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Touch ID with Swift

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Touch ID will allow you to add a layer of privacy to your app that was previously unavailable.

By requiring the user to authenticate who they are with their fingerprint you can limit access to certain data, or the entire app.

We€™ll make a simple demo that will present an initial view and after the user has “authenticated”, we will move to another view.

Start with a new project, single view application, Swift language, Universal target.

With the project open and the storyboard displayed, click on the view controller and from the EDITOR menu select EMBED IN and choose NAVIGATION CONTROLLER.

embedNav [Read more…]

Enabling Size Classes in Xcode

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Working with Size Classes in Xcode 6

Making universal apps just became a lot easier with Apples introduction of size classes. Don€™t be confused by the name. €œSize Classes€ is a misnomer. It€™s confusing because there are no classes involved in the way we€™ve been taught about €œclasses€.

You will not end up with a Swift class file for the iPad or iPhone. The tool Apple has introduced should be called €œDevice Designer€, €œSize Layout Tool€, or something along the lines of €œDevice Morphing Layout Design Tool€.

The concept is that during app creation, we get a crude representation of the project into the Storyboard, not worrying about the exact spacing or sizing of objects. Once the general design of the app is complete, then we can begin sizing it for specific devices. [Read more…]

Location Authorization in iOS 8

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Apple has gone the extra mile to make sure the user is explicitly granting your app permission to use the iPhone location services. There are just a few simple steps to go through to get your app setup correctly.

First, add two keys to your info-plist. These are case sensitive and do not appear as a standard entry that you can select. Add both keys so you later have the option of calling either one. Make sure everything is spelled correctly and has the correct “camel case”, otherwise the request for authorization will be ignored.

NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription
NSLocationAlwaysUsageDescription

infop [Read more…]

Localization in Xcode 6 – Tutorial

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Your app is available around the world, but you’ve only made your app in the English language? You want to offer your app in the native language of ever user… but how?

Apple has 150 App Stores around the world with hundreds of millions of users. If your goal is to get as many downloads as possible, then make it available in every supported language (there are 40!!!). Maximize your apps potential via localization!

Localization is the ability of your app to display text, images, sounds, and numeric formats(dates and numbers), in the users device language. Localization should be standard practice in all apps, but prior to Xcode 6 it was quite a bit of work.

Apple has gone out of their way to simplify this process and after reading this demo I think you’ll be amazed. Xcode 6 makes localization a “pas sorcier”, or “no brainer”. [Read more…]

Swift Action – UIAlertController

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UIAlert and UIActionSheet have been replaced by UIActionViewController which now handles both.

To demonstrate both in one example I’ll make a short little tutorial showing how to fire an AlertView and also how to bring up an ActionSheet with options.

Start with a new project, single view application, Click NEXT. Select (language)Swift, (device)iPhone, and Save wherever you wish.

swiftNewProj [Read more…]

Targeted Social Sharing using the Social Framework – Tutorial

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This will build off social sharing using UIActivityViewController. If you have not viewed that tutorial you can jump to it here. Or download the project file from where the last tutorial ended. ShareDemo.

The steps to implement intentional sharing to one service are as follows:

– Add the Social Framework to the project
– Import the framework into the header file
– Add buttons for the social types we want to post to.
– Create a method to invoke sharing to the specified service type. [Read more…]

Social Sharing using UIActivityViewController

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ShareScreenApple makes it incredibly easy to add social sharing to your app.  There are at least two ways to do this.

The first calls on the UIActivityViewController which has some built-in, behind the scenes magic. It is extremely simple and does not use a Framework.

UIActivityViewController will bring up any available sharing mechanism on the users phone.  For example when the share button is touched, a view slides up with the available places to share.  Mail, Messaging, Print, Photo Album etc.  If the user has the Twitter or Facebook app on their phone, those icons will be presented as well.

The second way is using the Framework €œSocial€  The Social Framework allows you to target specific social outlets supported by the framework.

In Xcode 6 the available outlets are:

SLServiceTypeFacebook;
SLServiceTypeTwitter;
SLServiceTypeSinaWeibo;
SLServiceTypeLinkedIn;
SLServiceTypeTencentWeibo; [Read more…]

UIKitDynamics Sliding Menu Tutorial for iOS

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This tutorial will focus on a Sliding Menu and implementing effects on the menu using UIKitDynamics.

UIKit Dynamics brings real world physics to objects in your app.  Objects in your app like a button, an image, a table, etc. can have physics behaviors applied to them.

Used in moderation the practical application of these elements will add some polish to your app project.

UIKit Dynamics is made up of four elements;

1.   A Dynamic animator
2.   Dynamic behaviors(Attachment,Snap,Gravity,Collision,Push)
3.   Dynamic behavior items (Allows customization of properties used in the behaviors)
4.   A reference view

The Dynamic Animator groups and manages behaviors as well as the interactions on the reference view.  The animator uses the reference view as the coordinate system to calculate the output of behaviors. [Read more…]

Adding the Parallax Effect with UIInterpolatingMotionEffect – Tutorial

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The motion effect applied to the background of your iphone is accomplished using the UIInterpolatingMotionEffect. This is a very subtle effect that simply moves an object, in this case a UIImage, along the X and Y Axis€™ And while it doesn€™t have to be both the X and Y axis, moving the object along both will produce the wonderful parallax effect.

To begin with create an image which is larger than the view. In this case I€™ll make my image 704 X 1250 for the @2x version and 352 X 625 for the 1x version. Choose or create an image with some detail so that the movement is noticeable. If you do not have an image to hand, you can find the necessary images in the project which is linked to at the bottom of this post. Your 1x version should be named in the format of image.png and the 2x version should be called [email protected]. [Read more…]