Voices That Matter: iOS Developers Conference: Fall 2011, Complete Download

Lesson 1

Voices That Matter: iOS Developers Conference Session: Power to the People

In this talk, Aaron Hillegass duscusses how mobile technology is the next natural step in the increasing ubiquity of computers and networks. The talkaddresses such questions as "When does technology empower the individual and when does it empower our corporate overlords?" "Why should everyone learn to code?" "When is progress not progress?"

Conference attendees said this about the session:

• Hugely inspirational from someone in our industry who’s “seen it all”.
• Lively conversation about such a heavy topic at such an early hour.  Great presentation skills.
• Loved the talk. The most useful advice for Indy Developers I have had the fortune to hear.

Duration: 00:42:25  File Size: 683 MB

Lesson 2

Voices That Matter: iOS Developers Conference Session: Automatic Reference Counting

Automatic Reference Counting is Apple's latest addition to Objective-C and promises to greatly reduce programmer workload and the potential for error by automating memory management. ARC represents a middle ground between manual memory management and fully automatic garbage collection, and aims to help out programmers at minimal cost to battery life and performance. This session discusses how ARC fits into the big picture of memory management and garbage collection, and presents lots of practical information on how to best take advantage of ARC when writing apps.

Attendees at the conference said:

• Mike Ash really knows his stuff.  He is able to get into very specific detail and answer very difficult questions.  Many other presenters referenced his writing.
• Loved hardcore explanation of memory & garbage collection. AMAZING!
• Awesome depth & useful breadth.

Duration: 01:07:01  File Size: 656 MB

Lesson 3

Voices That Matter: iOS Developers Conference Session: Thinking Beyond the Screen: New Interfaces and Augmented Reality

It used to be point-and-click. Now it's multitouch and thumb-type. But as far as we've come, some interfaces still feel extremely clunky and unsatisfying. What comes next? This session takes a look at how we can start to go beyond multitouch by using other sensors -- especially the gyroscope and the camera -- to enable totally new user experiences. You'll learn how to build a better undo feature using the Gyroscope via DeviceMotion. You'll see how to build a 3D interface using augmented reality to create a bigger virtual workspace that exceeds an iPad, but all within the confines of an iPhone screen. You'll leave with a glimpse of the future of mobile interfaces that have evolved further away from the desktop paradigm into something entirely mobile, natural, and spatial.

Conference attendees had this to say about the session:

• Easily the best session of the day.
• Happy that Jeff focused on specific example of Core Motion---topic lends itself to a lot of hand waving.
• Excellent, fantastic, brilliant.  Thoroughly enjoyed the presentation great speaker.

Duration: 00:53:42  File Size: 566 MB

Lesson 4

Voices That Matter: iOS Developers Conference Session: Getting the Most Out of Cocos2D: Performance Tips and Tricks

Game development is full of creativity and fun. Trying to figure out why your game slows to a crawl on a new iPhone is not. In this session you will learn some of the common performance killers in game development with Cocos2D and how to solve them. You will start with a quick overview of Cocos2D, some basics on the framework internals, and then dive into examples to build up your skills in cranking your game performance up to 11. In the first part of the session you will learn the top 10 tips and tricks to getting the most performance out of Cocos2D, and then dive into live examples of using Instruments to isolate performance bottlenecks in your own games. Anyone with basic iPhone and Objective-C experience can follow along; some beginner level exposure to Cocos2D would be helpful but not required.

Conference attendees said this about the session:

• Best presentation all day.
• Rod, you really know your stuff.  Thanks!
• Rod’s talk was a lot of fun and firmly grounded in DEMONSTRABLE theory.

Duration: 00:50:00  File Size: 216 MB

Lesson 6

Voices That Matter: iOS Developers Conference Panel: UI Master Crit

We asked for four brave souls to present their application's user interface for a critique. They faced the ultimate review panel whose job it was to provide advice on how to improve each UI. This panel was all about the UI, not about the functionality of the app itself. You can learn how to enhance the user's experience from our august panel of experts. The panel members are Bill Van Hecke, who is the user experience lead at Omni Group; Graeme Devine, well known game designer and Jason Festa, Creative Director at Disney Mobile.

Duration: 01:10:54  File Size: 1 GB

Lesson 7

Voices That Matter: iOS Developers Conference Session: Social Gaming is DEAD

Everyone on the planet is rushing to add a social element to their game, picture app, music app, whatever app. Our widely held view of acceptable application development has narrowed to freemium social games that have to monetize. Somewhere along the way we forgot that games should be fun experiences and we became analysts. Graeme's session is about the pitfalls of glossing over the illusion games conjure and the need to focus on a fun engaging game design before we ruin gamers and mobile games forever and ever. Graeme will dissect successful game strategies that offer alternatives to social monetization games, remembering that the biggest game of 2010 had no social elements whatsoever. Along the way, Graeme will try persuade you that as soon as your user sees your app as nothing more than numbers that this bubble will pop and even billions of acres of virtual farmland will not feed your family in the real world.

Conference attendees said this about the session:

• Grame is quite funny and engaging. He started off the morning on a great foot.  His topic can be applied to more than gaming.
• Ultimately inspiring and insightful.  A dynamite speaker.
• Great energy!  Interesting content that addressed points not often considered by designers/developers.

Duration: 00:45:32  File Size: 725 MB

Lesson 9

Voices That Matter: iOS Developers Conference Session: From Mac to iPhone to iPad (And Back)

Bringing an application from the desktop to a touch device, or vice versa, is never simple. You must reconsider every last interaction from scratch. But the underlying data, and the user's mental model, need to remain the same. Learn how the team at Omni Group brought our full-featured Mac productivity apps to iPhone and iPad, and made them feel like they were meant to be there all along. And even better, hear about the lessons we learned on iOS and that we are now bringing back to the desktop.

Conference attendees said about this session:

• This was really inspiring material.  Bill showed a humanistic view which can often get missed and he is an excellent speaker.
• Excellent all around.  The philosophical stuff was not only interesting but easily transferred back to practicality.  I can see why Bill is consistently highly rated.

Duration: 00:59:48  File Size: 451 MB

Lesson 10

Voices That Matter: iOS Developers Conference Session: Let the Inmates Come Out and Play!: Designing a Creative Process for iOS Development

Apart from pro apps, very small engineering teams, some with no design input at all, usually handle all aspects of iOS development. Jason Festa shares some of challenges he has faced when building out creative teams within an iOS engineering group. In this session, Jason will address questions such as: ~ How can a designer help define the product? ~ What are the differences between game design, user experience, user interface, product design and so on? ~ How do you know it’s time to hire a designer? Jason also explains a process that gives engineers and executive level product owners the ability to discuss, challenge, and interact with prototypes before engineers are assigned to write any code.

Conference attendees said this about the session:

• A nice overview of design roles.
• Presenter had good knowledge and experience to share.
• Another good design session on an important topic.

Duration: 00:32:37  File Size: 400 MB

Lesson 12

Voices That Matter: iOS Developers Conference Session: Beyond the Gold Rush

The App Store gold rush wasn’t really a gold rush – it’s the new How Things Are. It’s bigger than a gold rush. What does that mean? How do we developers and designers prepare for it?

Attendees at the conference said:

• Good look at history, future challenges.
• Lots of things to think about.
• Closing remarks were good.  The right kind of speaker and solid thinking. 

Duration: 00:30:26  File Size: 550 MB