Issue 424

4^th October 2019

Written by Dave Verwer

Comment

Have you ever contributed to an open source project? There’s no shame if you haven’t, but October is always a good month to get started as it’s home to Hacktoberfest! I was reminded that this was happening a few days ago by Maxim Tsvetkov with this post on what it is and how to participate.

My advice? Look through the dependencies in your projects and pick one that you like. Visit its repository and look at the open issues. Are there any tagged as good first issues? Maybe they’ve even tagged a couple with hacktoberfest? Then dive in and see if you can help! You’ll feel great about yourself for the whole month…

Or, if you’re just in it for the free t-shirts, that’s a valid reason too! 😂

Dave Verwer

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News

It’s so good to see Swift Playgrounds for iPad continuing to get improvements, and this week saw the release of a major new version. SwiftUI and Combine support might not be perfect just yet, but it’s still a great step forward. Paul Hudson spills the beans on the latest release.

Tools

I linked to the Jesse Squires’ post on the new simctl command last week and I’m linking to his follow up post this week. Why? Well this week’s post brings automation in the form of this Nine41 script.

What I really want is for every simulator to start up every time with a perfect status bar. Can I link to a blog post that makes that possible next week please Jesse? 🤞

I’d love it if these URLs were officially supported, and if this list were part of the official Apple documentation, but until that happens we have this amazing guide to Settings.app URLs from Federico Viticci. Even though he wrote it with Siri Shortcuts in mind, it’s the kind of thing you might find useful too!

Code

You know that feeling you get when you’re watching a WWDC video and think “Maybe I should just build my whole app with this, starting today, on Beta 1, and never look back?” That’s what Slaven Radic and friends did this summer with PenBook, and here’s their story.

One topic that has been talked about consistently since WWDC is how Core Data (or any data persistence framework) will be updated for a SwiftUI and Combine world. The earliest we’ll hear about anything official on this will be next year’s conference, but do we have to wait that long? Let’s see what Drew McCormack has in store for us with his new LLVS project.

When exploring a new technology, like Combine, it’s easy to focus on the happy path and not worry about what happens when things go wrong. Unfortunately, we can’t just ignore errors so let’s let Vadim Bulavin show us how he deals with errors in Combine, shall we? 😇

Combine fits with SwiftUI very naturally, it’s almost like they were designed to work together! 😂 What if you’re using Combine with UIKit though? How might it work together with the delegation pattern that’s so prevalent there? Simon Ljungberg has some ideas.

HEIC compression is one of those technologies that it’s easy to forget all about, but if you’re storing a lot of image data locally that only ever needs displaying on Apple devices it can have huge benefits. Ryan Ackermann shows us how it’s done.

Design

What’s better than an icon set? An animated icon set! That’s what’s better. This isn’t directly targeted at iOS developers, but because it exports in JSON that is compatible with Lottie, they can all be used just fine in your iOS projects.

Jeff Nadeau with the advice that sometimes, all you need is NSAttributedString. Or, if you think about it another way…

Business and Marketing

This article from Brian Donohue is solid gold advice if you’re just starting out in the industry. Also, if you find yourself in a position where you might be involved in the hiring process, you should also read it. Actually, if you’re reading this in any context, set the next 4 minutes aside and go read it. 🚀

Jobs

Mobile Application QA Engineer @ Bleachr – Bleachr, a maker of sports mobile applications that empower the fan, provides a stellar work environment, talented teammates, and an opportunity to make a significant contribution to this mature start-up. Be the architect of our automated test environment. – Minneapolis, MN

iOS Software Engineer @ Doximity – Doximity, the social network for doctors and healthcare workers, is hiring passionate iOS engineers (remote ok) with 5+ years of experience. You’ll get to be part of an amazing product team and work on an app that is used by over 70% of US doctors to help them deliver better patient care. Use your skills (swift, obj-c, FRP) to improve lives and make the world a better place. Apply today! – Remote in the US or Canada

Engineering Manager @ onXmaps – Lead the mobile development team at onX - a Montana based company with the leading off-the-pavement GPS mobile app! As an Engineering Manager, you will manage a team of 10+ fun-loving devs who take pride in empowering our customers to find their way in the wild. Our Engineering team is growing quickly and onX is taking our technology into new outdoor markets… Come join the journey! – Missoula or Bozeman, MT

iOS Developer @ Shape – If you’re passionate about making state-of-the-art iOS apps, why not work together with some of the best developers and designers who share this passion? Our office is in Copenhagen - one of the most liveable cities in the world. We offer relocation support and help you get a VISA. We also like to host social events, morning runs, Friday bars, board game nights, LEGO days and much more. – Copenhagen, Denmark

Whether you’re looking for a new challenge, or looking to find the next person to strengthen your team. iOS Dev Jobs is where you need to be.

And finally...

Great advice… 😂