Using iOS SDK 5 with Xcode 3
I have been lately using a quite older MacBook Pro (Intel Core Duo 2 2.4 GHz, 4GB RAM) for development and found that it is pretty unpractical installing Xcode 4 for regular use due to its slow performance and huge memory footprint. So I looked for a way to run good old Xcode 3, which is fine under most aspects and works reliably. Turned out it was not so difficult in the end, so I list here the steps I took to make it work: you simply need to copy a bunch of files from a newer Xcode 4.3 distribution to the proper Xcode 3 location.
- ensure you are using Xcode 3.2.6 and make sure it is not running before executing the steps below;
- copy from a newer Xcode distribution (e.g., Xcode 4.3) the OS5 SDK files:
sudo cp -a /PATH_TO_LATEST_XCODE/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/SDKs/iPhoneOS5.1.sdk/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/SDKs - copy version.plist file (important: backup the original one before overwriting it!)
sudo cp /PATH_TO_LATEST_XCODE/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/version.plist /Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/ - copy device support files for OS5:
sudo cp -a /PATH_TO_LATEST_XCODE/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/DeviceSupport/5.*/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/DeviceSupport/
If you want to ever go back to using the old original SDK distributed with Xcode 3, simply switch the version.plist file mentioned above with the backup copy.
In any case, I would not suggest using this set up for building your app for submission to Apple. For that, I prefer using a later Xcode version with a newer compiler and all the regular stuff.
Core Graphics Image Interpolation Performance
Recently, I have done quite a bit of Core Graphics programming and discovered that one key point in ensuring that an app performs well is choosing the right CGContext interpolation level. Interpolation, according to the Wikipedia, “is a method of constructing new data points within the range of a discrete set of known data points.” Interpolating is what is done when you scale up an image, but also when you scale it down. In both cases, interpolation has a tremendous impact on the result of the scaling.
What's new in iOS 7 User Interface – 1
The new iOS 7 has radically changed the way user interface is conceived on iOS. Indeed, the change has been so radical that along the past few months many not so positive comments and criticism could be found on the web. Now that iOS 7 has officially shipped this is starting to change and many voices are expressing true their enthusiasm. Even the rush to updating to iOS 7 does not seem to stop, so that it is already clear that iOS 7 will be a huge success in adoption.
Apple introduces iOS 8 SDK and Xcode 6
Another post for InfoQ: “At its 2014 Worldwide Developer Conference, Apple announced its new mobile operating system, iOS 8, alongside new SDKs and development tools. New Apple software includes over 4000 new APIs, including all new frameworks such as HealthKit, HomeKit, and CloudKit, and enhancements to the platform gaming capabilities.”