∞ Bots won't replace apps. Better apps will replace apps.
Another great piece by Dan Grover:
As I’ll explain, messenger apps’ apparent success in fulfilling such a surprising array of tasks does not owe to the triumph of “conversational UI.” What they’ve achieved can be much more instructively framed as an adept exploitation of Silicon Valley phone OS makers’ growing failure to fully serve users’ needs, particularly in other parts of the world. Chat apps have responded by evolving into “meta-platforms.” Many of the platform-like aspects they’ve taken on to plaster over gaps in the OS actually have little to do with the core chat functionality. Not only is “conversational UI” a red herring, but as we look more closely, we’ll even see places where conversational UI has breached its limits and broken down.
The reason why bots is a thing now is, the companies, who don't own a platform, want it to be. And they missed the point.
∞ Writing Great App Store Release Notes
Not as many people read these since Apple made automatic updates a thing, but some people still do, is my answer. The thing is, it doesn’t matter whether four, 40 or 40,000 people read your release notes. The people that do are the people that judge you on your attention to detail, after all, they’re interested in the fine details of your point update.
I'm one of the people who read release notes. I do not have automatic update on. Instead, I will take a look at every app's release notes before manually tap the Update All button.
However, I do not quite agree with @helloimfreddie about the good and average release notes.
I was a fan of the Medium's style. They are fun and delightful to read. Then after many experiences of reading the release notes from the Updates tab, just like reading my twitter's timeline, I actually only remembered the apps that actually listed what the update is about with simple and precise bullet points. This style also saves me a lot of time, so I'm also more likely to read them carefully next time.
Hiking Angel Island
Summary
Great view of the city on the opposite side of the ferry.
Numbers
Time: 2016.03.26, 1.87 hours
Distance: 7.0km (4.4 miles)
Route
See this Google Map for more details.
Photos
Skyline Ridge Open Space Preserve
Summary
Fantastic tree moss, two ponds.
Numbers
Time: 2016.01.30, 1.9 hours
Distance: 5.5km (3.4 miles)
Route
See this Google Map for more details.
Photos
A wave of 5-star VRPlanetDefense reviews
I wasn't paying attention to VRPlanetDefense during the holidays as I was on vacation. One day I was just curious about how it was doing during Christmas, and I saw a great boost:
VR Planet Defense Daily Units Sold
What I am more happy with are all the following 5-star reviews.
From Spamalicious2014:
Wow. The most fun you can have with your pants on! 💟
From Schickmeister:
Intuitive game play prefect for the medium, cute graphics and music. This could be a VR classic.
From TexanReviewrr:
Best. Probably the best VR game out there It has amazing Graffics and awesome gameplay even my grandpa plays this game!
From Corndogl337:
Great little game. And works awesome for cardboard. This is a must download for people just getting into VR and Google cardboard. It's simple, fun, intuitive. Most other 3rd party VR apps are not as put together.
Rancho San Antonio County Park
Summary
Great during winter season. Lots of trail options. Wildcat loop trail is my favorite.
Numbers
Time: 2015.12.06, 2 hours
Distance: 7km (4.4 miles)
Route
Counter clockwise, the darker red portion was manually added as I forgot to log. See this Google Map for more details.
Photos
∞ 10000 UPDATE() CALLS
Instead, the first time a MonoBehaviour of a given type is accessed the underlying script is inspected through scripting runtime (either Mono or IL2CPP) whether it has any magic methods defined and this information is cached. If a MonoBehaviour has a specific method it is added to a proper list, for example if a script has Update method defined it is added to a list of scripts which need to be updated every frame.
During the game Unity just iterates through these lists and executes methods from it — that simple. Also, this is why it doesn’t matter if your Update method is public or private.
Great in-depth technical post about how Unity's messaging system works.
Take on projects to improve skills
I have been wanting to improve my photography skills for a while. I'm not becoming a professional photographer. I just want to take better photos.
A few weeks back, I created a Photography project under DoleeArts. I hope to learn more about photography through the life time of this project. However, I did not take any photos under that project at all. I actually don't know what kind of photos I should take. I simply don't know where to start.
The more I think about this, the less sense the Photography project makes. Photography is not a project. It is a skill. Just like, programming is not a project, programming is a skill. I will never declare a project called Programming to become a better programmer. Instead, I have many projects that involve programming. Through those projects, I am becoming a better programmer.
That leads me to think, to take better photos, I should take on projects like 128 portraits of programmers. I should take photos to document my Yard project. I should take reference pictures of interesting objects and add them to my next game.
Similar to the deleted project Photography, I have the Paper project dedicated to improve my writing skills, Pencil project dedicated to improve my drawing and painting skills, and Polygon project dedicated to improve my CG skills. They all make less sense to me now. They should be all embedded in my other projects. I should write journal for Yard, sketch characters and develop 3D worlds for Steady Drop. I should have a GameReviews project and move my game reviews there.
So to conclude for DoleeArts: Paper, Pencil, and Polygon are going away. The journal entries will be moved to other existing or newly created projects. Also, I’m glad that the project names are not included in the permalinks of Journal entries from the beginning.
$200 of Quarters
Me went to the bank.
Me: “Hi, I need quarters :)”
Bank Representative: “How much?”
Me: “Two hundred dollars. O.O”
BR: “Not, like, twenty?”
Me: “No. :)”
BR: “Two hundred coins of quarters?”
Me: “No. Two hundred dollars :)”
BR: “Okay. Do you bring a bag with you? I think it’s gonna be heavy.”
Me: “Yes :)”
After everything is done:
BR: “Well, have a nice work out!”
Me: “Thanks, that’s an expensive work out :)”
"Not closing your apps will kill your iPhone”
Today, I was told by an Apple Store representative that, I have to close my apps in the background time to time otherwise it will run out of memory and die. I was like:
Here is the story. My iPhone 6s was suddenly “dead” this morning. I couldn’t turn it on. If I put my finger on the home button, it gets really really hot really quickly. The exactly same thing happened a few weeks ago, although it magically healed itself a few days later when I recharged the empty battery.
I went to the Apple Store, told them I couldn’t turn my phone on. The first thing they did after taking my phone is, holding both the power and home button for a few seconds. And... they turned it on again. Immediately after that, they doubled pressed the home button, and started closing my background apps. While they were doing this, they told me I had too many apps in the background so my phone would run out of memory, and, I should close the apps next time.
Yeah. All those time that we are telling everybody closing your apps in iOS would worsen your battery life, NOT doing that would actually kill your phone.
I was mad. I was actually planning to buy an iPad Pro on the way to the store. But I was so maaaaad that I completely forgot this thing.
I simply don’t accept this answer. Why that never happened to me before on any other iPhone? What's happening to the burning home button? Come on Apple, this should be a serious bug in your damn operating system.