Well, I did it: I finally finished something. No, it’s not my first iOS app (I wish), but rather a masters degree in Educational Technology Leadership. I started the degree back in the spring of 2012 and it sure feels good to be done. Now that I don’t have to worry about endless readings and an epic quota of mandatory discussion forum posts, I can focus my attention on learning to program iOS apps! Yesterday I began digging into AppCoda’s Beginning iOS 8 Programming with Swift and am on page 111. So far, everything has seemed comfortably familiar, so that’s encouraging. Even though I eventually want to develop games, I also want to have a thorough understanding of UIKit and get plenty of practice using Swift. I feel like this is a good start!

My memories of the first video game I ever played are so fuzzy that I’m not even sure if they’re real. After all, I would have only been 3 years old when Chip n’ Dale Rescue Rangers: The Adventures in Nimnul’s Castle was released. I have a hazy memory of the 5.25″ floppy disk and of this scene from the game:

The next memories I have are of sitting in my aunt and uncle’s basement, watching my older cousins play Sonic the Hedgehog on their Sega Genesis. I freaking loved Sonic the Hedgehog (though technically, I liked his sidekick Tails better). My parents bought me a Sega Game Gear and I think I only had two games: Sonic the Hedgehog, and World Series Baseball. Those two were enough to keep me entertained for hours on end!

I remember visiting my grandparents in Maine and playing Mortal Kombat at the neighbor kids’ house. I think I was also in Maine the first time I played Super Mario Bros. on an original Game Boy (not sure who it belonged to, but it wasn’t mine!). My real love affair with games, however, started when my family moved from Connecticut to Ohio. I had a Super Nintendo and my parents would take me to Blockbuster to rent games. The day that I picked up Donkey Kong Country was the day that I became really, seriously interested in video games.

Not only were the graphics gorgeous and ahead of their time, but the story was fun and the gameplay was challenging and varied, especially for my 8-year-old self. It wasn’t just that I loved Donkey Kong Country. I was sort of obsessed. I’m not sure if we actually subscribed to Nintendo Power or if my mom just bought me a copy whenever I was interested in the content, but one year they ran an art contest, asking fans to submit ideas for a new Donkey Kong character. Winners would receive a copy of either DKC2 or 3 (I can’t remember which). Anyway, I drew a new character called Kenny Kong, named after my best friend at the time. Kenny Kong wore a baseball uniform and carried a baseball bat and had several special abilities, none of which I remember. Anyway, I placed in the contest and won a copy of the game and was so flipping excited over the whole thing. I decided that when I grew up, I wanted to make video games.

So my mom did what any good mom would do: she took me to the library. I remember checking out a book on video game programming. The problem was, I was only 8 or 9 years old. All of that stuff was way over my head. I remember reading about sprites and thinking wow, I could never do that.

Fast-forward a few years. There were two terrible, erroneous assumptions that I made when I entered middle school. Even though I was a bright, straight-A student, I decided that I somehow wasn’t smart enough to do these two things: 1) play an instrument in band and 2) program computers. And so I didn’t try. I think I was afraid of failure…of being less than the best at something. Basically, I was the Hermione Granger of my class, and I had an image to maintain! …Gosh, I was a prick.

When I went to college, I sought to rectify the mistakes I had made. I majored in music education, learned how to play a bunch of instruments (albeit really terribly), and basically had a blast learning all about music. As it turned out, I wasn’t too dumb to understand it.

And as it turns out, I’m not too dumb to understand programming either. And I still love video games. All kinds of games. Sim City, Dogz, Pokémon, Mario Kart/Party/Tennis, Donkey Kong 64, Super Smash Brothers, Call of Duty, Guild Wars…the list goes on and on. In fact, I have to draw attention to two more of my favorite games growing up: The Neverhood (PC) and Fin Fin (PC). The Neverhood was an awesome claymation point-and-click adventure released in 1996. Most of the members of the The Neverhood team are currently working on a spiritual successor called Armikrog that I’m SUPER excited about. Seriously. It’s gonna be great.

Fin Fin on Teo the Magic Planet, also released in ’96, was a virtual pet game that was way ahead of its time. It had voice recognition and a huge variety of plant and animal species that could be observed as the seasons changed in the game…it was really, really interesting, and I don’t think anyone has made a similar game since then, which is a shame. Also, Fin Fin had really awesome Avatar-like graphics:

Anyway, all of this is to say that I know that a lot of people (women especially) are weary about getting into the video game industry, but I just wanna say this: whether the things that are holding you back are internal (as in my case) or external—don’t give up the dream. I haven’t. Learning to program is the first step for me, and it can be the first step for you too. :-)

 

Just wanted to jot down a few things I’d like to see at Apple’s iPad event tomorrow. Quick background: I use my iPad 3 for academic research (downloading journal articles & annotating them with PDF Expert), editing photos, watching iTunes U videos, wading through my Safari Reading List and RSS feeds, playing games, and messing around with fun music-making apps. Occasionally my workflows get a little convoluted, but iOS 8 has certainly helped (hurray for share extensions!), and I’m eagerly looking forward to what Apple has in store for tomorrow.

Here’s my wish list:

• Touch ID – confirmed
• 2GB of RAM – not sure if confirmed?
• No color gamut issues in either model
• For the 64GB iPad Air to move down a price point
• Better battery life (who wouldn’t wish for that?)
• Some sort of better multi-tasking support
• An anti-glare display – there were rumors about this; would be awesome if true.

If Apple is truly going down a list and checking off features that people have asked for (or that people tend to buy Android/Windows devices for), then I expect them to announce an upcoming software feature that will allow you to view more than one application at the same time. I would love to, say, be able to watch an iTunes U video on one side of the screen and jot down questions that I have about it on the other. Or simultaneously play a casual game and keep an eye on my Twitter feed. If they can make this feature somehow more elegant and better-named than Reachability, I will consider it a success.

I don’t think Apple is done innovating with the iPad. In fact, something tells me that many folks who have become disinterested or disenchanted with it will find themselves once again excited about the possibilities offered by this form factor.

Anyway, I’ll be attempting to watch the event live (ha, we’ll see how that goes…), with The Verge’s lovely liveblog as backup.

I’m sure everyone’s planning to watch Apple’s live-stream tomorrow (10 a.m. PDT), but in case you’d like to keep an eye on a liveblog or two as well, here’s a list of as many as I could find.

• The Verge
• TUAW
• Macworld
• CNET
• MacRumorsLive (Twitter account)
• Gizmodo
• Ars Technica
• Engadget
• Mashable
• Re/Code

Merry Apple-Announcement-Christmas! 🎄

It’s a strange time to be a beginner in the iOS development world. Before WWDC 2014, the learning path seemed to be much simpler. You learned Objective C. You found your way around the APIs you would need for your apps. You probably learned how to create interfaces programmatically because the guys at Big Nerd Ranch told you it would be better for you in the end, and because who uses Storyboards anyway? (Not real programmers, apparently).

Then WWDC happened. Swift happened. And now, you’ll no longer find the “Empty Application” template as an option in Xcode 6, because Apple wants you to use Storyboards. Apple wants you to use Swift. As a beginner, I have to decide where I want to invest my time: do I want to continue learning Objective C? Or should I switch gears and dive into Swift? Should I take the time to really familiarize myself with Storyboards or should I forget about them and hook up everything manually? After spending all summer sort of waffling about, trying to figure out what to do, I’ve come to the conclusion that Swift and Storyboards are indeed the way for me to go.

In a blog post about Swift & Objective C, Jessica Skeete writes, “At the moment, learning Swift as a newbie might feel like an English speaker learning French with only a Spanish dictionary.” I think that’s a good way of putting it. To stick with that analogy, I feel like I’ve finally learned enough Spanish (Objective C) to be able to piece together the French (Swift).

Neither language is particularly difficult to understand. Actually, I think the hardest part of learning iOS development is not learning the language(s); it’s becoming familiar with all of the APIs. It’s difficult for me to select the best solution to a programming problem when I don’t even have a firm grasp of what’s possible. I know there are hordes of useful methods that I don’t even know exist, and that’s what seems so daunting. And it’s not like I can even read through the documentation when I’m doing something boring like waiting at the doctor’s office, because nothing in the dev center is optimized for mobile (in other words, it’s too teeny tiny, and the sidebar blocks content when you try to zoom in).

So yeah. Despite all of that, and despite the fact that being a beginner right now can be a bit weird and confusing, it’s also a really, really exciting time to be learning this stuff. In fact, with iOS 8 and Yosemite close to release and Apple poised to enter an entirely new product category, I feel safe saying that this might be the most exciting time.

Last week, the inaugural episode of Relay FM’s Connected podcast focused entirely on the evolution of the iPod. It got me thinking about my own personal iPod collection, and how fun and exciting it used to be whenever a new iPod was announced. So, without further ado…

My iPod collection

I remember when the first iPod was released. I was in middle school, and I hated Apple computers. My best friend had been trying to convince me for years that Macs were better than PCs, but her efforts were fruitless (sorry)—that is, until she brought home the very first iPod. I remember reading through the little manual that came with it and being absolutely floored by how many songs it could hold. And not only that: the thing just looked cool. Maybe Apple wasn’t so terrible after all.

My parents bought me my first iPod in 2003. It was the third gen one, the one that had the row of buttons with the slight reddish-orange glow around them. I was in love.

I honestly don’t remember what happened to that iPod, but a year or two later I upgraded to a new 60GB iPod Photo (see #1 above). At some point, I gave it away to a friend, who was kind enough to return it to me when he moved on to a new device. Earlier this year I replaced the battery (they’re only $13.95 at iFixit) and it still works great! It has 4 games on it: Brick, Music Quiz, Parachute and Solitaire.

In 2005, I received a second generation iPod mini in that lovely shade of green (#2). I can’t for the life of me figure out why they didn’t give that thing a color display, but I remember feeling cool carrying it around when I got to college, especially with that handy belt clip thingy that came with it (or was that sold separately?). Like my iPod classic, I ended up giving my mini away to a friend, who returned it to me several years later.

My black iPod nano (#3) was probably my favorite iPod of all. Man, that thing was sleek. Unfortunately, the friend I passed it on to decided to pay it forward and passed it on to someone else, and all I’m left with is the packaging. :( Inside, there’s an iTunes installation CD, which I forgot ever existed.

I won that iPod shuffle (#4) in a photography contest. I use it every once in awhile, usually while exercising. Here’s the winning photo, taken in Venice in 2008:

I know: not super impressive, but whatever! Moving on…

When the iPhone was announced in 2007, I wasn’t particularly interested, mostly because I hated talking on the phone (so why would I want a fancy one?). I ended up getting a first gen iPod Touch instead. I’m not sure if I upgraded it every year, but the last one I bought for myself was the fourth gen model with retina display (#5).

Just the beginning

The iPod was more than just a music player for me: it was my first real introduction into all things Apple. It’s what prompted me to get my first white iBook, followed by a black MacBook, and my current MacBook Pro (Early 2011). It’s what made me so. freaking. excited to get my hands on my first iPad. What really strikes me as I think about every Apple product I’ve owned over the past 10+ years is how remarkably durable they all are. My mom still uses that white iBook. Seriously. It still works. Sure, the battery is shot, but that’s not the point. The iPods all still work. I’m sure this MacBook Pro could easily last me another 5-6 years if I wanted it to (I don’t). In this day and age, I think that’s truly amazing. And with Apple’s next product announcement only a few days away, I can’t wait to see what’s next.

On January 24, 1984, Apple released the first Mac. Last week, inspired by all that I read about the original Mac’s inception, I decided that I was going to learn to program iOS apps. I guess there are a few benefits to starting this late in the game; for example, I have a great teacher in the form of the Big Nerd Ranch Objective C/iOS series, as well as the many, many talented people who have gone before me and posted their questions and answers on Stack Overflow.

I’ll post here every so often with some thoughts on what I’ve learned, and hopefully someday I can look back at these posts and smile, knowing how far I’ve come.