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Discount on 360|MacDev and a chance to win a free pass
Last year's 360|MacDev was filled with good food and great company, plus sessions with some of the best developers in the world. The annual event in Denver is one of the must-attend Mac developer conferences out there if you want to learn from the best. This year's conference is almost upon us, but there's still room to attend. Check out the conference schedule, and if you see what you like, use the code "TUAWRocks" (no quotes) to get 20% off your pass. Better still, caption the pic of developer Mike Lee, seen below, exercising his Second Amendment rights. Next week we'll pick a winner of a free pass to 360|MacDev! Rules below. Keep it tasteful. Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia who are 18 and older. To enter leave a comment on this post captioning the image of Mike Lee. The comment must be left before MONDAY, January 23, 11:59 PM Eastern Time. You may enter only once. One winner will be selected in a random drawing. Prize: Pass to 360|MacDev Conference Feb. 3-4, 2012 (Value: US$300) Click Here for complete Official Rules.
360 MacDev Conference registration now open
360|MacDev has opened up registration for its next Mac developer conference in Denver, Colorado. Originally, they had wanted to schedule something this year, but due to conflicts of various kinds, the date has been moved out to next February, in 2012. That's a ways away, but it'll just give you lots of time to prepare, right? The early registration fee is in effect until September 9 or until they sell through the first 50 tickets, so if you're set on going already, now's the time to sign up. I haven't been to a 360|MacDev event, but we did visit the 360|iDev conference a while ago, and it was full of great information and networking around the iOS developer community. I'm sure the Mac side of things will be no different. And if you actually want to present at the show, you have that chance, too -- there's a Call for Papers out right now, so if you've got something interesting to share with the Mac community, let them know!
360 MacDev day two: a recap of the Denver nerd-fest
Saturday was the second and last day of 360 MacDev in Denver, and it was full of excellent topics from the world of Mac development. Although I was unable to stay for the last three speakers (my apologies, guys!), the morning and lunch sessions were very useful and educational. To start off the festivities were Dave Wiskus of Double Encore (the sharp-dressed man standing next to the conference poster with legs at right) and Kyle Richter of Dragon Forged Software with a talk titled "iOS: the Gateway Drug." Wiskus and Richter were thinking of possible Mac-related papers for the conference a while back when they got the idea of taking one of the Double Encore "Massively Overrated" iOS apps -- KeyGrinder (free) -- and porting it to Mac OS X and the Mac App Store. TUAW reviewed KeyGrinder earlier this year. KeyGrinder is a small app -- you get into the app, get a password hash, and then pop back out. The challenge was to turn this into something usable in OS X, so they decided to set the app up with a menu bar icon as a primary user interface element. Users would be able to drag a URL to that icon, then have the app open up with the URL pre-populated and password hash visible. Their usual modus operandi is to draw out ideas for the UI on paper, create a wireframe, then make a mockup and finally look at style guides for additional tweaks.
360 MacDev: Josh Abernathy on the mechanics of good UI design
As the 360 MacDev conference continued in Denver today, the attendees had a chance to stuff their faces with apple pie courtesy of a vendor, and then sat down to here a talk by Josh Abernathy of Maybe Apps on the mechanics of good UI design. Josh started by making a distinction between graphic design (making something pretty) and interaction design (making something that is a joy to use). Abernathy was primarily focused on the graphic design of applications. He suggested that many developers hire a graphic designer to do this job, as programmers aren't necessarily good designers. Pixie, a UI "explorer" that is included in the Apple Developer Tools, was noted as a simple and useful assistant for seeing the closeup details of how other developers have achieved a certain effect. Keeping a scrapbook of good designs is another hint that Abernathy brought up. He wasn't advocating stealing user interface elements -- something that several developers I talked with at lunch have had to put up with during the last few weeks -- but instead to use those elements as an inspiration for future designs. Abernathy suggested visiting Flyosity.com and 365psd.com for excellent hints on how to use graphic tools like Photoshop in designing user interfaces.
360 MacDev: Jay "saurik" Freeman on the jailbreak store for Mac apps
When it comes to jailbreaking, there's probably no name as familiar to the development community than that of Jay "saurik" Freeman. Jay is the brain behind the Cydia App Store, and this morning he gave the attendees of 360|MacDev an overview of his upcoming jailbreak store for Mac OS X, cycript, and Cydia Substrate. Currently, Cydia Installer has been used by about 10% of all iPhone users, or about 10 million devices. There are well over 30,000 packages available for iOS, and a lot of open source material can be downloaded from Cydia. He refers to Cydia as a store for things that are not apps, but extensions of what iOS devices can do. Freeman felt that the same type of store would be useful for Mac OS X devices; the result is a Mac Cydia, which will be available "within weeks." With today's news that the Mac App Store will not support in-app purchases, something that is critical to the freemium app model that is so successful in the iOS world, a Mac Cydia might be just the web store for a number of Mac developers. Before discussing the Mac Cydia, however, Freeman spent quite a while taking Apple to task for their horrible developer documentation and for the restrictions that are common in the Apple development world. He foresees many of Apple's restrictions moving to the Mac App Store. Developers who are interested in getting their products into Mac Cydia were told to contact an employee at patrick at saurikit.com for further details.
360 MacDev Keynote: Mike Lee's "Dirty Jokes and Code"
360|MacDev is underway in Denver, Colorado, and it's starting with a bang. While many developer conferences begin with a boring, bland, and somewhat cookie-cutter keynote, this morning's keynote was a NSFW -- but definitely memorable -- talk laced with dirty jokes by Mike Lee (at right). Mike has done a lot of coding on some of the more popular software for Mac and iOS, including Delicious Library and Tap Tap Revenge, and is famous for his insightful talks on software design. The talk, entitled "Dirty Jokes and Code," was more than just the jokes, though. Through applicable off-color jokes, Lee essentially taught the attendees a lot of the important facets of how to produce apps that are incredibly useful and usable for buyers. Whether it was a rant against overuse of splash screens, a warning about errors in localizing software, or how one little issue can cause a user to go ballistic, Lee got his point across to the attendees.
Mac developers: Win a free pass to 360|MacDev or save 25%
There's just a little over a week until 360|MacDev opens in Denver, Colorado. This new Mac development conference, which will be held December 10-11, 2010 at the Crowne Plaza Downtown hotel, features a number of speakers and sessions covering everything from turning iOS apps into Mac apps to everything you've ever wanted to know about CoreAudio. Some of the speakers lined up for 360|MacDev include Jay "Saurik" Freeman, who will be talking about the upcoming Mac OS X Cydia; Josh Abernathy, speaking about how to make attractive UI elements for Mac OS X apps; Saul Mora, who will expound on MacRuby; and Justin Williams, with a talk on how to integrate social networking into Mac apps. TUAW will be on hand both days of 360|MacDev, and we're planning some giveaways, interviews, and even a TUAW meetup. We've teamed up with 360Conferences to give two lucky Mac developers a free pass to 360|MacDev and all TUAW readers a 25% discount on your tickets. For the discount, just go to the registration page and enter in the special code "MacDevTUAW" to take 25% off of your bill. And if you'd like to try for a free pass, just leave us a comment telling us what you'd like to learn at 360|MacDev. We'll pick two winners at random from the entries on Saturday, which will give you time to get your plane tickets and hotel reservations in order (not included). Here are the rules for the giveaway: Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia and Canada (excluding Quebec) who are 18 and older. To enter, leave a comment telling us what you want to learn at 360|MacDev. The comment must be left before midnight on Friday, December 3, 2010, 11:59PM Eastern Standard Time. You may enter only once. Two winners will be selected. Both will receive one pass for 360|MacDev, valued at US$300. Click Here for complete Official Rules. Good luck!
Mac developers: 360|MacDev conference scheduled for December
360|Conferences, the company that hosts the popular 360|iDev iOS development conferences, is now reaching out to the Mac development world. They're launching a new conference, 360|MacDev, and the premiere event will be held December 10th and 11th in Denver, Colorado. 360|Conferences felt that it was important to get into the Mac development conference gig, since the C4 conference has been terminated and WWDC not only sells out quickly, but seems to be focusing more and more on iOS development. They're starting small and short with this event, so if you're interested in attending you'll want to get registered soon. A deal for early bird tickets ($200) expires on Friday, September 24th, and after that date the registration cost jumps up to $300. You might want to consider attending the conference and then taking a ski vacation at the many resorts just a few hours away. If you'd like to showcase your Mac development mojo, the Call For Papers is open. There's a Facebook page and a LinkedIn Event for the conference, so you can get more info about 360|MacDev as the event date gets closer. TUAW will be covering the event as well, and we look forward to talking with the stars of the Mac development world.
