IOS Upgrades and Cocos2D

I've started converting some of my iphone ideas to cocos2d. I'm hoping that they will be simple enough to make the transition quick and painless. Of course we all know that converting stuff to objective C is never painless.

So far I have a couple of solid projects to do but, I'm starting with a few nice casino style games.

Yadddaaaaaaa!

Time to re-equip! Part 2.

I've done the deed at last and have re-equipped with a nice 128gb macbook air 11. It turns out to be ideal for mobile development as it's reasonably fast and once I'd installed xcode, was a dream to use.

The screen resolution is great. I didn't realise that it was so much higher than the standard macbook 13.

So now the macbook pro is relegated to the desktop, where it's plugged into a 1920 * 1080 display and acts as my general flash dev machine. The air is now my road companion and my ios and android app dev machine.

If anyone is on the fence about these little beauties I would say get one if you want an ultra portable office. I now have my reference library on my ipad. I can carry both for pretty much the same weight as carrying just the 13 inch macbook pro!

My productivity has gone through the roof!

Time to re-equip!

Apple have decided to update their laptops again and, while my Macbook is still going strong, I'm starting to tire of the weight of the 13 inch marvel.

I had hoped that the new 13 inch macbook pro would follow the new air's design and be a slim, light but, powerful piece of kit. Instead they seem to have only shaved a slight amount off the weight while adding features that simply don't interest me at all.

I guess I'm going to get an air 11 after all.

As for the macbook. I'm going to relegate it to the desktop and simply plug it into a monitor. It can then act as a desktop dev machine while the air becomes my traveling companion. After all I seem to do most of my best work while watching life go by in a starbucks.

This independent thingy is hard!

Ok so I’m now creating games for myself and looking to subsidise my income with contract work. It’s looking ok so far, though the knots in my stomach don’t seem to want to go away just yet.

It’s all about getting those first few products out there. Once you do that, you are a real indie developer and can then start planning things around that.

Currently I’m using unity to create my masterpieces. It’s a good engine, though they recently stiched everyone who bought the basic license by suddenly making the latest version free and they have a really stupid sales policy whereby you need to but a totally unrelated product in order to even be allowed to get the iphone advanced license. Needless to say I’m not using their iphone advanced license at this time. It wouldn’t even be so bad except that the iphone stuff is 100% independent of the other stuff so why the heck do you need to buy the other stuff at all!

Sometimes companies can be rediculously stupid. Anywho back to the coding.

Leaving the old behind

I always keep feeling that I really should keep this blog updated more regularly. Well now it looks like I may be getting the time to do so. Thanks to circumstances beyond my control, I am being made redundant. My old job involved working from home and they now want me to move up to manchester. Needless to say I declined the offer.

So here I am going through the motions as they make me redundant and I finally have to go look for another job.

Even though times are hard in the economic sense, I am viewing this as a possitive thing. The guy I was working with in Manchester really didn't have much of a clue about good development practices and pretty much seems to have been passing off my work as his own anyway. I'm going to spend some time getting an iPhone portfolio going and looking for a new job. It's scary but, life needs a shake up every now and again. I think I was getting complacent and starting to stagnate. This move forces me to start thinking again.

So here is to new things. To better things and to the future, whatever it holds :)