We've released a new version of our very popular Bus Pal application for Metro Tasmania timetables. The app has all the timetables and route information for all the buses in Hobart, Launceston, and Burnie. 

This update updates the data to the latest from Metro Tasmania, adds lines to the map showing the bus routes, and includes a Watch App for the Apple Watch.

The Apple Watch App shows the time to the next bus and the route number at the bus stops you've favourited within Bus Pal. In the future we'll be adding a glance for even quicker access (we're trying to figure out the best UI for that at the moment).

You can download Bus Pal on the App Store.

Bus Pal is not endorsed by Metro Tasmania, and neither Secret Lab or Metro Tasmania warrant the completeness or accurateness of the data included. 

Our latest book is available now: the iOS Swift Game Development Cookbook has all the recipes you need to make amazing iOS games. All you need is some Swift (and a little Objective-C) knowledge. Grab it now! (also on Amazon!)

On 8 April 2015, Apple released Xcode 6.3, updating the Swift language to Swift 1.2. We spent some time working through our recent book, Swift Development with Cocoa, to make sure we knew how the changes impacted the example code, and to provide updated code as needed.

We're pleased to say that the required changes are minor! We've pushed a full set of updated example code to the GitHub repository, available here. We've also made a changelog, listing the differences between the code examples in the book, and the current best-practice with Xcode 6.3:

• NSApplicationMain(C_ARGC, C_ARGV) has been replaced with NSApplicationMain(Process.argc, Process.unsafeArgv)

• Several methods that were implementations of protocols had the optionality of their parameters changed. For example, the applicationDidFinishLaunching parameter originally had a parameter of type NSApplication!, which has now changed to NSApplication.

• Several properties changed from being optional to non-optional, or vice-versa.

• Swift now has a "forced cast" operator, as!, which is used when down-casting from a class. We've update the code to use as! when appropriate (such as when downcasting from NSObject to CLLocation)

• Changed NSCalendarUnit.DayCalendarUnit (which was deprecated) to NSCalendarUnit.CalendarUnitDay

• Changed "countElements" to its new replacement, "count".

You can also find the changelog in the GitHub repository. The changes are all very minor, thanks Apple! If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact us! Thanks for buying our book, we love hearing from readers.

Swift Development with Cocoa, new from Secret Lab.

Swift Development with Cocoa

The new year started off with the official launch of our latest book (co-authored with Tim Nugent): Swift Development with Cocoa.

It covers everything an existing programmer needs to know to build OS X and iOS apps with Apple's new programming language, Swift. You can buy it at O'Reilly, Amazon, as well as many other reputable book sellers.

Ultimate Swift Programming 

We also released, through O'Reilly and again working with Tim Nugent, a 12-hour video tutorial on Swift and Cocoa programming for OS X and iOS: Ultimate Swift Programming: Language, Frameworks, Tools. It's an excellent learning resource on its own, but it also serves as a great accompaniment for the book. It's available at O'Reilly.

Webcasts

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Video production command centre, during webcasts.

On top of making pre-recorded videos (Hobart has been a hive of video production and post-production!), we also did two live webcasts for O'Reilly: one on Five Swift Essentials, and one on Building a game in under an hour with Unity. These were recorded and broadcast on Tuesday, 11 February 2015/Wednesday, 12 February 2015 (depending on your timezone), and by all accounts were a great success. Both webcasts were recorded, and the videos are available in their original format via the links above. We'll also post the code and notes right here when it's ready (in a day or two).

New Books

We're working on five more books at the moment (yes, we're possibly insane), and we'll be announcing them very soon. Stay tuned for news! 

New Games

There are three games we're currently working on: Button Squid, Rocket Box, and Gnome's Well That Ends Well. Our local newspaper featured us recently as well, talking to us about our games.

Button Squid, our squid-themed puzzle game is in development, and you can follow it on the Button Squid Tumblr and on Twitter @ButtonSquid. There's also a teaser site at buttonsquid.com. 

Rocket Box, a working title, is our economic space empire building game, and you can follow it on the Rocket Box Tumblr, and on Twitter @RocketBoxGame.

And finally, Gnome's Well That Ends Well, a puzzle game featuring gnome dismemberment, which you can follow on Twitter @GnomesWell, and the Secret Lab Tumblr.

These webcasts have both happened already! We'll be posting the content here within 24-48 hours! Thanks for watching!

We're doing two webcasts with O'Reilly Media in the coming week. They're both free and the content we cover is a lot of fun. They are:

• Five Swift Essentials – covering five core components in your programming arsenal when building software for iOS or OS X with Swift, Apple's new language.
• Build a Game in Less Than an Hour with Unity – covering everything you need to build a simple asteroid shooting game with Unity, the amazingly powerful game engine.

Both webcasts are free, and you can register for them via the links above. We'd love to see you there! 

Our new book is finally out, in early release unedited ebook form! Today Swift Development with Cocoa was released by O'Reilly Media.

We're really proud of this book (which we wrote with our friend and frequent collaborator Tim Nugent), and now's a great time to grab it – O'Reilly is running a 50% off promotion on all the great new iOS 8-related books until 5AM PDT on 25 September 24!

The code samples for Swift Development with Cocoa are available on GitHub too, if you'd like to play with some Swift.

While you're at it, check out our friend Tony Gray's new book, Swift Pocket Reference – Secret Lab wouldn't exist without his encouragement and support, and he's written a damn fine pocket reference for Swift!

Stay tuned for more books, as well as the final release of these Swift books. Let us know if you have any comments on the early release editions!