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360iDev – Community goodie give away!

January 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment
As we approach 360|iDev 2011, we’re cleaning house. Literally, it’s my house and all the conference ‘stuff’ is in the garage. You may or may not know we’ve had the shirts from Austin available for purchase since we got back, they’re an awesome deal, and a great wa to get a one of a kind shirt even if you missed the conference.
BUT we’ve got a lot of them. Oh and we’ve got 360|MacDev shirts too (You can buy one here if you’re so inclined) in case you weren’t able to make it. Both shirts are one of a kind, and other than the ones I’ve got in my garage, won’t be made again.
So…
If you run a cocoaheads, or other NSsomething group, and want some give aways for your members, and have about $11.00 to spend, we’ll stuff as much as we can in a USPS flat rate box and ship you shirts and maybe a koozie or two, and whatever else we’ve still got laying around that is 360|iDev. Even some books.
Why $11? well shipping ain’t cheap, and while we love and support the iOS community, 360|conferences doesn’t make enough money yet to pay my salary, so shipping boxes around the country just ain’t in the budget I’m afraid.
However the Flat rate USPS boxes are a great way to cram as much as i can into an affordable package for User Groups. If you want 2 boxes, it’s $22, etc, etc.
No strings, we just don’t want the shirts, etc to go to waste, and figured it’d be a cool way for User Groups to have more raffle goodies and giveaways.
All we need is an email with the following information.
Group Name:
Shipping Address:
Attention:
Paypal Email address:
How many boxes:
Send that to. info AT 360idev DOT com.
When we get the email we’ll send a paypal request and the box will be on it’s way.
We’ll do a random sampling of sizes and qty in each box, sorry it’d be too much overhead to allow groups to customize the order.
Of course if  you want a specific size, you can still order one :) At least until we’ve shipped them all out.
Please spread the word. We hope to get rid of all the shirts and make room for new ones :) We like having them around, but they take up space, and we figure it’s better to give them to anyone who wants them. Plus I won’t lie, better on the backs of iOS developers than in boxes in my garage!

Don’t forget too! You can register now for 360|iDev 2011 in Denver, CO. The price will never be lower than right now. The moment we lock in the exact dates, the price goes up. Don’t worry, tickets are completely refundable if the dates don’t work for you once we announce them.

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360iDev – Session video bundles

December 29, 2010 By 1 Comment

In case you hadn’t noticed, we’ve figured out to how to bundle session videos.

It’s still a work in progress but here’s what you need to know.

As we render each session and add it to the store page, we also add it to the Bundle (By the way, the bundle is per conference, there’s an Austin Bundle and a San Jose Bundle). If you’ve already purchased the Austin bundle you’ll notice it’s a bit light, it’s growing. You should be able to click on the download link you got in email and come back to you purchase page, it should be updated with the new videos we’ve added to the bundle since you initially bought it. Don’t worry, you don’t pay again, and you’re not aced out of future additions to the bundle. You just have to come back and get the new content.

We’re working as fast as we can to get more and more session videos rendered, so keep an eye on the store page.

That’s it! Happy new year!

Filed Under: Announcements, Austin, Community, Content, San Jose Tagged With: , , ,
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360iDev – Goodbye Chris Walker

December 20, 2010 By Leave a Comment

One of the downsides of organizing 360|events is that I meet and become friends with so many people. That’s not the downside actually, the downside is when bad things happen to those people. This is a few months late, because like so many connections we make at 360|iDev, many end up being primarily twitter friendships, and it’s hard sometimes to notice things.

Christopher Walker (@Yixinmke) came to 360|iDev San Jose 2010 because the welcome page had the word “shit” on it. I don’t remember the sentence, but when Chris was looking for an iOS conference to attend and read that sentence, he said he knew he’d enjoy the event because clearly it was organized by real people. That conversation really resonated with me, because that’s really a large part of why we do 360|events. Too many conferences are organized by publishers, marketing companies, etc. They’re faceless and certainly don’t take the time to get to know attendees, let alone hang out with them. I hate that.

Chris was a hoot, we hung out during the stragglers dinner on Wednesday night, that was the first time I had a real chance to talk to him. It was cool, his company did Microsoft tech, but was looking at other things too and sent him to 360|iDev. He was very nice, and he and Cory Smith (@smixx) were pretty much inseparable most of the conference.

Chris told me at dinner that one day he got to ebay and the parking lot was full, so he went to see ‘How to Train your Dragon’ and then came back, LOL. Great movie by the way. I finally saw it a while back. Good pick Chris.

After 360|iDev I didn’t talk to Chris online, beyond following his check-ins on twitter. Sadly following so many, i didn’t notice that his tweets and check-ins stopped on August 10th.

It wasn’t until months later, when Cory tweeted about his passing that I learned that Chris had been killed in a motorcycle accident. I especially feel terrible because I had wanted to reach out to Chris before Austin and make sure his company was sending him so we could hang out, and in the hubbub I totally forgot. Had I remembered I would have found out (maybe?) sooner.

I’ve put some videos at the bottom of this post, if you were at 360|iDev San Jose, I’m sure you’ll remember seeing Chris walking around, laughing. He played a mean rockband guitar too! I wish I had had a chance to get to know Chris better, to see what cool things he did with the iOS platform.

Chris in the background in the yellow shirt

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360iDev – Speaker Michael Simmons

November 2, 2010 By Leave a Comment

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?

A: Since Apple officially launched the SDK, back in March 2008. Actually, even longer than that! Back in August  2007, I was helping some friends with an app prior to the SDK (when jailbreaking was the only was to do native apps).
Ah the good ol’ days :)

Q: What do you like most about being an iOS Developer?
A: The freedom and flexibility to create pretty much whatever you want. Plus, the community is great. I enjoy the people I work with and get to collaborate with on both a professional and personal level.
It’s certainly easy to eat your own dog food as it were as an iOS developer.
Q: What’s your favorite Game?
A: At the moment, it’s Cut the Rope from Chilingo/ZeptoLab, which is a lot of fun and challenging, too!
On my purchase list! Man! Running 360|iDev is expensive!
Q: What’s your favorite App?
A: No way could I narrow it down to a single favorite! So I’ll say Mail. After all, it’s the “killer app”. :)
Oh yeah. killer indeed!
Q: Robots or Ninjas?
A: Ninjas for sure. Particularly since Steve Jobs is one (since he purportedly tried to smuggle shuriken into the US) :)
I think he’s still at the padawan stage of ninja-hood, but yeah if Steve wants to be a Ninja who can argue!
Q: What would change about the iOS platform if you could change just one thing?
A: Improving the App Store app approval time (specifically for bug fix updates).
It’d be cool if there were two channels. New apps went thru one, maybe more indepth, updates go thru another. Or at least worse case, an emergency channel for bug fixes.
Q: What are you most excited about 360|iDev Austin?
A: Giving my first speech that’s not product-specific. I’ve always spoke and presented products. This time, I get to share my experiences and knowledge with developers, something I think will be very rewarding.
w00t! can’t wait!
Don’t miss out! Register Now!
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360idev – Speaker Mike Lee

November 2, 2010 By Leave a Comment

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!!!

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360iDev – Game Jam sponsored by you, the iOS Community!

November 1, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I can’t say how awesome the community is! Apple is freaking lucky to have such cool folks, who can go above and beyond for each other, building apps for the iPhone. Not to diminish the iPhone but truly, any platform would rock with folks like you behind it!

The 360|iDev Game Jam, sponsored this time around by non other than our awesome community members is ON! Whether you’re a veteran game maker, or newb looking to get a start at games, the Game Jam is for you! It’s a great time!

It’s simple, the game jam starts around Tuesday night 8ish. It ends, Wednesday morning, around 9ish. Anyone who’d like to present their game is welcome to join me during the Wednesday keynote to show off their game. Past Game Jam efforts have landed in the app store!

We’ll have plenty of Red Bull, and soda, and red vines and what not to keep everyone going.

Whether you’re gonna get yur game jam on our not, thank all these folks for making the Game Jam possible!

See you in Austin!!

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360iDev – Party it up with Disney Monday Night!

October 29, 2010 By Leave a Comment

This is obviously for attendees only but make sure you RSVP for Monday night’s party for a chance to win some cool goodies!

RSVP HERE

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360iDev – Speaker Brent Simmons

October 28, 2010 By Leave a Comment

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!!

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360iDev – Speaker Jen Harvey

October 22, 2010 By Leave a Comment
We’re really excited to have Jen Harvey with us in Austin, I think with the two Jens, Lindsay, and Jessica, we’ve doubled at least our women presenter count, which is always awesome to see! Jen is presenting on “The Reluctant SysAdmin: Managing the Server-side of a Client/Server iPhone app”. Talk about something that many developers probably don’t think about when dreaming up the next mega selling app. If there’s a server side component, whether it’s handling authentication or something more complex like data manipulation, success could be a problem if your back end isn’t set up right. If your app doesn’t stand alone, this is gonna be a good session to check out. Wednesday at 2:50p
Q: How long have you been doing iOS development?

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!

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360iDev – Speaker Joe Keeley

October 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment

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!

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