Hi everybody. I’m proud to present you today the interview of Ray Wenderlich, well known for his programming tutorials blog, his books and an app company called Razeware.
I wanted to thank you Miguel Diaz Rubio for his help writing questions for this interview. Here is Ray’s interview :
- Could you present you quickly to our readers ?
I am passionate about making apps and games, and teaching others the techniques to make them. I run a popular iOS tutorial blog called www.raywenderlich.com, along with a team of over 75 authors, editors, and translators.
- You started your adventure on iOS near 2009. Why did you left your previous C/Java/Python world to start with iOS?
About that time I got married to my wife Vicki. I always wanted to start a business, and knew that was the best time – before kids came along! The App Store and iOS looked like a great opportunity for indie developers, so I dove right in.
- Mobile programming since the launch of the Apple AppStore was minimum, but now with iOS and Android something has changed and there are many developers like you, that have decided to jump into mobile development. What do you think about that?
Yes, I was kind of lucky because I got in toward the beginning. It’s a lot harder to make a successful app these days – there’s a lot more competition, and the standards are higher. Not to mention that consumers are getting more used to freemium apps/games.
However that leads in to the next question…
- What advice would you give to a new iOS developer?
Don’t expect overnight success – keep learning and growing and making apps – each one will be better than the last!
If you don’t give up and keep working at it, you will eventually succeed. Remember, it took Rovio 51 games before they made Angry Birds: http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2011/04/features/how-rovio-made-angry-birds-a-winner
- Yours is by far the most interesting blog for iOS developers. It started in 2010, why you decide to publish about iOS?
Thank you! I’ve always been interested in writing, so decided to write a blog sharing some of the things I was learning about. It started out just as my personal blog, but over the years has really grown.
- In our case, Louis-Philippe with louesfera.com (news about technology and interviews) and i with migueldiazrubio.com (iOS Development in Spanish) are single producers of our blogs, but: how do you think the things have changed since you get in your team so many professionals?
Your blogs look great, keep up the good work! I think there’s room for everybody when it comes to sharing knowledge about iOS – there’s always more cool stuff to write about and knowledge to share. I believe by working together in friendship and cooperation, everyone benefits.
- You also started with Razeware in 2010, and right know you have some awesome apps and games published on AppStore like Battle Map 2. What can you tell us about these projects?
Yep – our latest app is Battle Map 2, which is map making software for pen & paper RPG games. It was a fun project, because it involved a mix of a game framework (Cocos2D-iPhone) with heavy use of UIKit for the user interface. It also involved networking, iCloud, IAPs, and lots of other fun stuff. It took forever to write though!
- You’re a very big fan of games. Isn´t? Apple with iOS 6, and maybe more with iOS 7 (without getting in troubles with NDA stuff) is betting hard on games development. What do you think about that?
Yeah I’m a huge gamer! I was pretty excited to see the announcement of Sprite Kit in iOS 7 – I think it’s going to be a great way to get more developers interested in making games. It’s good from Apple’s perspective as well, because they’ll have more exclusive titles if people use it. :]
- Right now, which is you favorite iOS gaming technology?
Here’s how I currently choose a game framework for iOS:
* Want to make a 3D game (or a 2D game w/ 3D aspects?) -> Use Unity
* Want to make a cross-platform game? -> Use Unity or Cocos2D-X
* Want an easy way to make a 2D iOS specific game and leverage other Objective-C iOS APIs? -> Use Sprite Kit
- Last July, like other years before, you were in Apple Developers Conference (WWDC), what´s the best part of getting there (learning, networking, etc.)?
The best part for me was meeting up with other developers – since the videos can come out, you can watch those whether or not you attend WWDC.
However, IMHO WWDC is not worth the money for indie developers. See this post why: http://www.raywenderlich.com/15581/wwdc-an-indie-developers-perspective
- Give us a little sneek peak about your future projects. Congratulations for iOS by Tutorials, they´re awesome. We assume that you´re working on iOS 7 by Tutorials? What can you share with us about it?
You are correct – we have been hard at work on iOS 7 by Tutorials since WWDC! This year we have some big surprises and improvements in store for the book. I’ll give you a hint – it’s something involved with the new design in iOS 7 :]
Also, we have another secret book project underway in addition to iOS 7 by Tutorials. I’ll give you a hint about that as well – it has something to do with our love for games! :]
- Ray, we are finished. Our best wishes for you and your team with raywenderlich.com and we hope to see more and more from you. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much Lou and Miguel, and to all Spanish readers of raywenderlich.com! :]
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Ray Wenderlich
Blog: http://www.raywenderlich.com
Twitter: @rwenderlich
His latest app: http://www.wildfables.com
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