Archive for February 26, 2010

Friday, February 26, 2010

On Switching Away From Core Data

Brent Simmons:

But, still, in the end, the new version of the system was less code than the Core Data version. That will not be the case for most apps. I took it as further indication that this was the right move for this particular app.

I’ve run into these issues as well. I don’t think they’re that uncommon, unfortunately. One thing that Simmons didn’t mention is that all of these examples could be handled well in a future version of Core Data. That is, they’re not fundamentally incompatible with its design. (In fact, I think his #4 was addressed in Mac OS X 10.5, and 10.6 added some more database-type features.) Of course, this doesn’t help him now, but if you can possibly live with Core Data you probably shouldn’t bet against it. It will get better with time.

Update: Jonathan Rentzsch explains how this worked with Enterprise Objects Framework and how it might work with a future Core Data.

Instapaper Pro 2

Marco Arment:

I learned that I much preferred pagination to scrolling—even tilt scrolling—and that pagination is part of what makes the Kindle reading experience so great. So I spent a long time experimenting with different methods to bring pagination to the iPhone, and I finally found a solution that, while simplistic, allows any mix of pagination and scrolling in the dynamic Web content that Instapaper is ideal for reading. I now prefer pagination to tilt scrolling. You can toggle between them with the Pagination switch in the Settings screen.

Also, an in-app browser replaces the graphical mode.