RWDevCon 2016 Schedule Now Available!

As you probably know, the team and I are running an iOS conference next March focused on hands-on, high quality tutorials: RWDevCon.

Recently we put out a poll to all attendees, and had everyone vote on their favorite topics – we chose the top-voted topics, and built a schedule around that.

Today, we are happy to announce the schedule! The conference is split into 3 tracks of tutorials – beginner, intermediate, and advanced – and you can switch freely between the tracks at any time.

The conference also includes inspiration talks; short 18-minute non-technical talks with the goal of giving you a new idea, some battle-won advice, and leaving you excited and energized.

Let’s take a quick peek at what’s in store this March!

Beginner Tutorials

Swift is Apple’s new programming language. Released in 2014 and open sourced in 2015, it is the new hotness that everyone in the iOS and Mac programming world is talking about.

In this session, you’ll take a tour of the language right from the basics. At the end you’ll be comfortable reading and writing Swift, and will be ready for the rest of the conference!

Time to start developing for iOS!

In this session, you’ll build an app from scratch and learn to assemble your user interface with Storyboards and Auto Layout, display large datasets with Collection Views, and fetch images and JSON data from a server. These core skills will help no matter what path your iOS development takes!

Over the past few years you’ve probably come to love Auto Layout; it makes device agnostic layouts a breeze. But you probably find yourself making the same patterns of constraints over and over again.

Well, the layout gods have heard your cries for help, and in iOS 9 furnished you with UIStackView. In this session you’ll build your first stack view and learn the true power of easily constructing realistic layouts without Auto Layout constraints.

Want to increase your app’s exposure and enhance the user’s experience at the same time? Then check out iOS 9’s new App Search APIs.

App Search gives you the tools needed to index app content and make it searchable in Spotlight. Also, the look and functionality of Spotlight search results can be customized to better fit the content of the app.

Have your users ever complained that your app is too slow or crashes all the time? Have you spent hours trying to track down a bug?

In this session, you will learn how to use Xcode Instruments to perform analysis and diagnostics to pinpoint exactly where in your code the problem occurs. By incorporating Instruments into your development cycle, you will become a better developer.

The Apple Watch – ‘nuf said! Learn how to adapt an iOS app with Watch-appropriate layout and UI controls, to create a Watch app you’ll be proud to show off.

Warning: both versions of the sample app have been proven by user testing to be highly addictive. ;]

Apple TV is finally here! Now all it needs are some apps. Don’t miss out on an opportunity to learn how to create a traditional (native) tvOS app.

The sharks are hungry, and this session will help get your hook in the water.

You’ve learned how to make tvOS apps using traditional techniques you’re familiar with, but the Apple has provided a second way to make tvOS apps as well: TVML apps.

In this session, you’ll learn what this is and how it works as you make a basic TVML app – and although JavaScript isn’t what the typical iOS developer might sign up for, you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the benefits it can offer.

Intermediate Tutorials

Tired of reinventing the wheel? In this session, you’ll learn about iOS design patterns: reusable solutions to commonly occurring problems.

You’ll also learn new and impressive terms — “loose coupling,” “composition over creation,” “polymorphic design” and more sure to impress your friends and loved ones.

Are you just getting started with Swift and need some style tips? Or are you learning Swift, but find yourself writing Swift code with an Objective-C accent?

In this session, you’ll see contrasts between the old Objective-C ways and the new Swifty ways, and you’ll pick up some tips on how to make your types take full advantage of all that Swift has to offer.

Ever wonder how the controls provided by UIKit are engineered? Well wonder no more, as this session will walk you through everything you need to know.

You’ll learn how to create a unique custom control by compositing existing views and layers, before making it Interface Builder friendly so you can customize the control at design time and have it appear exactly as it would at run time.

Having created a great looking control in part 1, you’ll be wondering how you can make it fully interactive, embracing the unique opportunity that touch-based devices offer.

You’ll start out by creating a custom gesture recognizer, before stepping back to a more technical level and discovering how to use iOS frameworks to make a reusable, distributable package that you can share with all your friends!

Add some personality to your apps by moving beyond the iOS standards and adding a pinch of surprise and delight to your apps.

In this session, you’ll learn the principles behind custom refresh controls and transitions, and how to make your app stand out from the crowd.

Ever wanted to take your app to the next dimension? The latest iPhones now have support for capacitive touch, which can tell how hard you are pressing on the screen.

New to iOS 9, the 3D Touch APIs let you add home screen shortcuts, peek and pop, and even your own custom gestures! This tutorial will teach you all about these new APIs and show you just how easy they are to add to your apps.

In Xcode 7, Apple introduced the ability to UI test your application without any third-party dependencies using XCUI tests.

Learn how to take advantage of the UI test recording feature, how to use accessibility features to verify your application works for your users as expected, and how to pass information into your test target even though it’s running in a totally separate process.

Have you ever spent time traversing Xcode’s interface searching for that one file or feature you want? This session will introduce you to several Xcode tips including hotkeys, behaviors, code snippets, and more!

Watch as Xcode does exactly what you want it to at the touch of a button, or even better — without touching anything at all.