit, released Pocket Planes, the company's follow-up to Tiny ...

How to spring clean "Open With" duplicates

by Shawn "Doc" Boyd (Mar 25th, 2013)

If you use your Mac for any period of time, you will find the need to open a document with a different program other than the one set as default. The "Open With" menu appears in the Finder whenever you right-click or control-click on the icon of a document. The "Open With" command is designed ...

Tilt to Live getting a sequel and it's Redonkulous

by Mike Schramm (Mar 22nd, 2013)

One Man Left Studios is most recently known for its great social Outwitters title, but of course the two-man developer team (made up of Alex Okafor and Adam Stewart) is best known for the popular Tilt to Live, a relatively early iOS hit. And now the team is going back to its history, and ...

Origin Stories: Dunno

by Victor Agreda, Jr. (Mar 22nd, 2013)

Dunno is an odd little free app that allows you to take a note about something and have Dunno "research" the topic for you. After typing in a few words, perhaps about a car model or a book or author, or maybe something esoteric like the meaning of life, Dunno performs a search in the ...

DevJuice: Apple will no longer accept apps that use UDID calls starting May 1

by Erica Sadun (Mar 21st, 2013)

Apple has posted a warning on their developer news site that they will no longer accept apps that reference the unique device identifier, starting May 1. It writes, "Starting May 1, the App Store will no longer accept new apps or app updates that access UDIDs. Please update your apps and ...

WSJ profiles Letterpress creator Loren Brichter, the 'high priest of app design'

by Mike Schramm (Mar 18th, 2013)

Here at TUAW, we're big fans of Loren Brichter, the app developer behind Tweetie (which eventually became the official Twitter app) and the great word game Letterpress. But the Wall Street Journal appears to have just discovered the dev -- in a profile that appeared over the weekend, the paper ...

Kickfolio puts iOS apps on the web for hands-on interaction

by Steven Sande (Mar 16th, 2013)

Developers working on iOS applications have had a bit of a dilemma regarding app demos and beta testing. Getting a prerelease or ad-hoc version of an app out to testers' devices can be complicated, expensive or both -- although services like Testflight and Hockeyapp can streamline the process ...