I had the awesome privilege of being a guest panelist on the iPhreaks podcast talking about scalable cloud apps to back your mobile phone apps.  We talked mostly about Parse but we did also discuss a lot of new service offerings like Microsoft Azure, Simperium, and a few others.  It was fun and unscripted for sure.

http://iphreaksshow.com/021-iphreaks-show-scalable-cloud-applications-with-aaron-douglas/

Take a listen and make sure to subscribe to their podcast if you’re even remotely interested in Mac and iOS development!

At first glance this news seems awesome for consumers:

Apple offering ‘last compatible version’ of iOS apps for older hardware

Finally my old iPhone 3G can download apps that I purchased after iOS 4 became obsolete!  This should have been communicated to us as developers and the revenue channel for Apple.

Developers, on the other hand, should be ready for an onslaught of support requests they can do absolutely nothing about.  We’ve assumed, since the beginning of Apple App Store time, that old versions were not installable by devices unless they pulled a backup IPA and installed it manually.  We know this happens fairly rarely.  Some of us put checks in the app to notify users of new versions in the App Store, but did we prevent the app from functioning?  Probably not.

If we have a backend in our apps, we probably continued to support the old version for a while by versioning the API calls.  Most likely iOS 4 is not even something we test against our API.  Now imagine users turning on old devices and installing an ancient version of your app.  Do we expect it to work?  We knew that this was a scenario but now that Apple is allowing downloads of an old version it implies we as developers support that version.  We really need the ability to issue point releases for a particular older OS if this is to be a viable option for users.  Up until now we’ve been told to abandon old iOS versions fairly quickly.

Hopefully Apple communicates this change to us formally and gives us the tools to prevent bad app reviews and an onslaught of support requests we can’t do anything about.

I gave a talk today at That Conference in Wisconsin Dells, WI USA.  I’m posting my slides here so that others who didn’t have the chance to go can peruse them.  Hit me up with any questions or if you’d like to have audio to go with it.  I’d have to record it, but would love to do so if there is a desire.

Cheers!

GitHub: https://github.com/astralbodies/CoreDataRabbitHole

[slideshare id=25224548&style=max-width: 427px; border: 1px solid #CCC; border-width: 1px 1px 0; margin-bottom: 5px;&sc=no]

I had an excellent weekend at CocoaConf Chicago meeting interesting people and reconnecting with many as well.

One of the subjects that was brought up in Brittany Tarvin’s Friday Keynote talk was that of women in the technology field. I had the pleasure of meeting Brittany at SecondConf and it was great to see her challenge to encourage women (and girls) to be software engineers brought to CocoaConf. Her talk stirred a lot of discussion, especially in the reverse panel discussion Saturday. The overwhelmingly positive response to her message was inspiring. Nowhere before have I experienced such open-minded discussions and outright admittance that we can all do more for women and other minorities in the tech field.

I talked with a Brittany at SecondConf about the topic of the disadvantages women have when dealing with a white male dominated field. I admitted to her that I have similar experiences being gay and working for companies that have a “brogrammer” type of atmosphere. I left one job because I felt there was no way I could be open about myself there. The job had the typical “brogrammer” atmosphere – mostly if not all male development staff, a good majority right out of college, discussions of a sexual nature, and pressure to conform ever-present. The job became too much when I worked on-site at a client install for nearly a month. Discussions of going to “titty bars” and frequent use of the word fag and gay topped my list of offensive remarks.

I’m usually the type of person who lets things slide, opting for a neutral reaction. Instead of trying to fix everything at the company, I left. My current employer has been fantastic, and I feel no need to have to hide who I am. I am certainly more productive and my coworkers see me as a part of the team. I’m by nature an outgoing person (you can thank my mom the social butterfly) – so being the “shy” one at the more conservative company should have been a flag to myself.

Geeks need to be more empathetic and understand that not everyone thinks the same way. Parents need to encourage their children to do what they want to do and not limit them to things that are pink if they’re girls and blue if they’re boys. When you’re at work, don’t make assumptions that just because you work with someone means that you understand them completely. We all are unique people and we all have beliefs and emotions. I’m not asking for you to accept these emotions and beliefs, but just respect that they are there and try to work together.

I encourage you to get involved in school outreach programs to teach children about technology. Open their minds at a young age and enforce the idea that we all can be what we want to be. Gender/race/sexual orientation bias is not acceptable in this day and age.

Simply put: Quit being a dick.

Please check out Brittany’s work at Tumblr and Twitter. Check out Brittany’s employer Fading Red whom also actively supports her.