360|iDev

Did you know how I got started in iOS development? At a iOS workshop at Devoxx, a java conference. I have always wanted to learn about iOS, so I went to the workshop, and from there I went on to publish my first iOS app, Heart Collage.

A few months after I published Heart Collage, I saw the call for speakers for 360|iDev, an iOS conference. Thinking about my experience at Devoxx, I decided to submit an introduction to Android session. And it was accepted!

Intro to Android for iOS developers

Intro to Android for iOS developers from Chiu-Ki Chan

It was quite challenging to condense the vast sea of Android knowledge into a 50-minute talk, so I focussed on providing a framework for people to explore further. I mapped parallel concepts between iOS and Android to quickly get people up to speed, and then went on to explain two aspects that are rather different on Android: layouts and intents.

I was a little bit worried to be an Android developer among an iOS crowd, but people were super friendly, and my session was very well attended. For the rest of the conference I kept sitting next to people who were at my session, and they said they enjoyed it a lot, gaining an appreciation for the Android platform. This makes me very happy, to help break down the artificial segregation of technologies.

iOS talks

I went to many different talks, soaking up as much iOS knowledge as I can. I learned about custom controls, computer vision, auto layout, UIKit Dynamics, the Objective-C runtime etc etc. Some of it totally went over my head (method swizzling I'm looking at you), but I walked away with lots of concrete knowledge, and got so excited that I played with it right away, at Game Jam.

Game Jam

On Tuesday night there was Game Jam, for people to get together and write games. Initially I wasn't going to participate, but after going to the computer vision talk, I decided to see if I can implement the prototype of a game idea that I had for a while: Color Hunt.

Color Hunt randomly generates a color for you to find it with the camera. For the longest time I thought I needed some complex algorithm to compare colors, and then I saw the Rubik's Cube solver example from the computer vision talk, which uses hue for color detection. So I took the camera code from Heart Collage, grabbed the pixels in the middle of the screen, extracted the hue value and compared it to the target color. It worked!

Community

I had a great time at 360|iDev. The organizers, John and Nicole Wilker, put in a lot of effects to foster the community. The quality of the talks were very high, but more importantly there was a lot of opportunities to mingle with everybody, at lunch, at the evening receptions, at game jam. I have met many people that I know I will keep in touch with, and that is the best part of conferences. On top of that I also came home with a prototype for my game! How awesome is that?