There's no way anyone that gives a shit about software could feel "udnerwhelming" by this keynote. It was the single most impressive event, that I've EVER seen from Apple when it comes to iOS/OSX features, API, and development tools. Not only did they address pretty much every major complaint in some ways, they added features that I didnt even imagine, but make perfect fucking practical sense. Apple has clearly been busy, and all the additions and changes are thoughtful, well considered features that are incredibly practical and useful. I was literally cheering at so many points. Cant WAIT for the new OSX and iOS- the phone/message integration and "continuity" features will be used by me literally all the time. Hardware announcements will come later, but this exceeded my expectations in terms of software. Well done Apple- you haven't lost your touch, and are firing on all cylinders. iOS development was already far, far ahead of Android dev, but these improvements widen the gap infinitely more.
I called it. I said that developer resources at Apple would have been primarily used to convert iOS to 64bit, which is why iOS 7 wasn't a huge update.
Now that the difficult 64bit transition is done, Apple could devote resources back to iOS 8 itself. And boy did they deliver.
Calling it "fast, modern, safe and interactive," Apple on Monday unveiled Swift, a brand new Xcode programming language that it says is superior to Objective-C.
Apple develops an improved programming language. Google copied Java. Everything you need to know, right there. " src="http://forums-files.appleinsider.com/images/smilies//lol.gif" />
Crap. I just finished learning Objective C and started writing an app. Now I have to learn Swift when the teaching materials come out and rewrite my app using it. Just did a quick look at the language guide and some of it reminds me of Javascript.
#1 Swipeselect. I seriously can't stand typing on an iOS keyboard without swipeselect enabled.
#2 Customized control center (I like quick access to personal hotspot).
Seriously that's it... I could care less about pirated apps. I did when GPS Nav apps were $80, but now I just use Google Maps. Those 2 things though remain incredibly important to me on a daily use basis.
iOS 8 definitely addresses #1 and I suspect the ability to start tethering from my mac will fix #2.
While I'm surprised no hardware was announced, I'm not disappointed. Rather I'm delighted by the insane amount of software announced from Swift to Keyboards. HealthKit/HomeKit both give developers an entire new universe to develop apps and make money in.
Now this I like. The new iOS features are a bit underwhelming although very welcome of course. But it seems like Apple is focusing on the back end this year. Nice to see.
Yes iOS 7 was UI changes and a sound groundwork done on the guts. iOS 8 has a lot of new Dev stuff. The UI changes are welcome but not huge but what Devs are going to be able to do is nice.
Yosemite is UI polish. I'm a fan..they didn't go too crazy. I'm thinking OS X 10.11 may bring some huge changes to the underpinnings (new filesystem anyone?)
[S]How are you guys finding it in the iBookstore? I looked in the store just now on my iPad inside iBooks as well as in iTunes on my Mac. Neither show it. [/S] (the direct link shown above worked though I still cannot find it by searching)
This (Swift) is a big deal. Swift will make iOS (and I assume Mac Apps?) easier to develop with fewer crashes etc. Combine it with Reactive Cocoa for additional benefit (and since it all uses the same runtime, you should be easily able to do that I would presume).
@negafox Not sure why treating warnings as errors helps you avoid threads dying and bizarre behavior. I and all the ObjC/iOS devs I know have no such issues.
This actually reminded me of the episode from Silicon Valley (The HBO series) from last night. They run the compression test and it blows away past results. Did anyone else that watched the episode last night think the same thing?
I don't know enough about Swift to say much beyond the fact that I think it looks very impressive and once developers get through that initial painful transition phase where they have to relearn some things their lives just got a whole lot easier.
Crap. I just finished learning Objective C and started writing an app. Now I have to learn Swift when the teaching materials come out and rewrite my app using it. Just did a quick look at the language guide and some of it reminds me of Javascript.
Everything you learned about ObjectiveC in terms of programming and design and how it works (just not the syntax) will help you when you use Swift. It all resides on the same runtime.
Real time REPL. First saw it in a concept product for Clojure called LightTable, but didn't expect Apple to finish it so soon. Apple is clearly aiming at beginners with this language.
Now this I like. The new iOS features are a bit underwhelming although very welcome of course. But it seems like Apple is focusing on the back end this year. Nice to see.
I disagree on the premise. the iOS features are nuanced, but overwhelming.
- widgets/extensions/services (plowing through the sandbox walls... interactivity between apps)
- Notifications Center becomes something not to ignore... it's your main screen now. The rest of your apps just tell notifications center they need your attention.
- Metal. pretty much lays down a gaming engine that can take an AppleTV (yeah, that's an iOS system), and turn it into a serious gaming platform, let alone the interface for iPad, iPhone
- Swift. More/better code faster. My first real boss told me, nothing is impossible with computer programming... it just takes time and money. (and time = money). If Swift lives up to its name, coding iterations will be reduced dramatically (because the first 90% of coding time is making it work.... the last 90% is making it fast/secure/bug-free)
in the old days... these WERE the features of an OS... not some email app (those you downloaded from some FTP server).
"For the best experience, open this chapter as a playground in Xcode. Playground allows you to edit the code listings and see the results immediately."
@negafox Not sure why treating warnings as errors helps you avoid threads dying and bizarre behavior. I and all the ObjC/iOS devs I know have no such issues.
This is more common on OS X than iOS. When you start trying to support multiple flavors of OS X the API behaves differently from one version to the next and some calls are deprecated. This is less problematic in more recent versions. Fun times trying to write an app to be compatible with lets say 10.4 through 10.9. A good example would be making a deprecated call that in Objective-C will just stop the thread when the call it hit. Or better yet, typos that are allowed to be compiled (e.g. using different casing).
My last company switched to using Qt and C++ to make developing cross-platform apps faster. I do not have much positive things to say about Qt though.
THIS is my out of "left field" and "it will blow your mind" prediction!
THIS is how how Apple has decided to blow past Microsoft and Google (Samsung): ground-breaking new tools based on performance and efficiency = SPEED!
Considering that the 64bit A7 already blows the doors off of anything running Android, Apple just bought themselves the equivalent of 2 years in speed improvements to ALL iOS devices.
Now THAT's impressive!
The only other tech co. working on cleaning up legacy code is Microsoft. Hats off to them for that, regardless of the sly TC remark regarding Win8 acceptance.
Apple just turned up the heat to boiling under the asses of every other companies tool developers: "well guess were not going to be shipping that tool box"... :smokey:
Crap. I just finished learning Objective C and started writing an app. Now I have to learn Swift when the teaching materials come out and rewrite my app using it. Just did a quick look at the language guide and some of it reminds me of Javascript.
Obj-C is still a valid Xcode language. (Until it's not, ref: the Carbon APIs.)
The difference seems to be (and I've looked at the Swift book for all of five minutes) is that you'll choose to use Swift and Playground, by preference.
I called it. I said that developer resources at Apple would have been primarily used to convert iOS to 64bit, which is why iOS 7 wasn't a huge update.
Now that the difficult 64bit transition is done, Apple could devote resources back to iOS 8 itself. And boy did they deliver.
this.
Apple just layed down another 5 years of OS foundation: 64 Bit, Biometrically protected, with New faster language, New GL 'to the metal' interface. That's covers a new generation of developers, and as grow curves go, will take Apple to the 2 Billion iOS user range. (if 130 Million NEW users last year is a factual number... figure that it will be 200+ million in a couple years).
Comments
Swift isn't a gaming API it's general purpose. If a developer wants to keep things portable they'll simply write as much OpenGL code as they can.
and lose the Metal interface? There's a reason to 'code to the metal'
Metal will be the real game development interface... Swift will just make loading a Metalcall a one liner.
Now that the difficult 64bit transition is done, Apple could devote resources back to iOS 8 itself. And boy did they deliver.
Always funny that the developer and app store areas are android-free.
" src="http://forums-files.appleinsider.com/images/smilies//lol.gif" />
Calling it "fast, modern, safe and interactive," Apple on Monday unveiled Swift, a brand new Xcode programming language that it says is superior to Objective-C.
Apple develops an improved programming language. Google copied Java. Everything you need to know, right there.
" src="http://forums-files.appleinsider.com/images/smilies//lol.gif" />
There are 2 reasons I jailbreak my iOS devices
#1 Swipeselect. I seriously can't stand typing on an iOS keyboard without swipeselect enabled.
#2 Customized control center (I like quick access to personal hotspot).
Seriously that's it... I could care less about pirated apps. I did when GPS Nav apps were $80, but now I just use Google Maps. Those 2 things though remain incredibly important to me on a daily use basis.
iOS 8 definitely addresses #1 and I suspect the ability to start tethering from my mac will fix #2.
While I'm surprised no hardware was announced, I'm not disappointed. Rather I'm delighted by the insane amount of software announced from Swift to Keyboards. HealthKit/HomeKit both give developers an entire new universe to develop apps and make money in.
Now this I like. The new iOS features are a bit underwhelming although very welcome of course. But it seems like Apple is focusing on the back end this year. Nice to see.
Yes iOS 7 was UI changes and a sound groundwork done on the guts. iOS 8 has a lot of new Dev stuff. The UI changes are welcome but not huge but what Devs are going to be able to do is nice.
Yosemite is UI polish. I'm a fan..they didn't go too crazy. I'm thinking OS X 10.11 may bring some huge changes to the underpinnings (new filesystem anyone?)
[/S] (the direct link shown above worked though I still cannot find it by searching)
This (Swift) is a big deal. Swift will make iOS (and I assume Mac Apps?) easier to develop with fewer crashes etc. Combine it with Reactive Cocoa for additional benefit (and since it all uses the same runtime, you should be easily able to do that I would presume).
@negafox Not sure why treating warnings as errors helps you avoid threads dying and bizarre behavior. I and all the ObjC/iOS devs I know have no such issues.
This actually reminded me of the episode from Silicon Valley (The HBO series) from last night. They run the compression test and it blows away past results. Did anyone else that watched the episode last night think the same thing?
I don't know enough about Swift to say much beyond the fact that I think it looks very impressive and once developers get through that initial painful transition phase where they have to relearn some things their lives just got a whole lot easier.
Crap. I just finished learning Objective C and started writing an app. Now I have to learn Swift when the teaching materials come out and rewrite my app using it. Just did a quick look at the language guide and some of it reminds me of Javascript.
Everything you learned about ObjectiveC in terms of programming and design and how it works (just not the syntax) will help you when you use Swift. It all resides on the same runtime.
Now this I like. The new iOS features are a bit underwhelming although very welcome of course. But it seems like Apple is focusing on the back end this year. Nice to see.
I disagree on the premise. the iOS features are nuanced, but overwhelming.
- widgets/extensions/services (plowing through the sandbox walls... interactivity between apps)
- Notifications Center becomes something not to ignore... it's your main screen now. The rest of your apps just tell notifications center they need your attention.
- Metal. pretty much lays down a gaming engine that can take an AppleTV (yeah, that's an iOS system), and turn it into a serious gaming platform, let alone the interface for iPad, iPhone
- Swift. More/better code faster. My first real boss told me, nothing is impossible with computer programming... it just takes time and money. (and time = money). If Swift lives up to its name, coding iterations will be reduced dramatically (because the first 90% of coding time is making it work.... the last 90% is making it fast/secure/bug-free)
in the old days... these WERE the features of an OS... not some email app (those you downloaded from some FTP server).
Link’s broken and I can’t find it manually BECAUSE SUBCATEGORIES AREN’T IMPLEMENTED YET. Anyone have a fixed link?
That link directly worked for me (on iPad)
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-swift-programming-language/id881256329
Yep. That’s the App Store/App Store/iBooks Store/iTunes Store for you. YOU CAN’T FIND ANYTHING BY SEARCHING.
But they’ve changed all that. I couldn’t be happier.
:applause:
@negafox Not sure why treating warnings as errors helps you avoid threads dying and bizarre behavior. I and all the ObjC/iOS devs I know have no such issues.
This is more common on OS X than iOS. When you start trying to support multiple flavors of OS X the API behaves differently from one version to the next and some calls are deprecated. This is less problematic in more recent versions. Fun times trying to write an app to be compatible with lets say 10.4 through 10.9. A good example would be making a deprecated call that in Objective-C will just stop the thread when the call it hit. Or better yet, typos that are allowed to be compiled (e.g. using different casing).
My last company switched to using Qt and C++ to make developing cross-platform apps faster. I do not have much positive things to say about Qt though.
THIS is how how Apple has decided to blow past Microsoft and Google (Samsung): ground-breaking new tools based on performance and efficiency = SPEED!
Considering that the 64bit A7 already blows the doors off of anything running Android, Apple just bought themselves the equivalent of 2 years in speed improvements to ALL iOS devices.
Now THAT's impressive!
The only other tech co. working on cleaning up legacy code is Microsoft. Hats off to them for that, regardless of the sly TC remark regarding Win8 acceptance.
Apple just turned up the heat to boiling under the asses of every other companies tool developers: "well guess were not going to be shipping that tool box"... :smokey:
Oooh, very exciting, can't wait to try this. I tried to get into iOS development, but just couldn't wrap my head around Obj-C
I tried to wrap my head around FORTRAN back in the 70s and couldn't do it. Needless to say, I am still not a programmer at age 57.
Apparently math and I are sworn enemies.
Crap. I just finished learning Objective C and started writing an app. Now I have to learn Swift when the teaching materials come out and rewrite my app using it. Just did a quick look at the language guide and some of it reminds me of Javascript.
Obj-C is still a valid Xcode language. (Until it's not, ref: the Carbon APIs.)
The difference seems to be (and I've looked at the Swift book for all of five minutes) is that you'll choose to use Swift and Playground, by preference.
I called it. I said that developer resources at Apple would have been primarily used to convert iOS to 64bit, which is why iOS 7 wasn't a huge update.
Now that the difficult 64bit transition is done, Apple could devote resources back to iOS 8 itself. And boy did they deliver.
this.
Apple just layed down another 5 years of OS foundation: 64 Bit, Biometrically protected, with New faster language, New GL 'to the metal' interface. That's covers a new generation of developers, and as grow curves go, will take Apple to the 2 Billion iOS user range. (if 130 Million NEW users last year is a factual number... figure that it will be 200+ million in a couple years).