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Frustrated with just iCloud? No I'd go further. I'm frustrated with the whole iOS platform. It's like writing an app in the 1990s. Sure it works. But it's painf

Frustrated with just iCloud? No I'd go further. I'm frustrated with the whole iOS platform. It's like writing an app in the 1990s. Sure it works. But it's painful as hell. So much so that I've decided this latest project on iOS was probably my last unless something big changes. And just for the record I have a few flagship apps in the app store with millions of active users and I've worked quite extensively with the platform. So it wasn't a case of trying it and then giving up in frustration. It's more like watching your peers blow past you because your toolset is from yesterday and their's is from tomorrow.

jawngee 14y ago
And just for the record I have a few flagship apps in the app store with millions of active users Source please. because your toolset is from yesterday and their's is from tomorrow This is why I don't believe your first point without sources to verify. Eclipse+Android SDK is hardly from tomorrow. Windows 8 possibly. What else does that leave? Nada.
- ianstallings 14y ago
  Oh okay so because I think the toolset is crap you want to call me out. No problem. Here's two that have over a million users below. Oprah Magazine (1M+ subscribers): https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/o-oprah-magazine-archive-dec/id573221573?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/o-oprah-magazine-archive-dec... Esquire Magazine (1M+ subscribers): https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/esquire-magazine/id433020707?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/esquire-magazine/id433020707... Those are just two that I have built. I have an enterprise platform that I architected from the ground up that companies like pfizer use for it's whole workforce. I have ones written for Disney, Hearst, GE, MaryKay, Hallmark, Sesame Street, etc, etc. The one I'm building now is ready to scale to ~5M users right out of the gate and I believe we will succeed. Now put your apps up and let me pick through them and tell you why you're wrong because I just don't believe your work is credible.
  - druiid 14y ago
    Hey man, not sure how worried about your info getting out there, but generally when people troll for 'proof' here I ignore it. Essentially it's just one more avenue for people to use against you, especially in regards to linking a name/identity to work and I generally (personally) try to keep them separate. Your choice, just something to think about... also, don't feed the trolls etc ;)
    - ianstallings 14y ago
      A valid point I'll have to keep in mind next time. I do use my real name here. I should probably think about changing that.
      - zoul 14y ago
        What’s wrong about being a real person with opinions? That is, unless you behave like an idiot, which is certainly not the case here.
- qdog 14y ago
  Maybe he means Ubuntu for mobile? I kid, I kid! Having started working on Android recently, if Android is tomorrow, the future sure is dystopian.
zoul 14y ago
This sounds unfair. I have been developing for the platform right from the start and I am very happy about the whole toolchain. My only real gripes are with the review process, nothing else. (I have never used iCloud as a developer, so I can’t comment on that.)
JonnieCache 14y ago
What is this toolset of tomorrow your peers are using to blow past you, if you don't mind me asking?
- ianstallings 14y ago
  I mainly mean my web-developer peers. Their toolsets are moving so rapidly that I see them surpassing us in the next 2-3 years unless we make some huge improvements. Just my opinion.
  - mahyarm 14y ago
    Which toolsets do you feel are the most exemplary of this?
  - snowwrestler 14y ago
    I'm not a developer, but I'm finding this conversation very interesting given the original concept for iPhone apps was to have web apps only.
  - zoul 14y ago
    Web development is quite a different beast. There’s huge amount of life and struggle in the ecosystem, but only a fraction of that pushes the platform forward. I am relieved every time I move from some web development work back to plain, sane Cocoa APIs.
- potatolicious 14y ago
  I'm not OP, but one key complaint I have is that there isn't much in the way of testing. Unit tests are somewhat well-developed, integration testing is a complete mess. Much of the iOS community still creates software by the seat-of-your-pants model (i.e., write code, boot it up, does it look like it works? ship it). Engineering rigor is still a concept relatively foreign to iOS, and it shows. Apple has little-to-no built in support for anything that smells like TDD. When you're talking to your server-side peers who have good test coverage, good regression testing, and more generally just sound engineering processes, you can't help but get bit jealous.
vor_ 14y ago
I haven't yet shipped an iOS app, but I do have a couple of Cocoa apps, one of which I'm porting to iOS. I have to say that I'm happy with AppKit and UIKit development. Even Objective-C feels like a jewel ahead of its time, in spite of its verbosity. You don't specify what it is that makes iOS development painful or what it is about the toolsets of your peers that sets them apart. Claiming that it's like "writing an app in the 1990s" comes off like hyperbole.
coldtea 14y ago
>It's more like watching your peers blow past you because your toolset is from yesterday and their's is from tomorrow. And what would that "toolset of tomorrow" be? Surely not Android's joke offerings, or Windows 8 same old...
- ianstallings 14y ago
  HTML5 and all the surrounding technology is very exciting IMHO. They have the best tools and are quicker to adapt new techniques because of they get to work with a net (the fact that they can rollback quickly if needed). I get a little jealous when I see how quickly they can get something up and running that would take me a few days.
  - coldtea 14y ago
    Compared to Cocoa Touch? I've worked with both and I can say this is just a case of "the grass is greener". Nothing "exciting" about HTML5 and the Web for people well versed in a mobile framework. The most interesting things are re-inventions of the wheel, only more hacky and less performant. Plus, since you can use web views in your native mobile app, there's literary nothing (technologically-wise) you can achieve with HTML5 that you cannot achieve with a native framework. The inverse is not true. Anything that requires extensive collaboration with the underlying machine, low latency, ad-hoc connections to interfaces etc is not possible (you cannot write Garageband with HTML for example. And Flipboard or even Clear would have been noticeably slower). (Except the distribution method of course -- but then again, nowadays people still debate if it's all about native or it's all about the web, so that's like 50-50.)
    - ianstallings 14y ago
      Yea I tend to agree on a lot of those points. I'm currently working on a native application that does heavy AV compositing and there is no way that HTML5 solution would be as capable. Mainly the pain points are on the API and the legacy nature of it, and the surrounding crappy tools. I see cool IDEs, testing frameworks, scaffolding/bootstrapping sets and I can only be a little jealous. Sure we have our share, but it's a small slice of where the majority of effort is in the web world. My hope, crossing fingers, is that one day HTML apps will truly be able to compete across all facets and access native functionality with the same performance as native platforms. Will this ever be the case? I can only hope.
tvon 14y ago
Well, I don't really agree, but I will say that the iOS testing world has a lot of catch-up to do. Ruby developers (as an example) have much, much, much better testing tools. There is no doubt about that. The hoops you have to jump through to create acceptance tests are quite annoying, especially when you can't even test UIAlertViews, or basic things like Airplane Mode...
- stevenwei 14y ago
  I don't think that's a fair comparison. Testing GUI code has always been a lot trickier than testing backend code, and iOS apps tend to be GUI-oriented while Ruby projects tend to be backend-oriented. That's not to say that the iOS testing tools are great, but I've never had a particularly pleasant time testing GUI code on any platform.
  - cwp 14y ago
    True, Ruby doesn't usually get used for GUIs. But take a look at the Javascript and browser testing tools that are available. Is there anything like Sauce Labs for iOS?
- gurkendoktor 14y ago
  Why not jump into RubyMotion and use these testing tools? And Apple's WWDC session about acceptance tests using Instruments UI Automation specifically handles UIAlertView. I think the problem is that iOS apps are getting dumber and dumber while their UI bling gets more complicated/asynchronous. The value of tests is too low for The One Widely Accepted Testing Framework to emerge.

jawngee 14y ago

And just for the record I have a few flagship apps in the app store with millions of active users Source please. because your toolset is from yesterday and their's is from tomorrow This is why I don't believe your first point without sources to verify. Eclipse+Android SDK is hardly from tomorrow. Windows 8 possibly. What else does that leave? Nada.

ianstallings 14y ago
Oh okay so because I think the toolset is crap you want to call me out. No problem. Here's two that have over a million users below. Oprah Magazine (1M+ subscribers): https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/o-oprah-magazine-archive-dec/id573221573?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/o-oprah-magazine-archive-dec... Esquire Magazine (1M+ subscribers): https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/esquire-magazine/id433020707?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/esquire-magazine/id433020707... Those are just two that I have built. I have an enterprise platform that I architected from the ground up that companies like pfizer use for it's whole workforce. I have ones written for Disney, Hearst, GE, MaryKay, Hallmark, Sesame Street, etc, etc. The one I'm building now is ready to scale to ~5M users right out of the gate and I believe we will succeed. Now put your apps up and let me pick through them and tell you why you're wrong because I just don't believe your work is credible.
- druiid 14y ago
  Hey man, not sure how worried about your info getting out there, but generally when people troll for 'proof' here I ignore it. Essentially it's just one more avenue for people to use against you, especially in regards to linking a name/identity to work and I generally (personally) try to keep them separate. Your choice, just something to think about... also, don't feed the trolls etc ;)
  - ianstallings 14y ago
    A valid point I'll have to keep in mind next time. I do use my real name here. I should probably think about changing that.
    - zoul 14y ago
      What’s wrong about being a real person with opinions? That is, unless you behave like an idiot, which is certainly not the case here.
qdog 14y ago
Maybe he means Ubuntu for mobile? I kid, I kid! Having started working on Android recently, if Android is tomorrow, the future sure is dystopian.

zoul 14y ago

This sounds unfair. I have been developing for the platform right from the start and I am very happy about the whole toolchain. My only real gripes are with the review process, nothing else. (I have never used iCloud as a developer, so I can’t comment on that.)

JonnieCache 14y ago

What is this toolset of tomorrow your peers are using to blow past you, if you don't mind me asking?

ianstallings 14y ago
I mainly mean my web-developer peers. Their toolsets are moving so rapidly that I see them surpassing us in the next 2-3 years unless we make some huge improvements. Just my opinion.
- mahyarm 14y ago
  Which toolsets do you feel are the most exemplary of this?
- snowwrestler 14y ago
  I'm not a developer, but I'm finding this conversation very interesting given the original concept for iPhone apps was to have web apps only.
- zoul 14y ago
  Web development is quite a different beast. There’s huge amount of life and struggle in the ecosystem, but only a fraction of that pushes the platform forward. I am relieved every time I move from some web development work back to plain, sane Cocoa APIs.
potatolicious 14y ago
I'm not OP, but one key complaint I have is that there isn't much in the way of testing. Unit tests are somewhat well-developed, integration testing is a complete mess. Much of the iOS community still creates software by the seat-of-your-pants model (i.e., write code, boot it up, does it look like it works? ship it). Engineering rigor is still a concept relatively foreign to iOS, and it shows. Apple has little-to-no built in support for anything that smells like TDD. When you're talking to your server-side peers who have good test coverage, good regression testing, and more generally just sound engineering processes, you can't help but get bit jealous.

vor_ 14y ago

I haven't yet shipped an iOS app, but I do have a couple of Cocoa apps, one of which I'm porting to iOS. I have to say that I'm happy with AppKit and UIKit development. Even Objective-C feels like a jewel ahead of its time, in spite of its verbosity. You don't specify what it is that makes iOS development painful or what it is about the toolsets of your peers that sets them apart. Claiming that it's like "writing an app in the 1990s" comes off like hyperbole.

coldtea 14y ago

>It's more like watching your peers blow past you because your toolset is from yesterday and their's is from tomorrow. And what would that "toolset of tomorrow" be? Surely not Android's joke offerings, or Windows 8 same old...

ianstallings 14y ago
HTML5 and all the surrounding technology is very exciting IMHO. They have the best tools and are quicker to adapt new techniques because of they get to work with a net (the fact that they can rollback quickly if needed). I get a little jealous when I see how quickly they can get something up and running that would take me a few days.
- coldtea 14y ago
  Compared to Cocoa Touch? I've worked with both and I can say this is just a case of "the grass is greener". Nothing "exciting" about HTML5 and the Web for people well versed in a mobile framework. The most interesting things are re-inventions of the wheel, only more hacky and less performant. Plus, since you can use web views in your native mobile app, there's literary nothing (technologically-wise) you can achieve with HTML5 that you cannot achieve with a native framework. The inverse is not true. Anything that requires extensive collaboration with the underlying machine, low latency, ad-hoc connections to interfaces etc is not possible (you cannot write Garageband with HTML for example. And Flipboard or even Clear would have been noticeably slower). (Except the distribution method of course -- but then again, nowadays people still debate if it's all about native or it's all about the web, so that's like 50-50.)
  - ianstallings 14y ago
    Yea I tend to agree on a lot of those points. I'm currently working on a native application that does heavy AV compositing and there is no way that HTML5 solution would be as capable. Mainly the pain points are on the API and the legacy nature of it, and the surrounding crappy tools. I see cool IDEs, testing frameworks, scaffolding/bootstrapping sets and I can only be a little jealous. Sure we have our share, but it's a small slice of where the majority of effort is in the web world. My hope, crossing fingers, is that one day HTML apps will truly be able to compete across all facets and access native functionality with the same performance as native platforms. Will this ever be the case? I can only hope.

tvon 14y ago

Well, I don't really agree, but I will say that the iOS testing world has a lot of catch-up to do. Ruby developers (as an example) have much, much, much better testing tools. There is no doubt about that. The hoops you have to jump through to create acceptance tests are quite annoying, especially when you can't even test UIAlertViews, or basic things like Airplane Mode...

stevenwei 14y ago
I don't think that's a fair comparison. Testing GUI code has always been a lot trickier than testing backend code, and iOS apps tend to be GUI-oriented while Ruby projects tend to be backend-oriented. That's not to say that the iOS testing tools are great, but I've never had a particularly pleasant time testing GUI code on any platform.
- cwp 14y ago
  True, Ruby doesn't usually get used for GUIs. But take a look at the Javascript and browser testing tools that are available. Is there anything like Sauce Labs for iOS?
gurkendoktor 14y ago
Why not jump into RubyMotion and use these testing tools? And Apple's WWDC session about acceptance tests using Instruments UI Automation specifically handles UIAlertView. I think the problem is that iOS apps are getting dumber and dumber while their UI bling gets more complicated/asynchronous. The value of tests is too low for The One Widely Accepted Testing Framework to emerge.