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Author: Geoff Perlman

Big Transitions, Little Effort: One App’s Update to 64-bit

Published July 18, 2017 by Geoff Perlman

Our goal has always been to let you focus your energy on what makes your app unique. One of the ways we do that is by handling the nitty-gritty details of the various platforms Xojo supports. For example, you don’t have to worry about the differences in how files are accessed on Windows, Linux, macOS or iOS. We take care of that for you.

Saying all this is one thing, however, and delivering it is quite another. We’ve been through some significant technological hurdles over the years. Over the past 12 months we’ve had two big transitions. The first was support for HiDPI (called Retina on macOS and iOS) which made it possible for apps created with Xojo to support high definition screens. For Xojo users, adding HiDPI support was mostly a matter of recompiling their app. If they had pictures or icons, higher resolution versions needed to be supplied but aside from that, it was effortless.

The second big feature we’ve been working on is support for 64-bit. Integers are the issue here and are almost certainly the most common data type used in apps built with Xojo. If you have used the generic Integer type, in theory, building a 64-bit version of your app should be a simple matter of recompiling. That’s the theory. What’s the reality?

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A Cure For iOS App Obesity

A Cure For iOS App Obesity

Published June 23, 2017 by Geoff Perlman

John Gruber of Daringfireball.net recently wrote about the problem of so many iOS apps being over 100MB in size, which means they cannot be updated over a cellular connection. It really stinks to be forced to wait until you can get on WiFi just to update an app. And it can be especially bad if you really depend on the app.

Yesterday he mentioned that a big part of the problem is that apps written in Swift (and some other tools) end up bundling in a lot of standard libraries and developers don’t take the time to consider the ways in which they can trim their overweight apps down to size before shipping updates.

But you don’t have to be knowledgable about the many techniques you will need to trim your iOS apps. There is simpler solution to this problem: write your iOS apps in Xojo.

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Daring to Defy Software Extinction: A Limited History of Development Tools

Published June 21, 2017 by Geoff Perlman

In 1998 Steve Jobs was the interim CEO of Apple and trying to keep his unprofitable company from sinking into bankruptcy. Just the previous year, when asked what he would do if he were in charge of Apple, Dell CEO Michael Dell said, “I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.”

The Mac had single digit marketshare. Creating a development tool, independently of Apple or any company that makes a platform such a tool would support, was considered a fool’s errand. There were plenty of tools available from large companies. Apple made MPW (the Macintosh Programmer’s Workshop). Symantec created THINK C. Metrowerks developed CodeWarrior.  IBM’s VisualAge. Macromedia Flash. If you needed to create a cross-platform desktop app, you’d be told to look no further than SUN Microsystems Java: THE cross-platform language. We were all promised that Java was going to run on everything from our computers to our cars to our can openers. Java was the safe and popular choice. Developers made up only about 5% of computer users anyway. Honestly, who would be crazy enough to launch a new development tool in a  market crowded by giants?

We were.

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Thoughts On WWDC 2017

Published June 5, 2017 by Geoff Perlman

This morning Tim Cook offered Apple’s keynote for WWDC 2017, where he focused on the new technology that is coming from Apple for developers, though there was not much on the API specifics. Over the last few years we’ve expanded our support for macOS by adding new platform features and we will continue to add new features to Xojo iOS. We’ll be looking at Apple’s product direction for new ways to advance Xojo and expand your ability to build cross-platform apps quickly and simply with Xojo.

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The Ultimate Password Solution

Published May 4, 2017 by Geoff Perlman

World Password Day brings attention to some simple steps everyone can take to secure their digital life: 1. Create Strong Passwords, 2. Use a different password for each account, and 3. Get a password manager, no, not a post-it note in your desk drawer!

The best password is one that is diffcult to guess. But difficult to guess takes on a new meaning when hackers use computers to do the guessing. Hence, the best password becomes one that would take a computer so long to guess that it’s not practical to do so. That means a long series of random characters and the longer and more random, the better, and a different password for every site you use.

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There’s No Excuse For Storing Passwords

There’s No Excuse For Storing Passwords

Published May 4, 2017 by Geoff Perlman

A few years ago it was reported that Russian hackers had stolen 1.2 billion usernames and passwords from a variety of websites. This was only possible because those websites were storing the actual password. Because it’s World Password Day and because this is web security 101, let’s discuss why there’s really no excuse for a website to store your password – ever.

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Xojo Community Growth in 2016

Published January 5, 2017 by Geoff Perlman

As you may already know, 2016 was Xojo’s 20 Anniversary. Sitting down to write this post, I can’t help but think back to 20 years ago and starting what has now become Xojo. Most of the developer tools that were around when we started either no longer exist or are no longer published by the people who had the original vision to create them in the first place. In that respect, we are members of a very exclusive club. I’m also pleasantly surprised at how many users from way back then are actively using Xojo today. I take great pride in the fact that we have created something that has that kind of staying power.

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