One of the nice features in iOS 7 for old fogeys such as myself is that the user can use the general Settings to increase and decrease the fonts used in apps. This is called "Dynamic Type." Judging by developer forums, I'm not the only one who thought that this …

Did I mention how easy it is to track an iBeacon using Xamarin?

[code lang="csharp"]
locationManager = new CLLocationManager();
var beaconId = new NSUuid("E437C1AF-36CE-4BBC-BBE2-6CE802977C46");
var beaconRegion = new CLBeaconRegion(beaconId, "My Beacon");
locationManager.RegionEntered += (s, e) => {
if(e.Region.Identifier == "My Beacon")
{
Console.WriteLine("Found My Beacon");
//Fire up ranging
locationManager …

Since Xamarin provides full native capabilities, developers don't need to wait for us to exploit iOS 7's awesome new APIs, such as:

• iBeacon: This, to my mind, is the stealth API of the release. An iBeacon is a Bluetooth device (just iOS devices for now, but Apple says they'll release …

It's trivially simple to show 3D maps in iOS 7:

[code lang="csharp"]
var target = new CLLocationCoordinate2D(37.7952, -122.4028);
var viewPoint = new CLLocationCoordinate2D(37.8009, -122.4100);
//Enable 3D buildings
mapView.ShowsBuildings = true;
mapView.PitchEnabled = true;

var camera = MKMapCamera.CameraLookingAtCenterCoordinate(target, viewPoint, 500);
mapView.Camera = camera;
[/code]

One of the difference that jumps out dramatically to a programmer -- especially those of us who typically build our UIs in code rather than using a visual design surface -- is the new "full-screen content" concept.

This is particularly evident with UINavigationControllers. This picture shows the difference between the default …

Due to popular demand...

Here is source code for a preliminary Xamarin.iOS binding for Google's ChromeCast

and

Here is C# source code for a simple iOS app that casts a video URL

In order for this to work, you'll need:

• Xamarin.iOS
• Google ChromeCast SDK
• A whitelisted ChromeCast

This …

As I blogged about last weekend, I got a ChromeCast and had a simple-enough time creating an iOS-binding library for Xamarin.iOS, allowing me to program the ChromeCast in C# (or F#, maybe next weekend…).

This weekend, I wrote a simple Home Media Server that allows me to stream… well …

Code to follow...

ChromeCast Notes

I guess I got under the wire with the Netflix deal, so the net cost of the thing was \\(11. Even at \\)35, it's a no-brainer for a developer to pick up and see if they can target.

Experience

Very good OOBE: plug it in to HDMI port …

Scala has several nice language features, including the elegant use of val for immutable variables and var for mutable, but the feature that I miss the most on a day-to-day basis is "traits."

Traits allow you to implement one or more methods of an interface. The canonical use is to …