A 360|Conferences event
Having trouble with your code? Maybe need some design feedback?
This year we’re launching the 360|iDev labs. Labs work like at WWDC and other events, our awesome speakers have agreed to hang out in the new lab area and help our attendees.
The lab schedule is below the regular schedule. Take a look.
We left a few spots open for drop in lab help.
We how the labs will be a great way for the community to grow and he each other.
Michael Simmons (Long lost cousin to Brent Simmons) came to us late in the planning for 360|iDev, but is such a great guy we just had to have him with us!
He’s got a ton of experience in the iOS community from helping launch successful apps to now running his own shop!
Q: How long have you been doing iOS development?
Mike Lee is… well he’s Mike Lee, BMF. Mike is one of those larger than life guys, that’s at the same time the coolest dude you’ll meet. We’ve been honored to have Mike Keynote and do regular sessions at 360|iDev… Oops sorry, not Keynote, general session ;)
Q: How long have you been doing iOS development?
A: For as long as there has been such a thing. I was already an experienced Mac developer, so when Apple first announced the iPhone, I knew I had to be on it, and have been ever since.
That’s right! Mike is also presenting (Keynoting!) at 360|MacDev, our Mac Desktop Developer conference in December!
Q: What do you like most about being an iOS Developer?
A: In general, I love being able to express myself creatively, making things that haven’t existed before, and programming is better suited to my abilities than painting. With iOS specifically, I love the way the iPhone and iPad are small enough to get out the way, bringing programming to the next level, where it becomes less about being hosted on the device, and more about transforming the device itself. It’s the closest thing we have to programming the atoms of some future nanotool.
Creatively said! Totally agree. I try out lots of devices, and so far find myself coming back to iOS time and again. I’m not fanboi enough to ignore a better device or better apps, but have yet to see the right combo exist. A true testament to Apple and the iOS community.
Q: What’s your favorite Game?
A: That’s like asking what my favorite song is! There are a lot of games I love for a lot of reasons. Of all time, probably Puzzle Pirates. These days, I’ve been playing a lot of Angry Birds, but ask me again later.
To True. It’s one of those (and maybe should be phrased this way), “what’s your favorite right now?” questions.
Q: What’s your favorite App?
A: Keynote, hands down. It was the app that most inspired me to get into the business of writing apps, and continues to be an inspiration on the fine art of making your users look amazing.
Interesting! That’s the first time that app has been mentioned!
Q: Robots or Ninjas?
A: I suppose it really depends. I rely on robots on a daily basis, and spend a lot of time thinking about robots I want to build. On the other hand, when you need someone assassinated—for using a splash screen, for example—it’s hard to beat a ninja.
Hard to beat a ninja in both senses of the word! Plus Robots, at least for now, are easy to hear sneaking up on you, or your enemy.
Q: What would change about the iOS platform if you could change just one thing?
A: I would make it trivial to use the 30-pin adapter so we could expand the devices in hardware the way we currently do in software. I would love to use my iPhone to control robots.
Yeah it’s a bummer the 30-pin is so locked down. I too would love to see more devices act as docks for iDevices. I think (I Hope) it’s a future evolution of the platform that my iPhone or iPad, can be the driver of my media center, or an auxiliary monitor without extra steps and “server” apps
Q: What are you most excited about 360|iDev Austin?
A: The crowd at 360 is the most passionate I have ever experienced. They leave me as inspired as I can only pray to leave them.
Having seen your last 360|iDev general session, i can say that’s a high bar. Your talk was very inspiring and left us all wow’ed. I agree, I go to a lot of events and have yet to see a community like the iOS community.
Q: Lastly, what would you tell someone on the fence about attending 360|iDev Austin?
A: What kind of pussy sits on the fence hemming and hawing over meeting great people who can only help them in the longrun?
I dunno, but they’re out there! And I want to meet them and convert them :)
with just a week to go, if you’re on the fence, tell us why? What’s keeping you from coming and being a part of something so much bigger than you. You’re career (indie or corp cube monkey) will thank you on Wednesday night. Leave a comment if you’re on a fence, we’d love to hear from you!
Otherwise, Go register!!!
Brent is a long time supporter of 360|iDev. in fact he’s been at every one I think. The first one he came as an attendee, and we didn’t even know we had a celebrity in our midst!
He’s a great guy and has been an active part in the Mac and iOS community for a long time! Hint he’s really like 83 years old! But you’d never guess it looking at him, he’s ageless ;)
Q: How long have you been doing iOS development?
A: About 30 years. Started on an Apple II Plus. Of course, we didn’t have Core Animation in those days. Or lower-case letters. And it wasn’t a phone. And it wasn’t actually iOS. But still, I felt like saying I’ve been doing this for 30 years.
I think that’s fair! iOS or not, that’s an impressive time in the larger MAC community! We thank ya! NetNewsWire FTW!
The first time I ever used a computer with a touchscreen was even longer ago — our class took a field trip to see the Plato system at the University of Delaware. (I grew up about three miles away, a Fightin’ Blue Hen fan.) I’ve been waiting for the future ever since then — I’m so glad it’s finally here.
AWESOME! Though I still want my damn flying car!!
Q: What do you like most about being an iOS developer?
A: Mostly it’s the espresso.
It IS good isn’t it!
Q: What’s your favorite Game?
A: Seeing how little sleep I can get and still function effectively.
Current high score?
Q: What’s your favorite App?
A: It’s a tie between OmniFocus for iPad and TouchUp.
I love OmniFocus, though the price point is a bit steep :( but I can’t argue they make awesome apps!
Q: Robots or Ninjas?
A: Robots make better drinking buddies. “Hey Robbie — want another beer?”
“Affirmative.”
Ninjas — you can’t ever find ‘em when it’s time to go out.
Or when the bill comes.
Q: What would you change about the iOS platform if you could change just one thing?
A: All the stuff with code-signing and provisioning profiles and limited number of slots and AdHoc builds and certificates and all that — it’s a huge pain, a waste of time when I could be writing code.
Yeah I don’t have a better idea but there must be one! The current method is terrible. I really hope Apple is working on this internally, and will pull an Apple soon and wow us with a better way of doing things!
I know it’s not realistic to get rid of all that. But I still would if I could.
Q: What are you most excited about 360|iDev Austin?
A: That it’s in Austin is very cool. I’ve been once before, for SXSW, and had a great time.
But mainly I’m looking forward to seeing the people — meeting new folks, seeing old friends. And then of course there’s a great speaker line-up, so I expect to learn a bunch of stuff I can use.
w00t!! Yeah I’m excited to be in Austin, i think it’ll be a great time! Can’t wait to meet my future new friends in the iOS community.
Q: Lastly, what would you tell someone on the fence about attending 360|iDev Austin?
A: It’s the year 2010. There’s no more time for fence-sitting. Those days are over. Make the call, imaginary person. (And, by the way, the correct call is to go there, because it will be awesome.)
Indeed it will!! There’s really no reason to fence sit! Go register right now!!
A: Exactly 1 year, hard to believe – the year has just flown by!
Time flies when you’re having fun!!
Q: What do you like most about being an iOS Developer?
A: The community rocks. So much knowledge sharing, so many really fantastic peeps developing quality apps.
Yes it does. The iOS community is why we organize 360|iDev. We love being able to help such a great community of developers in any way we can.
Q: What’s your favorite Game?
A: I’m not a big gamer, but still can’t choose just one. I had a real Swords & Poker II “issue” for bit. Then I got suckered into Chuck Gnome, and now I’ve been goofing with Trainyard like everyone else in the world.
Both of those games really took the world by storm, Swords and poker, i’ve never heard of, will have to track that down, LOL. I love that it was an “issue”
Q: What’s your favorite App?
A: Again, can’t choose just one! I’m a Seesmic addict on my iPod, but really like the native Twitter app on iPad. And *of course* HeyTell on both to send quick messages to friends & family. ;) Skype & Gas Cubby have both been pretty invaluable on the road, in their own special ways. On the work side of things, I spend a little time each day with PositionApp and the Pingdom app has been a life saver (although Push Notification bings now make me twitch just a little bit).
It’s awesome to see folks making tools for the iOS community, LOL. That’s great!! HeyTell looks interesting, checking it out after I hit publish!
Q: Robots or Ninjas?
A: Robots! Robots with ninja star fingernails?
I can’t see how that couldn’t possibly go wrong!
Q: What would change about the iOS platform if you could change just one thing?
A: The complicated keychain…we automate builds, so every time we add a new build, I forget what we did to get it to work the last time…but that’s keychain…you have the same complicated issues with OpenSSL, too…maybe longer expiration for certs. :) All in all, though, our application development for iOS has been a pretty clean and positive experience.
Yeah even tinkering on my own (Yeah that’s where I’m at :D ) the whole keychain, cert, etc process is crazy daunting. I understand it’s probably for the best, but jeez. At least it’s a little easier now with the wizard.
Q: What are you most excited about 360|iDev Austin?
A: Seeing everyone we met in San Jose again, meeting new folks, learning from everyone’s experience, and sharing a few of the crazy things we’ve learned after a year on the road supporting HeyTell.
Awesome! Yup it’s like a family reunion and that’s what we like. It’s a family reunion, that welcomes new members, LOL.
Q: Lastly, what would you tell someone on the fence about attending 360|iDev Austin?
A: Go, go, go! I was on the fence before San Jose – no longer. Great people and talks–we learned so much that was helpful to us. We indies tend to live a little bit in a bubble, and it’s so nice to be able to get together with fellow developers to toss ideas around, validate what we’re doing, and so on–you can’t put a price on that. Also, Rock Band was totally fun and beer every night! The latter probably contributing a bit to me participating in the former. Fun times!
Yeah getting people off the fence is tough, once they’re off, they’re usually off for good, but yeah we have a hard time getting indies to see that value in taking the time, it’s great to hear yet another reformed fence sitter tell their tale LOL.
Don’t miss out on a good time, that will fill your brain beyond capacity. Register now!
Joe Keeley isn’t new to speaking at 360|iDev, and his session, “more Quartz 2D” isn’t one to miss if you’re looking for some hands on Quartz 2D action! Monday 1:30pm, be there!
Q: How long have you been doing iOS development?
A: Holy cow – two years this month! (That happened fast.)
Yes it did! I still remember, and just sold on Ebay, my iPhone 2G. I remember the lines, the launch of the app store, it’s been a whirl wind
Q: What do you like most about being an iOS Developer?
A: Freedom. And needing to have all the latest Apple toys for, you know, testing.
LOL, yeah it makes it a little easier to justify buying the latest laptops and iOS devices :D
Q: What’s your favorite Game?
A: Wish I had more time to play games! I do have fun playing Doodle Jump and Harbor Master HD with my four year old daughter. Well, actually, watching her trounce my best scores consistently is more like it.
Both awesome games by awesome folks! Love ‘em both! I can’t wait to play the FrankenDoodle update that Igor just released.
Q: What’s your favorite App?
A: Lately I’ve really enjoyed using Star Walk on the iPad when we go camping. It’s nice to actually be able to see stars and know what you’re looking at!
That’s an awesome idea!!! Dang! Can’t wait for spring and summer to get here now!!! Stupid winter!
Q: Robots or Ninjas?
A: Hmmmm….depends on whether the robots obey Asimov’s laws. Probably robots since theoretically you can shut them off.
Well thanks to scientists, we’re now teacing robots to break the Asimov laws… why, i can’t even guess.
Q: What would change about the iOS platform if you could change just one thing?
A: If only you could merge changes to an XIB file – that would make team development a bunch easier.
Yeah I’ve noticed that Apple has a thing with binary files and files that are packages. Ever tried using SVN or GIT to manage pages files? ya can’t!!! It’d be so awesome to share and be able to merge iWork docs. Oh yeah I guess XIBs too :)
Q: What are you most excited about 360|iDev Austin?
A: Learning all sorts of unexpected new things! And hanging out with the best iOS devs around. It’s a great and humbling experience.
Humbling in a good way I hope :) But yeah I’ve never met anyone who left saying, “I didn’t learn anything new.”
Q: Lastly, what would you tell someone on the fence about attending 360|iDev Austin?
A: Fences are uncomfortable to sit on. Try the nice green grass on the 360|iDev Austin side! It’s much better.
You know it! I sat a wrought iron fence for an hour once, I was off as fast as I could!!
Don’t miss out. Register now!
Jen Gordon is presenting “Designing the Details – What makes some apps stand out above the rest?” on Tuesday, and if you’ve ever asked yourself why one app is on the news and noteworthy section or the “what we’re playing” section of the iTunes app store, her session is for you! 
Kyle Richter is an awesome developer, with a ton, almost literally, of experience! He’s got a lot of experience to share with the developer community. 
We’re really excited to have Hendrik presenting on “Effectively using videos to explain and market your app” on Wednesday. Having seen some truly sad demo videos of apps, this session is a must! Especially if you’re doing your own marketing!
Q: How long have you been doing iOS development?
A: I started iOS development in July 2008, initially as a fun side project, procrastinating from my computer science PhD. These days I am a full time indie iOS developer. I released my first app Juxtaposer (iTunes Link) in October 2008.
Very cool!
Q: What do you like most about being an iOS Developer?
A: I love the complete freedom of choosing what to work on and when and how to work on it. And being able to comfortably support myself doing it. Apple created this amazing marketplace for us which eliminates most of the major barriers and pain points of software distribution.
It’s definitely cool to see so many developers able to make a living doing what they love. The software industry needs more indie developers that can survive on their own, and Apple’s done a great job providing a platform for that to happen.
Also, developing and marketing iOS apps has been a huge learning experience for me, and I love learning new stuff. I am looking forward to more learning at 360iDev.
Q: What’s your favorite Game?
A: The game I probably played the most is Toki Tori (iTunes Link). It is a great platform puzzle game with super well designed puzzles. I also really love Osmos (iTunes Link), a fantastic ambient game created by good friends of mine.
I haven’t tried Osmos, but have heard a TON of great things about it!! Hope that friend is coming to 360|iDev :)
Q: What’s your favorite App?
A: I love Yelp for discovering good restaurants. It is especially useful when traveling, but even in my hometown Vancouver I use it a lot to find cool new restaurants to check out.
I also really like the Reeder (iTunes Link), Twitter and Simplenote (iTunes Link) apps.
Reeder is my current favorite news reader, but Net News Wire is always my go to reader. Both are great apps. I never took to simplenote, favoring Elements and Evernote more.
Q: Robots or Ninjas?
A: Definitely Ninjas. Robots are making a lot of progress though. I predict Robots overtaking Ninjas in awesomeness around 2020.
I’m calling my booky
Q: What would you change about the iOS platform if you could change just one thing?
A: Apple has been good about addressing one pain point after another. It is amazing how much better things are today than when things started in 2008. There have been huge improvements in the SDK, the dev tools, the devices, the App Store, payment processing, dev support, the review system and more.
If I could change one thing, I would add a feature to allow for charitable donations in apps. It should use the same simple one-click payment system as in-app purchases. Ideally 100% of the donation would go straight from Apple to the charity and Apple would forward the donation tax receipt via email to the user.
That’s a pretty slick idea. Gifting apps was a huge step, so it’s not far fetched that this could happen someday! I’d love as much flexibility as possible in purchasing/gifting apps.
Q: What are you most excited about 360|iDev Austin?
A: I am looking forward to learning a lot during the sessions, but am maybe even more excited about the time outside the sessions: Making new friends in the iOS developer community and reconnecting with old ones. It will be fun times.
The non session stuff is a blast. It’s great to finally meet people you’ve emailed and IM’ed with, follow on twitter etc. Share a beer, some food, talk about code, and business. It’s a great experience! And of course the sessions are better than you’ll see anywhere else!
Q: Lastly, what would you tell someone on the fence about attending 360|iDev Austin?
A: If you are an indie iOS developer, you absolutely should come. You’ll learn a lot in the many great sessions. But more importantly you will meet many awesome developers who have similar passions and ambitions and are fighting similar problems as yourself and are more than happy to share their knowledge and experiences.
Damn straight!
Don’t miss out on the best indie iOS developer event around! Register now before it’s too late!
Tom has been a friend of ours for a long time! It’s great to have him onboard as a speaker!! We’re really excited to have him presenting “Introduction to Cocos2D for iPhone” on Monday morning!
- Q: How long have you been doing iOS development?
A: Almost 2 years, mostly for small projects for others. Recently we released a game, Chromatic Cosmos (iTunes Link) using Cocos2D.
That’s awesome! Congrats! Seems like a common path, working for someone else until the time is right.
Q: What do you like most about being an iOS Developer?
A: iOS users are very demanding. Apple and the other developers have set a very high bar for the quality and usability of applications. It’s very challenging to get it right, and it’s a lot of fun.
Yeah the bar is pretty darn high. Consumers, Apple, and the Dev community, don’t let B-Game apps get any sunlight
Q: What’s your favorite Game?
A: Chromatic Cosmos (laughs) – I’m also playing Angry Birds, and I love Plants versus Zombies and Harbor Master (iTunes Links).
Have you been playing with my iPhone!? I just got Angry Birds the other day, but it’s already sucked hours of my time. I’m on level 4 something I think. Crazy! Harbor Master and PVZ are also long time favorites! They all still have places on my iDevices. Chromatic Cosmos is going to be in good company!
Q: What’s your favorite App?
A: I drive a lot, and I get a lot of use out of Copilot North America – it’s improved so much since the first version, and they added an upgrade to provide traffic information, which I don’t know how I managed without that.
My second favorite app is Flipboard on my iPad – I suffered through the initial problems they had satisfying the demand, and now it’s a first-class magazine replacement. And it’s so beautifully done!
I don’t know what we did before live traffic!! I tried Flipboard and was put off by the overhyped fail/launch, but have recently re-installed it and it’s better than I thought. Quite impressive.
Q: Robots or Ninjas?
A: Pshaw – Ninjas all the way, baby!
HA HA
Q: What would change about the iOS platform if you could change just one thing?
A: Make it easier for small business/small enterprise deployments. There are a lot of apps that will go to competitors because it’s just painful enough to do a limited run.
Yeah the iOS platform, while touting business support with exchange and such, is very not ideal for business uses. It seems odd to deploy internal applications to the App Store.
Q: What are you most excited about 360|iDev Austin?
A: 1) Spending several days hanging around with some of the best and the brightest developers on Earth. I always learn a lot at 360 conference events.
2) Austin is amazing – the music scene is great, and the barbecue is even better!
Agreed! We want 360|iDev to be all about fun and mind blowing experiences :)
Q: Lastly, what would you tell someone on the fence about attending 360|iDev Austin?
A: This is THE BEST conference to learn about building software for iOS devices from actual developers! It’s a very intimate environment, and by the end you will come away knowing a lot more about building and marketing apps.
Couldn’t agree more!! The community is all about helping each other out!
Don’t miss out! Register now for what will be the best 360|iDev ever! Don’t forget to book your room at the Marriott before the room block ends!
