Issue 307

30^th June 2017

Written by Dave Verwer

Comment

Only a few weeks have gone by since WWDC, and already we’re seeing lots of exciting iOS 11 projects and demos being released out into the wild. Although I haven’t had the chance to play around with the latest APIs, I’m definitely looking forward to checking them out this weekend. On that note, if you’ve been waiting for searchable WWDC videos, transcripts are now available. 🙌🏼

Also for those who don’t know, the iPhone just turned 10 years old this week! 🎉 🍰 Although I wasn’t an official iPhone owner until the debut of the 3GS, I can’t help but think about how much the world has changed since. There are companies worth billions of dollars who could not have been possible without it. With that said, I’m looking forward to seeing how Apple continues to innovate in the years to come! 🍻

<p>Vicc Alexander</p>

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News

Apple opened up the iOS 11 public beta to everyone earlier this week. Although much of the public will probably wait until the fall to upgrade to the latest OS, Apple is recommending that developers start updating their app’s product page for the all-new app store as soon as possible. Here’s a nice summary of the new metadata fields and how to make the most out of them.

When Apple first announced HomeKit back in 2014, I was disappointed by all the hurdles I’d have to jump through just to tinker with it. Well, with the upcoming release of iOS 11 things are finally changing for the better. If you have a few Arduinos or Raspberry Pi’s lying around, you’ll soon be able to build your own HomeKit-powered devices without needing certification. 🎉

There is a catch, but it’s a reasonable one. Without official certification, developers won’t be able to sell these devices. According to Apple, they’re only meant for development or personal use. In any case, I’m sure we’ll see some really useful, creative, and even wacky ideas in the near future. 😜

Only a few weeks after the announcement and developers have already begun cooking up some interesting projects with ARKit. Worth checking out either if you’d like to showcase your own ARKit projects or are simply looking for inspiration.

Tools

Ah fastlane, what would we do without it? 🎉 Precheck is a wonderful App Store metadata checker that’ll make sure you don’t fall foul of some of the the most common reasons for a first rejection. Looks great! ✅

Code

Plenty of people are very excited about CoreML, and so they should be! But I did like this article from Alex Sosnovshchenko on some of the limitations of the framework when compared to the very broad term of “Machine Learning”. As usual, what Apple have done is taken an aspect of the technology that has a real use and made it accessible to iOS developers. This is what they do best, and I’m glad they did it here too!

Matthijs with an easy-to-follow guide on implementing real-time object detection on iOS. I highly recommend checking this out if you’re still not sure when to use Core ML or the MPS graph API. This article does a nice job covering both, plus you can find all the source code at the end. Definitely bookmarking this!

Of all the objects you could leak in your app, a view controller is probably the worst as they can often be pretty big! 🚚 Arek Holko breaks down an incredibly simple-to-use extension that makes discovering leaky view controllers a breeze. The best part is that you can catch these nasty little buggers during development way before they reach the hands of your beloved users. Excited to give this a try! 😎

If you’d like to play with the latest iOS 11 APIs, but don’t feel like reading the docs or rolling out your own mini project, this is for you. This repo provides a nice collection of code examples for new APIs including image classification, object tracking, core NFC, and more.

Design

Although expensive industry-leading software such as Photoshop or Sketch seems to be the only way to go about designing/prototyping an app, Maddy Osman shows us a few free and easy ways to do it without breaking the bank. Cha Ching!

Erica Sadun with an in-depth critique on the new control center and why it’s unappealing and full of sensory overload. Although some of her points are valid, I’m excited about the ability to access all the controls on one page with fewer taps. However, I’ll let you be the judge.

Business and Marketing

One of my favorite updates in iOS 11 is the redesigned App Store. In addition to new metadata fields, Apple is also allowing developers to upload multiple app preview videos (3 max) to their product page to better showcase their app’s best features. This article does a nice job explaining how to take advantage of this change. 📽️

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