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iOS 7 Development Tutorials Aplenty

ios 7 developmentNow that iOS 7 has hit the streets, the non-disclosure agreement that all registered iOS developers is no longer under effect. This means that all of us who’ve been playing with the various beta versions of iOS 7 and Xcode 5 can finally talk about them, as well as their APIs, and their experiences developing for Apple’s new-look operating system. Over the next few weeks, I’m going to talk about as many of the changes to Xcode and iOS as I can, as well as point you to other writers who are covering these topics.

Here’s a look at the iOS 7 reading I’m doing these days:

NSHipster on the New Goodies in iOS 7’s APIs

Banner for NSHipster on iOS 7 APIs, with NSHipster's 'moustache' logo.

NSHipster bills itself as “a journal of the overlooked bits in Objective-C and Cocoa”, and it does a good job at that. As with Global Nerdy, they’re going to spend the next few weeks covering what’s new for developers in iOS 7. In this week’s installment, NSHipster covers the following:

  • NSData Base64 encoding
  • NSURLComponents – “Think of it as NSMutableURL.”
  • NSProgress – “…a tough class to describe. It acts as both an observer and a delegate / coordinator, acting as a handle for reporting and monitoring progress.”
  • NSArray::firstObject – We’ve got NSArray::lastObject, so why not this?
  • CIDetectorSmile – Detects smiling faces within an image
  • CIDetectorEyeBlink – Detects blinking eyes within an image
  • SSReadingList – “Even though the number of people who have actually read something saved for later is only marginally greater than the number of people who have ever used a QR code, it’s nice that iOS 7 adds a way to add items to the Safari reading list…”
  • AVCaptureMetaDataOutput – “Scan UPCs, QR codes, and barcodes of all varieties with AVCaptureMetaDataOutput, new to iOS 7.”
  • AVSpeechSynthesizer – “iOS 7 brings the power of Siri with the convenience of a Speak & Spell in a new classAVSpeechSynthesizer..."
  • MKDistanceFormatter – “MKDistanceFormatter provides a way to convert distances into localized strings using either imperial or metric units.”

iOS 7 By Tutorials, by Ray Wenderlich & Co.

Banner for iOS 7 by Tutorials

Ray Wenderlich’s site is one of the go-to resources for iOS developer tutorials, from the articles to the books produced by its writers, including their iOS by Tutorials series. They’ve just released the latest in the series, iOS 7 by Tutorials, a PDF book for intermediate and advanced developers that gets updated often and will feature 25 chapters and hundreds of pages of material. This edition covers features such as UIKit Dynamics, Text Kit, background fetch, and the new “flat” design of IOS 7. Highly recommended if you’ve become comfortable with iOS development and want to make the leap past the beginner level.

iOS 7 by Tutorials is available right now for US$54.00.

iOS Games By Tutorials, by Ray Wenderlich & Co.

If you want to get into iOS game development using Apple’s new game framework, Sprite Kit, iOS Games by Tutorials is for you! It’s aimed at developers from all levels, from beginner to advanced.

iOS Games by Tutorials is available right now for $54.00.

The iOS 7 Feast

ios 7 feast

One more Ray Wenderlich goodie, and this one’s free! It’s the “iOS 7 Feast”, a series of articles covering some of the new features in iOS 7, including: