Yesterday, Apple released iOS 9 Beta 5, Xcode 7 Beta 5, and watchOS 2 Beta 5. Out of the four betas that Apple is offering, the only one that’s not available to the general public is watchOS 2.
When Apple released Beta 4, there really weren’t any new features, whether we’re talking about iOS 9, watchOS 2, Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan, or Xcode 7. This round is different. Check it out.
Yesterday, Apple released iOS 9 Beta 5. A bit later on, they also released iOS 9 Public Beta 3. This came alongside watchOS 2 Beta 5, as well as Xcode 7 Beta 5.
Unlike iOS 9 Beta 4, there were actually quite a bit that was new in both iOS 9 Beta 5 and watchOS 2 Beta 5. Check it out.
While the Windows 10 launch has come and gone, there is still much to be desired. For one thing, we’re still waiting for the various bridges that Microsoft announced, such as the Windows Bridge for iOS, also known as Project Islandwood.
While Project Islandwood won’t be officially available until the Fall, Microsoft is throwing the code up on Github.
In a related article, Microsoft made it clear that this is not about porting iOS apps. They are not running in an emulator. Visual Studio 2015 will compile Objective-C code into native universal apps.
Continue reading Microsoft is Open Sourcing Windows Bridge for iOS
Today, Apple released another round of betas. Since we’ve seen two Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan betas since we saw the last Xcode 7, iOS 9, or WatchOS 2 beta, we didn’t see a new Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan beta today, but we got everything else.
As has been the case since WWDC, Xcode 7 Beta 5 is still free for anyone that wants to grab it.
It looks like Apple is releasing another round of betas today. The last time we saw a full round of betas was beta 4, where Apple seeded iOS 9, Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan, WatchOS 2, and Xcode 7 Beta 4.
Since then, we’ve seen Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan Beta 5 and Beta 6, so I wouldn’t expect to see Beta 7 today. It looks like there is a new WatchOS 2 Beta and there is a new Xcode 7 Beta as well, and of course, iOS 9 Beta 5. There is still no sign at all that the current Apple TV is still supported.
I’m not a fan of OS comparisons. I’m even less of a fan of doing the comparisons myself. I despise the idea of claiming that a single operating system is better than another, since every operating system offers some kind of advantage over all other operating systems.
I do have to say that this was a fun video to make. I put Cortana next to Siri. We have two Photos apps, one of which pulls photos from OneDrive and one of which pulls photos from iCloud.
The main point of the video was to see if Windows 10 Mobile/Windows Phone has yet caught up with iOS. After all, while Windows Phone has always been great in concept, it has always been lacking some very basic and key features, some of which I discuss here.
It’s a long video, and I apologize for that. I go pretty in-depth on certain things. It’s not entirely impossible that I’ll do a comparison again except with a shorter version. If you want it to happen, let me know in the comments. Another thing I’m going to do next is Windows 10 for PCs (in tablet mode) vs iOS 9.
Continue reading Microsoft vs Apple part 20: Windows 10 Mobile vs iOS 9
Earlier this week, Apple released Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan Beta 6. We’re getting later in the beta cycle, so there’s not a lot that’s new. In fact, there is very little.
I showed off what’s new and I tried to do a quick walk through, we’ll call it a jog through, of Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan.
Continue reading Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan Beta 6 Walk Through
Today, Apple seeded Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan Beta 6 to developers, which means that those on the Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan Public Beta will get Public Beta 4 tomorrow.
Just like last week, there was no iOS 9, WatchOS 2, or Xcode 7 builds that shipped alongside it, making it clear that Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan and iOS are now on different release schedules. There is still no sign that the current Apple TV is supported anymore.
It’s entirely possible that Apple will be pushing Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan out earlier this year. Typically, Apple releases iOS at the same time as the iPhone in September and Mac OS at the same time as the iPad in October. iOS 9, WatchOS 2, and Xcode 7 will clearly launch alongside the iPhone 6S; however, those are all on Beta 4 (it wouldn’t surprise me if we see Beta 5 tomorrow) while Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan is on Beta 6.
Continue reading Apple Releases Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan Beta 6
Surprise! Just six days after releasing Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan Beta 4, they release El Capitan Beta 5. It certainly wasn’t a typical release, as there was no new iOS 9, WatchOS 2, or Xcode 7 Betas. In fact, Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan Beta 5 isn’t even on Apple’s developer web site just yet, so I have no release notes to show you.
For public beta testers, this means that you will most likely get Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan Public Beta 3 tomorrow. We’re getting later in the release cycle, so at this point, new builds can come at any time as it’s becoming more and more stable.
Continue reading Apple Releases Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan Beta 5, Public Beta 3 Coming Tomorrow
Being a developer, it is important to continue to learn about new languages as you are being asked to create solutions for multiple platforms. The reason why we have so many languages is because on a hardware level each CPU uses a different assembly language to run their instructions. Due to this fact not every language is able to run on every platform. For this to work you would need to have multiple companies that are able to understand these CPU differences to write compilers for the same language.
For a time, the language Java (which as owned by Sun Microsystems for a time until Oracle purchased the company) was set out to solve this problem. From 1995 through the mid 2000’s it seemed like Java was supported on almost every computer and device. That was until the iPhone come along with its first version of iOS in 2007. It wasn’t unusual that a new device didn’t have support for Java on the initial release but then Apple announced that they will never support languages like Java (http://www.iphonefaq.org/archives/9731).
The reason is because their terms of use do not allow developers to create apps that were written from interpreted code. So that means you are only able to create apps that are written in a low level language like Objective-C which create compiled programs. This was bad news for developers as there was one more language that we needed to learn.
The folks over at Google decided on using Java (although you can also use C++) to write your mobile apps for their Android operating system. Meanwhile Microsoft relies on their .NET Framework to create Windows Mobile apps which includes the Visual Basic .NET and C# languages.
By now you see the problem. If you wanted to write a mobile app for each of these platforms, you would need to learn three different language on three different frameworks. Wouldn’t it be nice if someone created a new language and would allow programmers to create apps for all of these types of devices? Well the short answer is no.
The solution to this problem has been solved for us already by the Mono group (http://www.mono-project.com/). The Mono project was started back in 2004 as an open source project to port the .NET Framework to run on Linux and Mac. This project was original independent from Microsoft but now it is being included in the latest version of its developer environment: Visual Studio 2015.
This is all possible because of Xamarin (http://xamarin.com/) which takes the ported version of the .NET Framework and uses it build apps that run on both Android and iOS devices. However it isn’t perfect. For instance, in order to create iOS apps in Visual Studio 2015 you are going to need to purchase a business account from Xamarin ($89/month) plus have access to a Mac. This will then create the compiled programs that iOS will allow to run on its devices.
Also the version of the ADK (Android Development Kit) that is included with Visual Studio 2015 isn’t the latest version so you will need to manually go out and download and configure the latest version on your machine before you are able to create Android apps. At any rate you will be prompted to log into Xamarin. You can find more information about this here: https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/features/xamarin-vs.aspx.
Not exactly plug in play, but it is still early days. Hopefully, future versions of Visual Studio will allow developers access to a more “turn key” solution for creating mobile apps in a single programming language.
