Click the link for the new newsletter here.

Hello Everyone, this  is Steve and welcome back. My apologies for my cold, which has me not as upbeat as usual.

I’d like to start  this week with thank you for those of you who already subscribed to the new newsletter. I’m hoping you are enjoying the new look. I have more work to do, but it is beginning to take shape. I have a lot of identity things I’ll be changing, and updating a lot more on the sites.

For those of you who haven’t heard the news, I’m moving the newsletter.  There’s several reasons for it, most of all I want a better style than what I’ve been producing so far. I’m also trying to consolidate the podcast and the newsletter so I have only this and a lesson post to write every week.

Between now and November 7 I’ll be posting on this newsletter, the podcast and the new newsletter. After November 7, I’m dropping the old version for the new one. If you want to continue your subscription after November 7 click the link here. I also have an updated link on the makeapppie website.  Please subscribe to the new improved newsletter. I really think it will be worth it.

Book Progress

Let’s move on to the book progress. I know a lot of people want to know if I’m updating the books and when they will be ready. Starting this week, I’ll keep you updated on the book progress for the two titles out and the new one coming after that, probably January.

I’m sure most of you have heard me talk about this before, but for those that don’t know, let me explain a little about the eBook business and the problems of updating books. From my perspective there are two big publishing platforms: Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s iBooks. The advantage of a big platform compared to some of the more independent platforms are twofold: there is a larger access to an audience where a lot of the business transactions side I don’t have to deal with — VAT and such they do for me. They also have all the trade agreements in place to sell stuff — I don’t have to know anything about international trade laws or eBooks.  It’s why I have been reluctant to go with more indie platforms, since all that is left to me, and that is very time consuming.

The big two however have very different philosophies towards ebook production and updating though. As far as Amazon is concerned, an eBook is just like a printed book. Any revisions mean you have to republish as a new edition. This is of course a huge pain in the posterior and while I do make money every book, I don’t feel it is fair to my readers, since Apple will change everything every year.

Apple on the other hand treats books the same way they treat updating apps. Make your changes, submit them with explanations of the changes, go through approval and the book updates everywhere, usually automatically.  I like this from a loyalty perspective, though I don’t make as much on the same people buying multiple copies.

So that’s the background.  Now to the updates:

In something I have not seen in a very long time, a post written in the same month is the #1 viewed post for September. It’s still #1 in October with a whopping 30% of the views to the site. The Size classes for Xcode 8 post is just reeling them in.  I made the decision due to that and most of the e-mail I’m getting asking about Practical Autolayout to complete that first. I’m in chapter 5 of 15 now. Chapter 4 was one of the more brutal ones, since its the one I introduce the new size class toolbar. The rest will more likely than not be different screenshots from the Xcode 7 book, and new instructions about those size class settings. It’s just a lot of screenshots — over 400. Kindle in particular is a real pain in working with images, and that usually slows me down. I made some changes in my tools that I’m hoping that will not be the case this time. I’m targeting October to finish this.

Before things got busy with Lynda.Com, I got into Chapter 4 of Swift Swift View controllers. My plan is to finish that book in November with only the Swift Changes, and additional coverage of table views.  I skipped chapter 3 in my updates. Since I know people get confused, Chapter 3 of this book is Chapters 2-9 of Practical Autolayout.

My final addition to both books will make a lot of people happy. As I promised in a recent podcast, both books will have download example files. I changed my mind about that after my Lynda.com experience, and there will be zip file with all the code available.

This Week’s Post

At the time this is hitting your inbox, this Week’s post is going live. You just heard me mention extended tableview coverage in Swift Swift View Controllers. One of those topics I cover in this week’s tutorial on Container views and using them on Table Views. You can make table view smaller than a full screen. In this week’s tutorial I show you how. The week after I’ll cover the one topic that always bothered me about the book: custom table cells.

I’ve been threatening to post the tutorial as a podcast. I haven’t due to scheduling issues. I’ve moved it back again, this time till the beginning of November when my schedule steadies.  The podcast of the tutorial will be a Thursday post.

The Tip of the Week

The tip of the week that I started last week will not be about technical issues. I’ll vary it around a bit, and this week I’m recommending a graphic novel. Kabuki:The Alchemy is the third part of a series about a former agent for the Japanese Government. Her world crashes around her and becomes a nightmare in the first two parts. She’s on the run in the third, but that story is just to add some small cohesion to the real content of the book: a treatise on creativity. It is one of the best books for thinking about all the facets of creativity, and I make it a point to read it at least once every year. The book is a bit surreal — at one point the author David Mack  sits on a plane with the protagonist Kabuki and has a long discussion about planning one’s future. Mack’s artistry is not drawing simple six panel pages. Every page is a beautiful collage of watercolor, found objects, clippings and pencil drawings, blended together in ways that will make you think. You can find the book as either Kabuki The Alchemy or as Kabuki Library Volume 3

And to finish things off, Let me add a few more notes about Lynda.com and LinkedIn Learning. Both sites should be posting my first work in early November. As soon as it clears editing, I can give you more details about it. So that I don’t get any sleep, I also signed contracts this week for four more, shorter courses for a first quarter 2017 launch.

Thanks for listening or reading this. I’ll be coming up with more stuff soon.

Keep Coding and I’ll talk to you next week.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS