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> I need the pro version of Unity3d to generate iOS, Android or VR games for the Oculus Rift

Not true anymore. You can generate iOS and Android versions of your game with the free version of Unity3d (although with a reduced featureset in comparison to the pro version).


I think he was referring to the Oculus Rift part. Pro has one feature (is it deferred rendering?) which is requisite for OR development.


There is a open source iBeacon library for Android:

https://github.com/RadiusNetworks/android-ibeacon-service

Decoding the iBeacon packets is quite easy, but you need a device that supports BLE. Currently there are only a handful of Android devices that support it.


I recently (Feb 2014) had the opportunity to evaluate different iBeacon hardware for a project.

http://roximity.com

* "ok" price

* horrible customer communication

* in reality to want to sell you their services and not the iBeacons.

* not configurable (proximity id, major, minor)

* really long shipping time to europe (4 weeks)

https://www.sticknfind.com

* "ok" price

* nice form factor (small)

* not really iBeacon compatible. They say you can flash their beacons to make them compatible, but i haven't found out how since their support is not responding.

* not configurable (proximity id, major, minor)

http://kontakt.io

* good price

* great support

* major, minor configurable. proximity id not

* form factor kinda bulky

* they seem to be able to deliver huge amount of beacons

http://www.easibeacon.com

* great price

* great support

* nice form factor (same as stickNFind)

* fully configurable (proximity id, major, minor)

* the company is relatively young

Can't say anything about the battery life yet, but the batteries were replaceable in each case.



Read our blog post on iBeacon battery life http://www.marconilabs.com/ibeacon-battery-life-does-size-ma...

Best, Pieter


Awesome summary! Thanks!


Thanks for the "Advanced C++" tip. "Eloquent Ruby" did the same for me when i was looking into ruby.

"Effective Java" is a similar book for Java.


If you want an amazing book on Design Patterns for ruby, http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Object-Oriented-Design-Ruby-...


I have used RubyMine when i was developing apps with Rubymotion. It was a little bit rough around the edges back then (oct 2013) but the code completion was already quite useful.

It looks like they even support debugging from within the ide now.


May I ask where you are located?

Around here (Central Europe, Austria) it's the other way around. It's a little bit harder to find good Android jobs than iOS jobs.

Maybe because Java has always been one of the more popular languages here and the amount of Android devs is just higher than the number of iOS devs.


It's the same here in SE Asia. I suspect that's because most people don't have the money to buy a Mac for iOS development but already have a PC of some kind and often a cheaper Android phone. Also, most university graduates here already know Java so they can start writing apps without having to first learn an exotic new language.


In Germany it's a PITA to find good Android developers... Good iOS developers on every corner but even average Android developers are hard to find. We also overall experienced a much slower development workflow with Android.


Interesting, since at our teams we haven't found significantly slower dev times on Android in comparison to iOS. Usually Android devs lose time on compatibility issues, while iOS devs take more time with UI/UX design.

But I agree, finding a good Android developer here in central europe is rather hard. Also finding a good Android job is rather hard - payment offers are usually atrociously bad.


It's true that C# is not as prevalent on non-Microsoft platforms as it is on Windows but there are a handful of mid-size to big multiplatform projects using C#.

e.g.

- Xamarin (multiplatform mobile apps)

- Unity3d (multiplatform games)

- Monogame (multiplatform games)

- Unreal Engine 4 (build system)

I guess Swift could fill the same gaps. I would especially love to be able to develop multiplatform mobile apps with swift since switching between ObjC and Java all the time is quite taxing.


Not to speak for the OP, but two features bear resemblance to functional programming languages:

1) Function Types ( = higher order functions)

This allows functions to be passed around as function parameters or return values.

2) Immutable variables via let

let a = 1 // a is always bound to the constant 1

a = 2 // error


[deleted]


“The value of a constant doesn’t need to be known at compile time, but you must assign it a value exactly once.”

Excerpt From: Inc, Apple. “The Swift Programming Language.” Apple Inc.

Check out this book on the iBooks Store: https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewBook?...


Thanks for clearing that up. I misread the example in the Swift Programming Language reference.


I couldn't find any built in list/map/set comprehension. Did they leave it out or did I just miss it?


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