James Montemagno: Live, Love, Bike, and Code

December 2nd, 2022

Automate Posting to Mastodon via Web Requests

One of my favorite applications that I use for automation is If This Then That [https://ifttt.com/join?referral_code=zDOzZRwhLMAQuF36U5nEfTwxbLPyRAdA] aka IFTTT. I have been using it forever and it allows you to automate a plethora of things when something happens. For example, maybe you want ot create a spreadsheet of every favorited tweet you have, or maybe save them to a list somewhere, or maybe automatically turn on your lights at sunset. All of this is possible with IFTTT and is crazy easy…

James Montemagno

Enabling Users to Manage Subscriptions on iOS/Android

You know I love talking about in app purchases and subscriptions. Due to my InAppBilling [https://github.com/jamesmontemagno/InAppBillingPlugin] library I get all the "fun" updates when Apple or Google force developers to make changes to stay compliant. Upcoming is a nice large change from Google to push Android developers to use Billing v4 (which my library does!) and another is that we must now give users a way to easily manage and cancel their subscriptions. You may have recently seen this m…

James Montemagno

App Configuration Settings in .NET MAUI (appsettings.json)

.NET MAUI is right around the corner and Preview 13 is out right now! There are so many great features packed into .NET MAUI and my favorite has to be all of the great Dependency Injection and configuration that goes into the MauiProgram startup. If you want to know more checkout my most recent YouTube video breaking down Preview 13 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Dkk-74x-V8] and all of the configuration that is built in including Essentials, Blazor, and more. But, what if you want to do oth…

James Montemagno

Implementing In-App Subscriptions in iOS & Android with no backend servers

Over the years I have created several apps [https://montemagno.com/my-apps/] that I am super proud of, and for the most part, I have always put them out for free onto the app stores. More recently I have been experimenting with different monetization strategies for the apps so users can unlock features or just leave a tip. For the longest time I kept things simple with a "non-consumable" one-time purchase. The strategy is straight forward, they either purchased the item or they didn't. Based on…

James Montemagno

Goodbye Android Emulators, the Windows Subsystem for Android is Here!

Android Emulators have been a pain in everyone's side for pretty much ever [https://docs.microsoft.com/xamarin/android/get-started/installation/android-emulator/?WT.mc_id=friends-0000-jamont] . Intel HAXM is great, but limited to Intel, then there were custom emulators like Xamarin Android Player and Genymotion, but required additional installs, and finally Hyper-V support, which brought with it AMD support, and side by side Docker support as well. But now, Windows 11 is here and so is a brand n…

James Montemagno

Staged Rollouts & Phased Release on Google Play and App Store Connect

As an app developer it is hard enough to create your app, test your app, prep the app store listings, and then get your app approved. The last thing you want to think about is how fast or slow to roll out your app and updates to users. For the past 10 years all I have ever done was just release the app to everyone all at once, and for a long time this all that was available to us. However, now there are options for developers from both Google and Apple that can manage your release. Unfortunately…

James Montemagno

Yosuda spin bike review, a $230 Peloton & Apple Fitness+ DIY bike

Last year I ventured into building my own workout area at the house, and it all started with a $400 investment to put together a DIY spin bike [https://montemagno.com/building-an-at-home-diy-spin-bike-for-peloton-apple-fitness/]. It has been 9 months and over 150 rides of my Sunny SF-B1002 Bike [https://amzn.to/37gQMcB] and moofit cadence sensor [https://amzn.to/349DpZM]. They continue to go strong and I love them. Looking back, I did a lot of research up front about what bike to get, how heavy…

James Montemagno

Long-running Operations on macOS and iOS with NSProcessInfo

One issue that sometimes comes up in app development is keeping your app alive and running during long running processes. In my case with My Stream Timer [https://www.mystreamtimer.com], when the user starts a timer, it needs to keep running no matter what. My first solution was to simply turn on Screen Saver mode. var appDelegate = ((AppDelegate)NSApplication.SharedApplication.Delegate); appDelegate.MainWindow.Level = NSWindowLevel.ScreenSaver; This solution "works" but has the side effect…

James Montemagno

Tags

Automate Posting to Mastodon via Web Requests

Enabling Users to Manage Subscriptions on iOS/Android

App Configuration Settings in .NET MAUI (appsettings.json)

Implementing In-App Subscriptions in iOS & Android with no backend servers

Goodbye Android Emulators, the Windows Subsystem for Android is Here!

Staged Rollouts & Phased Release on Google Play and App Store Connect

Yosuda spin bike review, a $230 Peloton & Apple Fitness+ DIY bike

Long-running Operations on macOS and iOS with NSProcessInfo

James Montemagno

Tags