So…what’s up with the tutorials?
It’s been a while since I released Tutorial 14 and I’ve had some very nice as well as some not so nice requests to keep them coming and to know when tutorial 15 will be released. For this reason I wanted to post about where I am with tutorials and my current plans for the future.
First of all, tutorial 15 is not large and adds texture support to the 3D project in Tutorial 14. This has been almost complete for weeks now so I’m aiming to get this finished and out by 30th July.
The tutorials on 71Squared have been extremely popular and I’ve been surprised by how many people have found them useful. That said, the current tutorials are getting old now as the Apple SDK and hardware marches forward. Keeping all these tutorials up to date is just impossible given the time I have available which frustrates me as well as others I’m sure.
While the original tutorials approach is still valid overall the SDK has moved on making them harder to follow. Given the release of iOS 5 later this year and the large changes this will bring with regard to GLKit etc my current plans are to create all new tutorials that use this new technology rather than carry on with the old. Many of the devices now being used support OpenGL ES 2.0 and Apple are keen for developers to start using this new tech, hence all the great stuff they are including in iOS 5 to help developers move from ES 1.1 to ES 2.0.
To me it makes more sense for me to apply any future efforts on tutorials into this new tech rather than continue using old code that I have. My current plans are therefore to start working on tutorials for iOS 5 that I’ll start to make available once iOS 5 has been released. I think this will be much more beneficial to developers rather than continuing putting out code that is not the latest. I know going forward that these tutorials will also go out of date, but given the number of people still watching the original tutorials they will have a decent life span.
I’m hoping that the gap between now and iOS 5 will allow me to get a number of tutorials done so I can launch them quickly after iOS 5 is out, but as always this will be best efforts. Tom who co-develops the 71Squared tools with me (Particle and Glyph Designer) is going to work on the tutorials with me helping out with the development and video production. I’ve also been approached by other readers who are willing to provide tutorials on various subjects on the blog as well, so I’m hoping this will help put some life back into the tutorials which I do realise have been lacking for over a year now.
John, Tom and I really do appreciate the support that our readers have given over the last three years and we are committed to continue providing information through the blog for other developers to learn from. With the extra help we are also investigating the creation of some Pro tutorials. These would be a series of related tutorials over a more complex set of use cases. I would expect these Pro tutorials to have some kind of fee associated with them based on the extra work involved in creating them, but there will continue to be the free tutorials as well giving our readers a choice. This Pro concept is not fully backed yet but I wanted to share as much as I can about what our thoughts are going forward.
While I’ve not been able to provide dates and times for the next tutorials in detail, I hope this information helps keep you up to date on what we are planning with 71Squared moving forward.
Mike
14 Comments
mike on July 20th, 2011
Thanks for the great feedback. I’m really pleased it’s helped you in that way and I hope that the tutorials going forward and working with new APIs such as GLKit etc will teach in the same way :o)
Mike
KenF on July 20th, 2011
Nice one Mike..
Any chance of providing direct download of the video tutorials for offline consumption.
It would be good to go with the book.
I would agree with RoberRM, in addition I would say they added depth to the book even if they are a little different (code wise), it helps you see the reason why things have changed.
John on July 20th, 2011
On the subject of downloadable videos, I will look into how we could go about getting them on iTunes as a podcast.
Will keep you posted.
Anonymous on July 20th, 2011
The tutorials have been instrumental in helping me understand developing for iOS and Objective-c. I honestly doubt I would have been able to ship my app without the tutorials. Thank you for all the great help!
RoberRM on July 20th, 2011
@John: if it is not too much trouble and if you manage to get the videos into iTunes, I would also be very interested in knowing how you did it (I am an electrical engineering teacher and would like my students to have some videos I’m preparing).
The impression I had on a previous search I did is that you have to store the videos wherever you like on your server, because iTunes only keeps an XML file pointing to them… But I didn’t go into too much detail at the time, so maybe I’m wrong.
tarunkhurana1982 on July 21st, 2011
Hi Mike,
Please come up with the ES 2.0 tutorial. I am eagerly waiting for that.
Dan on July 21st, 2011
I’ve said this in another post, but, No pressure Mike! Seeing some of the comments, no one has the right to make demands of you guys. I’m just grateful for what you’ve already given.
Thanks 71 Squared!
Guille on July 22nd, 2011
Take your time man, while it’s true that I stopped visiting 71squared for a few months because of the lack of news, is absolutly understandable.
The quality of your tutos is over the average, I encourage you to move on to iOS 5. There are a lot of engines with cheap/free prices now. People can still do games with them, but here, you get more value. You learn why things are done in a specific way and get a better understanding of what our incredible handhelds do while we kick&punch in our fave games. This will allow us to provide performant solutions and better products to our future buyers if you have any, or a great and successful learning experience otherwise.
Needless to say, please hurry up!!! I need my 71squared dose already :D
mike on July 22nd, 2011
I appreciate all the positive comments guys. It really encourages us to push forward with the tutorials and to keep the quality up as well.
Watch this space :o)
Mike
kai on July 22nd, 2011
Hi Mike,
Thanks for all the hard work. Your tutorials as well as your accompanying book have been a real help. I was just wondering are you still considering making some tutorials on creating Mac apps?
Kai
mike on July 22nd, 2011
Hi Kai, yes, Mac Apps are still very much on the cards. We need to work on some ideas for those tutorials but with the extra hands on deck we are hoping to include tutorials in that area as well.
Mike
nexus6 on July 24th, 2011
Hi Mike
I agree 100% about moving on with the tutorials and stuff. You guys are awesome! the book, tutorials, code and utilities you’ve created have been extremely invaluable to me and others.
I can understand trying to keep up old code can be very very time consuming and IOS 5 and the new stuff apple is producing is incredible and it would be a waste not to take advantage of what they are now offering.
Keep up the great tutorials, I will definitely keep supporting your efforts ( buying products / donating when I can ).
Thanks Again.. Nexus6
chicago on July 30th, 2011
Hi Mike!
I’ve been away coding up my first app (release date is 30 Jul, 2011), which is a few hours from now.
I must say that I have just been catching up on all the news and excitement in your life and this wonderful forum. My next app is going to be a game so I have to come up to speed on OpenGL ES, so I will be looking forward to your tutorial’s which are always great.
Your book has been my constant companion since I purchased it several months ago. Life is good.
Phillip
RoberRM on July 20th, 2011
Thank you, Mike and Tom, for continuing to help us in our struggle to learn to create something of worth for iOS. ;)
Your tutorials were really helpful to me, because not only did you explain how to do things, but also WHY you did them in a certain way and not in another (which is the really helpful part to programmers: we don’t want to copy your work, we want to understand it and learn from it, so we can adapt it to our projects), and, at the moment, only your video-tutorials let us do that.
Thank you!