Issue 395

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Let's get this week started by celebrating a small anniversary. It's been one year since the iOS Dev Directory went live! 🎉

When I launched the site I hoped it would become a comprehensive directory of sites publishing regular content on iOS development. Selfishly, I also hoped it would be the easiest way for me to expand the people who I listen to on a regular basis. 😀

So, has it been a success so far?

I'd say it definitely has! On day one the directory contained 184 entries and throughout the year I've continued to add more. There have also been over 190 community contributions and the directory now contains 461 sites! That's amazing.

But… I'm quite sure there are plenty of sites that are still missing so let's all give it a bit of a bump on its birthday shall we? Go and check the page for your blog, your colleague's blogs and your friend's blogs. If any of them are missing, you know what to do. Then, would you mind sharing it? I think it's probably got most of the blogs run by people who are aware of this newsletter, but what about all the people who have never seen iOS Dev Weekly? The only way it's going to reach them is if you all share it to your followers. Thanks!

I wonder how many sites it'll track next March? 🤞

News

WWDC 19 - Write code. Blow minds.

The dates were leaked a few weeks back, but now it's official. There's no other surprises yet: It's a lottery process, scholarships are open and of course it's still in San Jose. You have until the 20th to apply for a ticket. Go.

See you there, hopefully!

The Sad State of Logging Bugs for Apple

I'm sure you've seen this article from Corbin Dunn already, it has been widely linked this week. We've been complaining for years that Radar is a broken system for external developers, and this article confirms our fears on how these bugs slip through the cracks internally.

It's frustrating to read, and I've seen a few people announcing that they won't (or already don't) file radars because of how broken the system is. That's their choice of course, but I'm choosing to still file bugs where I can. Even a system as broken as this is still a system and it's the only official way we have of talking to the Apple development teams.

Tools

Life in the slow lane

This is a great reminder from Maxwell Anselm that just because a tool is popular, you shouldn't feel like you have to use it. It's true for tools like fastlane, and it's true for 3rd party libraries too. Every dependency you add to your project needs to be considered before being added, and maybe re-considered at some future point too. 🚀

Unused localized strings clean up from a Strings file

I hadn't come across Josh Smith's AbandonedStrings tool before, but it looks useful after reading this post by Antoine van der Lee. Localised strings can easily be forgotten as you continue development of an app.

Code

Building DoublePong, my WWDC18 Scholarship Submission

Perfect timing for this post from Julian Schiavo where he details the process of building his scholarship entry from last year. Are you planning to apply for a scholarship this year? It's time to get building.

iOS Subscription Offers

Jacob Eiting with more detail on the SKProductDiscount feature coming in iOS 12.2. It's actually a little more complicated than you might think.

There are way easier ways to steal content from mobile apps.

Maybe unnecessarily so?

Grouping elements for better accessibility on iOS

Sid Raval with a great piece on the difference between supporting Voice Over and really caring about the user experience with it. As with anything accessibility focused, it's also not as hard as you might think to make it better.

macOS Development

Automate notarizing macOS apps

I missed this article from Berk Çebi when it was first published but it's worth a read if you have a macOS app and haven't yet automated your notarisation process.

Design

A Recipe for Building Grocery 2.0

Conrad Stoll with a great story of the journey through the redesign of his Grocery app. There's no specific focus to this post but I stuck it here in the Design section as that was the part of the post I found most interesting. 🦄

Videos

Conferences.digital

What's this? Well, it's a beautiful, native app containing conference videos from some of the best iOS conferences around from Timon Blask. That's what. 👍 With this and SwiftTube you're really spoiled for technical viewing choice these days!

And finally...

Eight nights at the Marriott during WWDC

This seemed appropriate this week... 😂

Issue 395 March 15th 2019