Issue 405

24^th May 2019

Written by Dave Verwer

Comment

Thanks for all of the wonderful support everyone gave the launch of iOS Dev Jobs last week. It was so lovely to see such a positive reaction from both the developer community, and the companies that are hiring. There are now 42 jobs listed there, up from 28 last week. What a great start to a new project. Thank you.

I didn’t mention it last week, but that launch also marked a personal milestone for me. Just over a year ago, I mentioned that I was going out on my own as an independent developer again. I had a pretty solid plan of what I was going to do, but almost immediately a very interesting freelance contract presented itself and I wanted to take it. That contract then got extended, but eventually came to an end about two weeks ago. As of right now, I’m not taking any other long term contract work and I’m happy to say I’m independent again. iOS Dev Jobs was the first of a few new projects I have planned. 🎉

What I’m looking forward to most though is getting back to making my own iOS apps again. I’ve nothing to announce yet on that front, but I can promise I won’t be as quiet in this coming year about what I’m working on as I have been in the past year! 📣

Dave Verwer

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News

A really interesting question we probably won’t have an answer to for years to come is whether UIKit is the ‘Carbon’ or the ‘Cocoa’ of this transition. I think the only appropriate answer is ‘yes’. UIKit is the present, and the developer ecosystem it will bring with it is incredibly important. AppKit is also the present, and it provides and powers the Mac as we know it.

Yes.

Your options for hosting server side Swift with Vapor just got a little more flexible. Up until now, you were either completely on your own, or you were using the fully managed Vapor Cloud service. Vapor Red is easy Vapor hosting, but on your own cloud account, with much more flexibility around how everything runs. More serious options for server side Swift hosting are always good.

Code

I hadn’t come across Gwendal Roué’s SQLite wrapper for Swift until I saw the announcement of v4 this week. It allows any Swift struct (or class) to be mapped to a database record. It’s also well maintained, well documented and… how on earth did I miss it until now? 😀

Custom view controller transitions can make all the difference to how your app feels, but every time I think about implementing one I remember the pain of this API. 🤪 So, if you’re looking for the definitive guide on how to work with them, this four part (1, 2, 3, 4) series of posts from Bryan Clark is what you need.

Also, the app that these transitions are taken from, Locket is absolutely wonderful. I’ve been a customer for a while, and it’s an app that has never failed to make me smile when I open it. That’s pretty special.

Patrick Montalto (two issues in a row!) on the new Collection diffing API in Swift 5.1. This solves a very common requirement problem when building iOS apps, especially since we shouldn’t really ever be calling reloadData anymore.

While still functional, peppering UIActivityIndicator views all over your app can make it look a little old and jaded. Placeholder content shading is the new hotness, and placeholder content that shimmers is 🔥🔥🔥! Want it in a single line of code? Jogendra Kumar has what you need.

Design

Are you looking to advance your knowledge of animation in software? This free book from Ryan McLeod, maker of the wonderful BlackBox game looks great. I’m planning to give this a read from cover to cover this weekend.

Note: If you download it, just be careful of this dark pattern with the opt-in box as you enter your email address. It’s so disappointing to see this kind of trick being used. Just let me make a decision on whether I want to subscribe to your newsletter.

Business and Marketing

This three part article from Ben Sandofsky and Sebastiaan de With is (predictably) very worth your time. First up Ben talks about whether Spectre was going to be a feature in Halide or a standalone app. Sebastiaan then gives us a view on the design process and Ben finishes it up with a look at the technical challenges.

Up to Speed

Do you still need to use @autoreleasepool with Swift? As with all non-trivial questions is, the answer is… It depends! 🚀 Bruno Rocha has written up a good overview of what you need to know.

Jobs

iOS Trainee Program @ The App Academy – Ready for the next step in your career? Become a highly skilled iOS developer in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Apply for the iOS Trainee Program at The App Academy. Limited spots available, so act now! – Amsterdam, NL

Accessibility Software Engineer - Hearing @ Apple, Inc. – Are you interested in making the world a better place? Do you want to help influence and create some of Apple’s most important products? Our team, iOS Accessibility Software Engineering, is looking for a talented engineer who can contribute directly to our hearing focused accessibility products, including Made for iPhone Hearing Aids, Live Listen, Real-time Text Support and more. – Cupertino, CA

Senior iOS Engineer @ Citizen – Citizen is a global safety network used by more than 10% of New York. In the past few months, we’ve rolled out to SF, LA, Baltimore, and Philadelphia and despite being in only 5 cities we are consistently a top-10 News app. We’re people from Instagram, Tesla, Google, and the NYPD who came together to build tech to help people. Curious about helping scale Citizen to millions of users? Let’s chat. – New York, NY

iOS Engineer @ Chegg – “Chegg is one of the best teachers I’ve ever had” These are not our words, but the words of Victoria, one of our students. We’re reimagining the learning experience in 2020 and we’re looking for an iOS engineer to join a new team to build Chegg’s next learning platform. You’ll also be part of our iOS guild of a dozen engineers passionate about being better iOS devs. – Rehovot, Israel

iOS Developer @ Transit – Bright, light-hearted coworkers. The cutest rooftop in Montreal. We’re a team of app-wielding urbanists creating the vaccine to eradicate car ownership: Transit. We bring better real-time data (and smarter trip plans) to hundreds of cities, spanning public transport, bikeshare, scooters, and other shared modes. We keep millions of cars off the road — and lure more people to sustainable options. – Montreal, Canada

Senior iOS Engineer @ Octi Inc. – We are the next great platform for AR. We have all of our own patented custom tech and have been backed by the best product investors in the world. – Los Angeles, CA

iOS Chapter Lead @ Babylon Health – We’re looking for iOS Chapter Lead to join one of the most disruptive and socially conscious AI start-ups around. – London, UK

Senior Software Engineer (iOS) @ Capital One – At Capital One, the iOS platform is recognized as an opportunity to reach our customers in unique, personal and engaging ways. Nothing is off limits as we explore exciting ways to take advantage of the full ecosystem of iOS devices including Apple’s Watch, TV and whatever future developments Apple creates. – Mclean and Richmond, VA

Lead Software Engineer, Senior Manager (iOS) @ Capital One – As a Team Lead, you will drive design, implementation, testing, and devops in an Agile environment, using modern methodologies, and open source tools. You’ll be empowered to choose the way you work (Mac or PC, iPhone or Android). You will bring solid experience in designing and delivering software applications, and lead teams that are at the forefront of disrupting the financial services segment. – Mclean, VA

Looking for a job? There’s many more job listings over at iOS Dev Jobs. Do you want your job listing posted here? Just post a featured listing and your job will be right here next Friday.

And finally...

Seems like a pretty good metric to me too 🍾