But nothing quite compares to the thrill one gets when working on a solo project. It’s all brand new, and it’s all yours. So back in February of 2010 when I teamed up with The Anime Network to do their iOS app, I was definitely excited. The iPad had just been announced, and this was the very definition of uncharted territory in the tech world. Was it going to be like a big iPhone? Was it going to be like a laptop without a keyboard?

As we all know so well now, it was neither: it was something totally different. It was a tablet, a device the likes of which none of us had ever really interacted with before, at least not on any legit sort of scale. So as we scrambled to build an app that would work on both the iPhone and the just-announced iPad, there was a lot of guesswork as to how the app should look and feel on this mythical new device.

Well I’m happy to say that with the advantage of two years’ worth of hindsight behind us, I’ve teamed up with The Anime Network once again to produce something that we’re all very proud of: The Anime Network for iOS, Version 2.0.

For over six months we’ve been brainstorming, mocking up, developing, testing, and tweaking. And the product of all that effort is something to behold: a wildly popular app that looks beautiful on both iPad and iPhone. And it blows all the competition out of the water.

From an architecture perspective, the code is very streamlined, efficient, and organized. This is the app I’ve always wanted to write, done the way I’ve always wanted to do an app. The focus is on speed and performance. I wish I could show you the source. It is a thing of beauty.

To accomplish all of this awesomeness, we’re using several neat tricks and acrobatics:

• Cover Flow: To show off all of that beautiful artwork.
• Prepopulated Core Data database: So the user doesn’t have to wait 10 minutes on first run.
• iTunes Connect Manager: My open source Github project that makes working with In-App Purchases a breeze.
• Downloads using NSOperation: For super-smooth async downloads, which I’ve blogged about here before.
• JSON-based API: Which I am a huge advocate for on any project, and with the work of the super talented Aaron Poffenberger we’ve been able to accomplish here. JSON = snappy. XML = crappy.

App Store reviews tend to be like exes: you only hear about the bad, none of the good. So it pleases me to no end that we’ve finally achieved a nice rating for the app. Everyone over at The Anime Network has worked very hard to achieve this rating, and it’s been no small feat. Bringing Larry Kotef’s beautiful mockups to life has been one of the highlights of my career. Stacy Dodson, Samantha Stevens, and Lance Martin, as well as the rest of the team, have all put in some serious effort into this app. Many nights, weekends, and holidays have been spent devoted to this project, so to see that hard work reflected in the feedback is truly rewarding.

For me, this was a labor of love I devoted most of my free time to this past year. Many hours were spent agonizing over the smallest detail, because codewise, this one is my baby. Every X-Y coordinate. Every XIB layout. Every algorithm. Every crash. All mine.

This app is my 2011 opus, and I’m very proud of it. Hope you like it!

Click here to download the app now.

Posted from Houston, Texas, United States.

This blog is no Wikipedia, but it was very rewarding to do something creative and snarky that also had a positive outcome with regards to a subject I care about. I received several FB comments, emails, and texts to the effect of “Dude…did the FTC really shut down your site!?”

I will take these messages as more of a tribute to my own design skills than to the ease with which people would assume the FTC, or any government agency, has the present-day right to shut down a website. This was the outcome I was looking for, to raise awareness, but in an unexpected manner: I never thought anyone would take it seriously.

So it was a great day. ChrisBoyd.net spent a full 24 hours under blackout, and I unwittingly brought even more attention to this horrible, incredibly short-sighted bill. I also transferred all 12 of my domain names from GoDaddy, a supporter of and contributor to SOPA, to MediaTemple.

You can view the page that I used here. I also posted it as a Gist with the appropriate 503′s (so you don’t lose any points with Google), in case you need to use it for any future half-assed censorship bills our Congress might decide to bake up.

Posted from Houston, Texas, United States.

While this is great, and certainly one of the benefits of living in the supercool future world that we do, it has a downside. On the same network, wireless or otherwise, traffic can be easily intercepted using a number of tools such as Wireshark or Ethereal. This means that anyone on the same open wireless network that you’re on can see the bytes that are being transmitted to and from your machine.

Generally speaking, this isn’t a big deal because A.) Not everyone is a gigantic nerd and B.) Most of your sensitive data is transferred over SSL. Right? But these days, more and more nerds are created every day. And nerds are nosy. And creepy.

The good news is there are ways to prevent that creepy guy sitting near you at Starbucks from reading your email. There’s something called SSH that you can use to create a secure tunnel for your traffic, and there’s a tool for Macintosh called Sidestep that makes turning on a secure tunnel super duper easy.

Once installed, it will detect whenever you’ve signed on to an unsecured wireless network, and turn on SSH tunneling if it determines that you have. It’s easy to turn tunneling on and off through an icon in the menu bar. Hats off to Chetan Surpur for this excellent utility and a really easy, simple approach to SSH tunneling. Best of all, it’s free.

See? The future isn’t that scary after all. Too bad you read this after you sent that nude photo to your significant other, right?

Posted from Houston, Texas, United States.

Make a little money,
Take a lot of shit.
Feel real bad,
Then get over it.
- Harlem Shakes, “Strictly Game”

2011 was certainly an interesting year for me: personally, professionally, politically, emotionally, the whole spectrum. In all areas, it began with peril, and ended with triumph. But I guess that’s the way I like it. There were so many twists and turns, a ton of misadventures, several highs, and several lows. I experienced things I never in my wildest dreams thought I would experience. Some bad, but mostly really good. It was a gigantic booster shot of life experience.

All told, 2011 was the best year of my life.

And as my friends know, I have this weird habit of cataloging my days with songs, much like a journal. In 2011 this became more of an obsession than ever. So now I have this great summary of my year, where I can conjure up how I felt on any given day, and reflect, generally with a smile and a laugh.

This year, I decided to try to pick one song for each month that I felt was the best representation of that time in my life. I came up with this list. Coincidentally, it makes for a damn fine breakup playlist.

• Viva Voce, “The Future Will Destroy You” from The Future Will Destroy You.
  
• Fitz & The Tantrums, “MoneyGrabber” from Pickin’ Up The Pieces.
  
• Harlem Shakes, “Strictly Game” from Technicolor Health.
  
• The Pains of Being Pure At Heart, “Belong” from Belong.
  
• Deerhunter, “Memory Boy” from Halcyon Digest.
  
• The Drums, “What You Were” from Portamento.
  
• School of Seven Bells, “Dust Devil” from Disconnect From Desire.
  
• Health, “Goth Star” from Goth Star.
  
• …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, “Weight Of The Sun (Or The Post-Modern Prometheus)” from Tao Of The Dead.
  
• Waters, “Take Me Out to the Coast” from Out in the Light.
  
• The Vox Jaguars, “Swagger” from The Vox Jaguars.
  
• The Naked and Famous, “Spank” from Passive Me, Aggressive You.
  

* * *

One last bit of advice: Life is going to throw you curveballs. Serious curveballs. Plans will be destroyed. Hopes and dreams quashed. It’s inevitable. What isn’t inevitable is how you react. You can curl up into a ball and let life kick your ass, or you can fight back. I highly, highly recommend the latter. Fight with gusto. Fight like your life depends on it.

Because it does.

I think that’s enough introspection and navelgazing for one year. Bring on the 2012. If the Mayans were right, I want to go out with a bang.

Posted from Houston, Texas, United States.

Here’s the trailer:

And the first chapter:

I’m excited to see how this project turns out. Definitely be sure to tune in for the next chapters!

Posted from Houston, Texas, United States.

I discovered this last night out of necessity. I was trying to run to a playlist I’d created on Spotify earlier in the day, but every time I started the run, Nike+ would take over and get all commandeering about the music.

The solution is simple: Open Spotify and start playing whatever you want to hear. Then open Nike+, create your run, but be sure to select No Music on the configuration screen. The Nike+ voiceovers will work seamlessly with Spotify, and you can even intervene and trigger a Powersong if you feel the need.

Awesome!

Posted from Houston, Texas, United States.

Now we’re edging up on a rehash of the 90′s, and I’m pretty excited about what lies in store. This was the music I grew up listening to. It was the soundtrack to my adolescence. If the next few years bear inspiration from Nirvana, Pixies, old school Radiohead, and Nine Inch Nails, you won’t find me hemming and hawing about the similarities.

With Portamento, Brooklyn’s The Drums seem to be channeling the edgy precipice that indie music stood on in the very late 80′s/early 90′s. Still accessible enough to be on pop radio, but interesting enough to be a precursor for the flood of music to come in the next decade. If Morrisey and Brian Eno got together for coffee in 1988 and described what music would sound like in 2011, I think they would have sketched out this album.

It’s fantastic, and the theme on most songs alternates between falling in love, falling out of love, or some combination of the two. It makes for upbeat, cheery pop tunes that are as singable as they are danceable. Perfect Friday night ready to go out music. According to their Wikipedia page they almost split up this summer due to “stylistic differences”. Let’s hope that still isn’t a sore spot, because I think they’ve really tapped into something fantastic.

If you’re in Europe, you might be able to catch one of the last few shows of their current tour.

My favorite track off of this album is “What You Were”, about getting into a relationship you know isn’t going to end well, but doing it anyway:

Isn’t that something we can all relate to, regardless of the decade?

Posted from Houston, Texas, United States.

I’m of the belief that in 5-10 years, we’re all going to be laughing about the fact that we used to sit down at our computers, open up a browser, and type in URLs or click bookmarks to go to websites. It will all seem very C:\\-esque. Mobile will reign supreme, in tablet and phone form, and laptops and desktop machines will be largely relegated to devs, gamers, and that lady at the DMV that makes your life miserable.

It makes some sense why Zuckerberg would want to ensure Facebook has a distinct, sizable presence in the mobile field. But I’m not so sure tightly coupling hardware with the platform is the best approach. Using Android makes total sense – it’s an approach that will work very well for Amazon with the Kindle Fire, and it means using Google’s own firepower against them.

If I had to guess, Facebook has grown leery of managing and maintaining the multiple apps, and as things get more and more mobile, doesn’t want to hand over more and more control of its ecosystem to the major players in the various mobile platforms. If they’re looking to expand their marketplace beyond Farmville and Mafia Wars, they’re going to have to hand over 30% of those in-app purchases to Apple, and Amazon is quickly following suit with the Amazon Market.

Facebook’s only official statement on the Buffy project:

“Our mobile strategy is simple: We think every mobile device is better if it is deeply social. We’re working across the entire mobile industry; with operators, hardware manufacturers, OS providers, and application developers to bring powerful social experiences to more people around the world.”

So the solution of a Facebook device, that is “deeply social” (read: easily monetized by Facebook), seems to make sense. Cut the middleman, partner with hardware manufacturers, and take direct profits from everyone who needs a CityVille upgrade or wants to use Facebook credits to pay for something. Not to mention the treasure trove of demographics and behavior trends one would amass with such a device, especially when coupled with Facebook’s analytics.

The only problem, as outlined in David Coursey’s excellent piece in Fortune, is that it’s a little late in the game to be talking about building a mobile device that will be ready in a year and a half. Apple and Android dominate, Microsoft is struggling to catch up, users are abandoning BlackBerry in droves both at home and in the office, and there isn’t really too much room for another player in the OS game. So why not simply create a framework that OS makers could use to make their devices more “deeply social” (read: easily monetized by Facebook)?

Coursey’s post implies that this might actually be the case after all. That there is no phone, it’s just a leak that’s a little misguided, and that what Facebook plans to actually launch is a framework that allows manufacturers to have deep Facebook integration, above and beyond what the apps can provide. Much like the way Twitter is integrated into iOS 5, as a tightly coupled API rather than an app.

The only real question is in 18 months, will anyone actually care?

Posted from Houston, Texas, United States.

I know it’s tough, but every once in a while, you’ve got to face it. The dreaded App Store Rejection. Today one of my apps was rejected because I didn’t meet the new guidelines for data storage.

More specifically, I had developed a way for a Core Data db to arrive prepopulated inside an app on first launch, and was storing that data in the app’s Documents directory, which used to be all good. But with the advent of iCloud and iCloud-based iOS backups, it looks like Apple is putting restrictions on where you can store this kind of data. And rightfully so.

With the way I previously had the app configured, it would copy a preloaded, bundled version of the main Core Data sqlite database over to the Documents directory. This was put in place because the app is very image-heavy, and downloading all the necessary images on first launch made for a poor user experience. The problem with this is that the new Data Storage Guidelines state that this approach is far from kosher:

Data that can be downloaded again or regenerated should be stored in the<Application_Home>/Library/Caches directory.

D’oh.

So let’s go over the new rules, shall we? Here’s a summary:

• Critical data that cannot be recreated, such as documents or user-specific data that would be lost if the device were damaged, goes into the <Application_Home>/Documents directory and will be backed up by iCloud unless otherwise specified.
• Cached data that can be recreated, such as a local database or downloaded images, goes into the <Application_Home>/Library/Caches directory and will not be backed up by iCloud. This data may get purged at some point if iOS runs low on disk space.
• Temporary data that is transient and not used between app launches, such as a temporary file cache, goes into the <Application_Home>/tmp directory and will not be backed up by iCloud. You should always remember to delete files stored here yourself.
• Offline data that needs to be persistent and available when the device is offline (such as Airplane Mode), goes into the <Application_Home>/Library/Private Documents directory and will not be backed up by iCloud, but also will not be purged by iOS in a low disk space situation. For more information about Private Documents in iOS, see QA1699.

Keep these in mind, because a deviation from any of these items will cause your app to be rejected.

It makes sense, with the new iCloud backup system, why they would want to put some constraints on what data is stored in which directory. This way my 15 MB pre-populated database doesn’t get backed up to the user’s iCloud account, taking up precious limited space. It would also cause a bit of a drag on the wireless backup process.

When it was all said and done it was a quick and easy fix, the sting of rejection notwithstanding, and the app is resubmitted. For all of you iOS devs that might be facing a similar problem, here’s a method you can use to quickly find your application’s cache directory and ensure you’re 100% kosher with the iCloud/iOS Data Storage Guidelines. I suggest putting it in your AppDelegate:

- (NSString *)applicationCachesDirectory {
    NSArray *paths = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSCachesDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES);
    NSString *cachePath = [paths objectAtIndex:0];
    BOOL isDir = NO;
    NSError *error = nil;

    if (![[NSFileManager defaultManager] fileExistsAtPath:cachePath isDirectory:&isDir] && isDir == NO) {
        [[NSFileManager defaultManager] createDirectoryAtPath:cachePath withIntermediateDirectories:NO attributes:nil error:&error];
    }

    return cachePath;
}

Another lesson learned for me today: Always stay on top of the documentation with every major release. Hell, stay on top of the documentation with every minor release. There’s no good reason to fall behind, especially when your app’s life depends on the rules.

Posted from New York, New York, United States.

No cool stuff appeared.

After much tinkering and a bit of googling, I found that by default, XCode 4 puts JavaScript files in the Compile Sources Build Phase, like so:

Which is actually the opposite of cool, because your app will be looking for them as binary files, not as compiled code. You should drag them down to Copy Bundle Resources, where they will be included as binary files, like a plist or XIB, like so:

Hope that helps when you’re building your next HTML 5-based iOS app!

Posted from Houston, Texas, United States.