This is the first post in a series about development for the Apple Ecosystem (iPhone, iPad, Mac, iSomething?). This blog is geared towards non-developers who are still interested in creating apps . "Product manager, startup entrepreneur, just-a-guy-or-girl-with-an-idea". If this describes you,
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Apple's Silent Summer of Code tradition goes back many many years. It goes something like this. In spring the Apple rumour mill starts spinning in overdrive as bloggers & pundits make the most outlandish claims about upcoming Apple hardware.
Then in June Apple pours a big bucket of "NEW, SHINY, COME SEE THIS!" on devs at WWDC. Sometime in July the initial enhousiasm dwindles & the blogosphere returns to business as usual while developers toil away, quietly updating their apps without revealing too much in fear of Apple's draconian NDA policy.
Then in fall the fruit of all that summer labour is served to the public: new software, hardware & a side-dish of third-party apps that go with them. And just like the seasons, every year this cycle repeats.
But this year, things will be different. Tim Cook is now firmly in control & Apple significantly relaxed the NDA rules attached to the developer program. This year discussing, blogging & educating about the latest changes in the Apple ecosystem becomes permissible, dare I even say "encouraged".
So that's exactly what I'm going to do with this blog: introduce you to the wild & wonderful word of mobile development in the Apple Ecosystem. I'm a longtime IOS developer but just like everyone else this year I start from scratch with Apple's new programming language Swift & over 4000 new APIs to explore. Sometimes this blog will be technical, oftentimes it will be firmly non-technical with coverage of the design & business aspects of app development.